July, 1980 Journal of Albert J. Repicci
While having lunch with a buddy on the shore of Greenwich Harbor that July afternoon, I let slip my intention to someday go on a foreign mission or dental project. As soon as the words escaped my lips I knew I was drawn into a contract with myself. For now, having voiced the plan, I was compelled to act upon it or be regarded as another one of the minions who share the fantasy… having it become nothing more than that…a fantasy.
I had determined that during my fortieth year, which was approaching that September 1980, I would fulfill this personal obligation. Most of the projects I looked into, however, required a much longer commitment than I was prepared to undertake. I eventually heard of an organization, American Dentists For Foreign Service, which, as I found out, basically shipped equipment to Third World countries. They suggested that I send a letter to the Minister of Health in one of the Carribbean countries which in fact I did. I received a favorable response from the country of Antigua in the West Indies and proceeded to make arrangement to serve in February, 1981. ”
Since I had already booked a cruise for January 1981 which included a stop in Antigua, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for me to get a sense of the people and working arrangements and so advised the Minister’s office of my advance visit.
To my extreme disappointment, when I finally arrived in Antigua, there was not only no official who was aware of my project, there was not even a dental clinic of any sort in the hospital. The project was dead. Devastated over what now appeared to be a lost cause, I returned to my ship, sharing my complaint with my cab driver all the way back to the pier. The sympathetic cabbie told me of a Baptist minister who had a dental chair in the back of his church and he thought it worth trying to contact him.
Disheartened, I dismissed the notion of contacting the Baptist minister and reboarded my cruise ship which was to set sail imminently. With one last burst of hope, I ran down the gang-plank, with little or no expectation of actually making contact with this minister, I button-holed a street vendor for assistance with a phone call to the Central Baptist Church. “Pastor Mills”, was the greeting with the characteristic Carribbean lilt to his voice and I knew I had my man. I explained my dilemma and the failed arrangements with the government and without hesitation he said, “Com’ on bok mon, we need you badly”. So…I com’ on bok.
Smothered with supplies to deal with every treatment possibility I could envision, I loaded into the transportation service vehicle that grey, frigid, February morning with a sensation of nausea creeping up on me from anxiety and lack of sleep. Upon landing in Antigua a hand held sign, with my name spelled phonetically, waved frantically in the crowd directing me to my host, the kindly Pastor Mills. We broke away from the bedlam in that promordial cracker box terminal making our way past rows of simple island huts on our way to what would become a 10 year commitment to my new clinic. (1)
Members of the congregation acted as my assistants, registration clerks, cooks and provided transportation. All the things one needs to operate. Pastor Mills took the trouble to introduce me to Dr. James Carlisle, a charitable hearted Antiguan dentist who welcomed my arrival since the needs of these people far exceeded his strength to treat them all. I was also introduced to Father Bates, one of the Catholic missionaries, which led to a friendship with the missionary nuns and ultimately a close relationship with Bishop Donald Reece.
The Central Baptist Church sat high on a hill overlooking the town of St. John’s. From my little clinic office I had a breathtaking view of the harbor and seascape across the azure Carribbean all the way to the island of St. Kitts.
For the most part we did bloodpressure screenings and dental exams, however, being a prisoner of my own training, I deferred from doing as many extractions as I probably should have being aware that in my own culture there were so many treatment alternatives. I did not make that same mistake on future projects. For these folks, there would be no need for alternative treatment. Pain relief was what they wanted… and what they needed.
Screening of patients ultimately took place in the pasture where I would walk through the line and mearly ask who was in pain. Those in pain were selected to stay for extraction while those that were pain free were comforted to know that their concerns were addressed. For them I promised to be back next year, and fullfilled that promise for the next decade until alternative care programs were put in place.
Not having practiced oral surgury in 10 years, I was a bit apprehensive about my surgical technique but surprised even myself at how quickly I eased into my work. Day after day, patients walked for miles arriving early in the morning and sometimes waiting until nearly sunset to be seen.
For me, the primativeness of this country held a sense of romance. Their folklore and superstitions were facinating, especially the myths surrounding the “Jumbies”, those spirits returned from the dead to haunt or favor the living. To many they were more than myth.
Upon my departure that first year, Pastor Mills presented me with a hand carved wood cutting in appreciation of my efforts, and so with a warm glow and a feeling of kinship with my new friends in Antigua, I boarded my aircraft for the flight home.
