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CCIT employee spends vacation in Romania by George Spain CCIT Technical Writer The first time she landed on foreign soil it was to vacation in Canada. The second time, she was on a mission to help deliver medical and dental care to villagers in Romania. The second time, she was scared. But Mitchelle Morrison got over it and went back for two more medical mission tours in the former Soviet Bloc country now an economically struggling republic with many remote villages.  The South Carolina Baptist Convention signed a three-year partnership agreement to provide medicine, doctors, and dentists to various congregations in Romania. Through their local church (Charleston Baptist), Mitchelle and husband Michael, a local dentist in private practice, heard of the arrangement and signed on, even though neither had any previous ties to the country. The program gets no government funding. In fact, Mitchelle and Michael had to pay their own way to Romania and scrounge the supplies needed to deliver dental care to the villagers. In past years Charleston Baptist provided all funding, but this year money was tight because of a building fund drive. Mitchelle is the university software engineering manager at the Center for Computing and Information Technology (CCIT). CCIT employees responded to a request from Mitchelle for dental supplies to aid her in her mission. The result was several days’ worth of toothbrushes and toothpaste. Toothpaste ran short and was rationed for the children. After touching down in the capital of Bucharest, the team relocated to a town called Iasi (pronounced yash), a city near Romania’s eastern border with Moldova. During their six-day mission, Mitchelle and Mike visited three different remote villages, saw 154 patients and pulled 94 teeth. Since electricity is uncertain and running water unlikely, dental equipment consisted of a bag of hand tools for extractions, topical and local anesthetics, antibiotics, painkillers, and a flashlight. No hydraulic dental chairs, no adjustable oblong spotlights, no piped in music (though a tape player was available). On the other hand, there was no sound of that drill, either. Mitchelle remembers that the first time she made the journey, she had no idea what she would do. Mike is the dentist; Mitchelle is a database designer, administrator, and manager—not a lot of call for that in the villages. She wound up becoming Mike’s “dental assistant,” which amounted to “holding the flashlight and handing him the tools he pointed to.” She did her best, but this year, Mike’s regular dental assistant went along to lend expertise. Mitchelle moved over to receptionist and pharmacist. She also did a lot of work with the children. The villagers responded well to the offer of treatment, but the first patient got cold feet and bolted when Mike went for the extractor (some things are the same everywhere). Later that day, however, he returned for treatment when he found out “by word of mouth” that the treatment wasn’t that bad. Mitchelle said that the children responded the best with the least fear. Since there’s no chance for follow-up visits, dental care consisted mostly of extractions, education, vitamins, and dispensing toothcare packages. While the villagers took to the care readily, the missions were not without a few rough spots. The Romanian government was cooperative, but local mayors and rival clergy made things difficult at first. In one instance, a local clergyman nearly incited a mob to turn against the missionaries. On their latest trip, however, there were no incidents. (One mayor who had reluctantly accepted their mission later became a patient). At the end of each day, the team went back to the hotel in Iasi for some much-needed rest. It seems, however, that the hotel was the most popular spot for raucous wedding receptions, which ran late into the night. The Morrisons, with the help of their family and church, paid for the trip out of their own pockets. In addition to airfare, expenses included giant grab bags of medical supplies. “Some companies sell large boxes of medical supplies. You never know exactly what you’re going to get, but whatever’s in them is cheaper than buying specific supplies,” Mitchelle said. Mitchelle had a few observations about custom and culture differences. Shoes off before entering a house, hold and hand over a bunch of flowers stems up, not bloom up, tree branches mark potholes, and the big one: keep your hands out of your pockets. When Mike first arrived, he was greeted by people who wanted to help him with his luggage. He didn’t know them and they were beginning to believe he wasn’t what they thought he was. Pacing nervously with his hands in his pockets, he continued to draw suspicious glances from his greeters. It seems that Romanians don’t walk around with their hands in the pockets and they suspect anyone who does is a thief. Lesson learned. The three-year pact has run out and next year the SC Southern Baptist will send a mission to Taiwan. Georgia, however, has a pact with Romania for next year. What will Mitchelle and Mike do?  “Right now, I don’t know. We’ve gotten attached to the Romanians, that's where our heart is,” she said.