Staff
It might seem hard to imagine caring for more than 300 dental patients without the luxuries of running water, electricity, and an actual dental office, but a group of local dentists and their helpers were up for the challenge.
A team of 15, which included four dentists, two from Sweet Home, spent 10 days in the highlands of Guatemala earlier this month.
This was Dr. Nathan Tolman’s 10th trip to Guatemala but the first one that he and his wife Satina organized.
“We are still under the umbrella of the Hirsche Smiles Foundation,” Satina Tolman said. “But this was the first year Nathan and I completely organized and led our own group.”
Nathan Tolman, who has a dental practice in Lebanon, was joined by fellow dentists Ivan Wolthuis, of Sweet Home, Dan Oehler, of Nevada, and Allan Stevenson, of Idaho.
Rebecca Wolthuis, Rick and Laura Parrish, and Liz Olsen, Olsen’s daughter Sara Dunkley, 17, Nicholas Tolman, 17, and Sean Wolthuis, 16, rounded out the team.
In the time he has been going, Nathan Tolman has learned a few things to help things go more smoothly.
“You learn things every year,” Tolman said. “This year we had a really good team. It helps to have someone give anesthetic so (patients) get numbed up beforehand. More people can be seen faster.”
Even in the three days that they saw patients, each day they saw a few more.
“We got more efficient every day,” Satina Tolman said.
They set up their mobile dental office in cinder block buildings.
“Throughout the day we would teach them dental hygiene with a flipchart – how to brush your teeth properly,” she said. “We left a laminated copy of that with every village we went to.”
They were able to teach the concepts in spite of the language barriers.
“I feel like I missed out on, just, you know, getting to know the people, personally speaking with them,” said Laura Parrish. “So that’s the one thing that would have been more helpful to me, but it still was great even without that.”
Her husband, physician’s assistant Rick Parrish, who works at Sweet Home Family Medicine, speaks fluent Spanish and served as a translator. The group’s bus driver, Elmer, helped translate the different dialects they encountered.
Elmer helped out in other ways, as well.
“There was one woman who couldn’t walk,” Satina Tolman said. “A couple of men went down a steep hill to go get her and carry her in a plastic lawn chair. (They carried) her in the chair up this steep hill to be seen and afterward they carried her back down to her house.”
Elmer was one of the men who helped carry the woman, Olsen said.
One of the things Laura Parrish was thankful for on this trip was that they didn’t have to turn anyone away.
“Everybody who came, we helped,” Parrish said.
Their days started at 7:30 a.m. and typically ended at 6:30 p.m. or later. At least one time, their office hours extended to their hotel.
“We did an extraction in the hotel room,” Nathan Tolman said. “Our bus driver’s son.”
On one of the days they were not doing dental work, the group built and installed garden boxes for local families to grow food. This was part of the work through Mayan Eco Homestead, an organization founded by an American couple who have lived in the area since 2011.
“Greg and Lucy’s (Jensen) philosophy is teaching self-reliance,” Satina Tolman said. “And they do this from seed to plate.”
In addition to treating 323 patients, the group gave away hygiene kits, toothbrushes, blankets, hats and toys.
“We had many generous donations this year and many busy hands,” Satina Tolman said.
After 10 years of going to Guatemala, Nathan Tolman has not been to the same village twice.
“I always wonder how people are doing,” he said. “There are just so many villages. You could go for 1,000 years and not go to the same village.”
For more information about the programs, visit hirschesmiles.org and mayanecohomestead.org.