In analyzing the fruits of my weeks work I had to admit to some disappointment in that I had done so few extraction in that inaugural year. As it happened, however, the fellow that sat beside me on the flight home was a physician who had done similar projects to mine in other islands and pointed out that an American presence under circumstances of care-giving went a lot further then the care itself. During this period, Cuba, was trying poison American relationships in the Carribbean. Dental projects like mine, he said would argue against the notion of a heartless, uncaring, colonialist United Stated of America. None the less, I resolved to restructure my priorities the next year and provide a better treatment service.
In the years that followed, I happened by chance, to engage in conversation with gentleman at an outdoor restaurant in Antigua that was hosting a novelty event… a crab race. Each of the crabs having different colored shells, were place in the center of a circle with wages being placed on the color crab we bettors thought would crawl out of the circle first. When this stranger asked if I was on holiday in Antigua, I shared the fact that I was doing some volunteer dentistry. With great interest on this subject, he claimed to have had a long desire, albeit no resources, to bring a similar service to the center of St. John’s with the clinic to be placed in an available convent. When I asked who he was, he introduce himself as the Catholic priest, who I then recognized from Sunday Mass. We chatted a bit further, collected our meager winnings from the red crabs final kick across the finish line and parted company.
Upon my return to the U.S. I remained intrigued by the prospect of opening a new clinic in the center of St, John’s which would, perhaps, be more accessible then the Baptist clinic on the outskirts of town. Checking in with the director of the American Dentists For Foreign Service, I inquired about the availability of a dental operatory. As fate would have it, there was one operatory available which I purchased and arranged for shipment to Antigua.
Eight months later I received a static filled phone call at my office from a confused man trying to decipher a message which read, “A container awaits you at the dock in St. John’s. Call the enclosed number before pick up.” When I confessed to being the correct party, he asked who I was. I replied, “I’m the guy who bet on the red crab”, and went on to remind him of our conversation the previous winter and of his desire to open a new dental clinic, which now awaited him at the pier in Antigua. I would be catching a plane to Antigua in a week or so to transport the container to the convent and install the equipment.
Over the years I divided my time between the two clinics but began to expand the project, in large part due to the inspiration and guidence I received from the nuns at the new clinic. I tagged along with them on their rounds of house calls to the blind, disabled and the lonely. They also introduced me toThe Feines Institute, home for the abandoned. In the quite of the topical night seated under the guava tree, with the chirping of the qui qui frog in the sultry darkness, I would listen for hours to stories being told by these quiet simple ladies whose lives and commitment to their mission was a humbling experience pushing me to consider expanding my own involvement.
The coming years saw an evolution of events as family and colleagues in medicine, dentistry and nursing came to Antiqua and our little clinic to volunteer. A collection of second hand hospital beds, walkers, and wheelchairs were provided for the Feines Insititute. Nightly visits were made to the shelter and a dental flouride program was introduced for 10,000 children reaching every youngster on the island between the ages of 6 and 12. Working through the bishiops office, a scholarship was eventually given to a student to study in the United States, and a new day-care center for the elderley was purchased by the dioceses where our medical and dental clinics were eventually housed.
In the early 1990’s the clinic projects were turned over to local vulunteers as I began to direct my energies to other projects. Although the building which housed the day care center and the (3) clinics eventually fell under the weight of a devastating hurricane, the flouride which continued thoughout the 90’s became the subject of an indepth study by researchers from Partners in America, and was lauded as a prototype for public health control of dental disease. One of my first acquaintences in Antigua, Dr Jim Carlisle, eventually became the governor of the island nation and was subsequently knighted by Queen Elizabeth as the first dentist to be so recognized.
As Antigua attracted my attention in the 1980’s, the next decade would see more of a global agenda. Assignments with MMI (Medical Ministries International), would bring me to projects on both the north and south coast of the Dominican Republic; Manzini, Swaziland and the plains of Mozambique in sothern Africa; Kathmandu in Nepal and the mountain village of Jharlang in the Himalayas; Otavalo and mountain regions in the Ecuadorean Andees; the rugged back country of Honduras; the Mayan villages in Mexico’s Yucatan Pennisula; the jungle clinic along the Mekong River in Cambodia; and the farming villages of south- central Vietnam. On the horizan for the year 2000 lie two upcoming projects, one return trip to Honduras and the other a river project on the Peruvian stretch of the Amazon.
Somewhere… someday…I guess all this will end. But for as long as the music keeps playing… I guess I’ll just keep dancin’.