Back from Dubai/Uganda dental mission
 

Hello!
Thanks to all who advised me about Emirates and the carry on luggage. I am the one who was concerned about the size and weight of my carry on because all our dental supplies were packed into our check-in baggage so we had to put all our personal items our carry ons.
When we went to board Emirates at JFK, there were two guys in the gangway that picked a few people out and made them check their carry ons because they were too heavy looking or too big. Nobody weighed them to see if they were over the 15lb limit for economy. I kind of slid past as the two guys in front of me were making a fuss about checking their luggage and distracting the luggage police guy.

On a side note... the dental clinics went very well. The two dentists I worked with saw about 600 people in 4.5 days of working. I assisted one of the dentists and did some cleanings ( I'm a hygienist). Next year I will have my own area to work in to do more cleanings. We actually wish that we could have seen more people... but we had to deal with 'Ugandan time' when dealing with drivers (showing up late) and getting set up to start the clinics for the day.
The people were just wonderful! The kids were just soooo cute! They had no idea what to do with all these Mzungu ( literally: white traveler) running around in gloves and masks. 99% were very brave and just sat there during the injections and extractions. Only about .5%-1% of American kids are that brave.

A wonderful piece of news: Our medical clinic did HIV testing on 630 people and only 23 came back as positive. This is an extremely low number of positives for an African nation. The HIV education in Uganda has surely paid off!

Anyway, thanks again for all the help!
TracyLynn

Emirates Skywards program is the best too.......

good work and good news about the HIV rate!

What a wonderful trip. Perhaps you could have some anecdotal stories to relay?

Sounds like a wonderful, purposeful trip, and that is fantastic news about the HIV rates. Thanks for letting us know!

Glad your trip went so well and no hassles with luggage-would love to hear more.

Sounds like a good program and an interesting trip. Maybe you can take a longer excursion when you go next year. Thanks for checking back in!

Glad it worked, and thanks Tracylynn for what you did, it 'does' make a real difference!
I hope what you and the others did can help inspire others!

So how were the flights on Emirates? Many on this board and also on the Asia board would be very interested in comfort, food, flight attendants/service, transit in Dubai etc etc.

PS:- You know it is worth when doing such trips to contact the airline Sales Manager in your home country, send them details of the project, see if they can do something on fares/excess. Many of these airlines are 'pro active' and they could be forthcoming with support, it's business to them but it helps organizations such as yourselves, they get some publicity out of it, your work gets noted more, it's a win-win for everyone, it certainly is worth asking them what they can do for you to support such trips, even carrying all the supplies free or whatever.