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The Roger Schulte “100 Sonrisas” Rotaplast 2022 Mission to Colombia

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This Rotaplast mission is dedicated to the great humanitarian, Roger Schulte who passed away on Monday, July 18 after his courageous battle with ALS ended.  This member of the Rotary Club of Upland, Calif... Read More »

Travel day for some, work for others- Sunday

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This is a dedicated group of volunteers with service hearts.  They jumped through hoops and dealt with troublesome websites getting all the paperwork done for their Visas and immigration but never gave up... Read More »

Day 1- Clinic Day, Decisions to be made

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We began the morning bright and early with breakfast at 5:30am with a quick meeting to follow.  Then we boarded a bus around 6:30am and took a 15-minute ride to Hospital General de Medellin.  After check... Read More »

Day 2- Double duty: clinic & surgeries

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The day started with another early breakfast and on the bus to the hospital at 6:15am.  Upon arrival, everyone got right to work setting up our different areas.  Notice the picture of Roger Schulte proud... Read More »

Day 3- Changing lives

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Early mornings are starting to feel normal now.  When we showed up at the hospital at 6:30am, we already have a line forming outside of parents and children I recognize from clinic days.  They were excit... Read More »

Day 4- Making waiting fun

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Even though we arrived at the hospital at 6:30am, we have one patient here already waiting for his surgery.  After setting up, I accompanied the doctors on their rounds this morning checking on the five p... Read More »

Day 5- Shedding happy tears

We arrived later than normal to the hospital due to COVID testing of our team (at 7:30am).  We were surprised, and a bit guilty, when we entered to a round of applause from the patients scheduled for surg... Read More »

Day 6- Giving people a voice

It amazes me how we have had rain every night we are here but it has cleared up by breakfast.  It seems mother nature is watering all these beautiful plants while we sleep.  Some of us got up extra early Read More »

Day 7- Working day off

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This is Sunday and our only day off during this mission.  However, the surgeons still had rounds to make at the hospital to check on patients that were admitted for the night.  There were four of them. S... Read More »

Day 8- Helping adults too

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When I first learned of Rotaplast, my thoughts were of all the children that needed their services to repair cleft lips and palates.  I knew there were some adults but was not prepared for the number of a... Read More »

Day 9- Brighter Days

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What a refreshing morning this is!  The hard rain we had last night is barely a drizzle making everything clean and fresh.  I didn’t even mind being up for my 5am COVID test, (my family won’t believe... Read More »

Day 10- Sound of silence

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What a different feel this morning has compared to all the others since we have been here.  We only have three surgery patients today.  This means there was no crowd waiting for us when we arrived.  No ... Read More »

Day 11- Farewells

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As we finished with the last patients and were packing up boxes, we were surprised when a luncheon was set up for us.  We were under the impression that this was cancelled due to COVID.  Unfortunately, n... Read More »