Last week, a team of five volunteers from Aspen Dental provided free oral care in Haiti. Here’s a post from Dr. Ekta Sagar about her experience:

Creole and French are the official languages in Haiti. While many Haitians speak at least some French, about 80% primarily use Creole to communicate. Luckily, one of our volunteer dentists, Dr. Vincent, speaks French. That helped significantly, but we still engaged translators to help the rest of the group communicate with the residents.

Locals who speak a small amount of English are able to help us interpret information and communicate with Haitians who visited the clinic. From dental care education to oral examinations, we are able to properly communicate dental tips and provide information on best practice.

As Body Language is known to be a universal language, the message of joy and happiness we hoped to convey through our work and through the conversations we carried each day has been attainable. The show of appreciation we have received during our time here has been tremendous and despite these barriers, we have been thrilled with our efforts to provide the best dental care possible to this truly amazing community.

© 2012, Amanda H.. All rights reserved.