Over the past 8 days I have been working with a group of doctors from the United States who were here for a medical mission trip this has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have had thus far in Madagascar. Not only have I been able to assist these doctors i have learnt so much about taking care of patients and tropical medicine. I am now very good at recognizing Malaria symptoms and ear infections.

The doctors were here doing general care for pretty much anyone who showed up at the door. They were not able to treat and or solve everyone's problems but they did their best and even for the people that we had to tell them we couldn't do anything they seemed to be pretty happy that we had at least listened to their problems and given them some vitamins.

We all saw things we had never seen before; leprosy, Tuberculosis, strange tropical infections or possibly a normal infection that simply had gone untreated for a very very long time. I personally saw a man with some type of infection or rash on his leg that he had had for five years and never seen a doctor for. I was working with Dr. Jack at the time and he had absolutely no idea what it was so he just had to give them man a large amount of everything - antibiotics, anti-fungals, anti-itch creams, anti-inflamatories and hope that one of them helped. With the advice that if none of these helped he should go to the hospital and get a skin biopsy. Hopefully one of the medications that we gave him will help because I highly doubt this man will ever be able to afford to go to the doctor again.

We also saw two woman whose uteruses were falling out of their bodies, this is apparently caused by having to many children and being malnourished. This was something that not even the OBGYN had seen before. Obviously not something the doctors could fix in the dinning hall of a church compound so they arranged for the woman to get surgery at the hospital in Tamatave and paid for it.

While I translated for the doctors I was able to talk to the women and men who came in about general nutrition and farming practices. We talked about how to grow vegetables to increase the nutritional value of their daily meals and how to make compost so their veggies would grow better. I also got to give my speech about growing Moringa Trees and eating there leaves. The Moringa is an amazing tree - very possibly the tree that will save the world.

Also known as the Miracle tree the Moringa is native to the Indian Sub-continent, there are a number of sub species of the Moringa but the one that is the most wide spread and found through out Madagascar is the Moringa Oleferia. The Morniga grows in tropical climates, in areas that most other trees don't like. It is called the Miracle tree because it truly has the ability to solve many of the worlds Malnutrition problems. The Moringa leaf is packed full of calcium, protein, and vitamin A to only name a few. The Moringa leaf also has anti -intestinal worm properties and can cleanse drinking water. The Moringa leaf also makes amazing animal feed and compost/mulch. Now if we could only convince the Malagasy people that it is a good thing to eat the Moringa leaf and to do so on a regular basis we might just be able to solve some of the malnutrition problems seen so often here in Madagascar.

So that bit about the Moringa Tree was a bit of a tangent, but it was a fantastic week of work with these doctors who have been able to help and treat people who have never seen a doctor before. In many ways they have given me just as much as they gave to the people of Madagascar. I look forward to helping plan their next trip to Madagascar and hopefully brining them to Anivorano.

If you are interested By The Holy Spirit's website is : www.bytheholyspirit.org