"Steps to running a successful medical clinic"

This week was busy busy. Another NGO asked our group to help them get
their medical practice going, since our NGO has a lot of experience in
running our 3 weekly clinics. They had an American team in town to
help, so we spent Tuesday & Thursday is two rural villages outside of
town running clinics.
The first step to running a successful free clinic is to cram all 22
of your ex-pat workers, translators, and national workers into the
back of a mini-bus with no shocks and no open-able windows. Throw a
few kids in on people's laps, and don't forget the guy who sits on the
floor in between the rows of seats to take people's money-- even
though you've privately hired the van for the day.
Step 2: Drive the sardine-packed bus at very high speeds over very
bumpy and rutted dirt roads, and only slow down when the sheep and
donkeys won't move out of the way. Drive fast enough that a bird can't
get out of the way either, and flies straight into the windshield.
Step 3: Arrive in the mud-and-stick-hut village, set up camp in the
government built but now abandoned clinic building, and make sure to
put the pharmacy in direct sunlight where all the medicine will bake
and boil in the heat. It's good for potency, you know ;)
Step 4: Proceed to see 120 patients in a little over 3 hours. Care for
their physical needs, but also speak to them, look them in the eye,
touch them, and love them. Treat them like human beings, and watch
them be healed more than any medicine will do.
Step 5: Pile back in the mini bus, bump our way home, this time with
children sprawled sleeping on laps, and go to bed really, really
early.
Step 6: Rinse, lather, repeat 2 days later... or rather, attempt to
repeat but this time be foiled by heavy rains washing out the ravines,
making them impassable to a mini-bus loaded down with 22 people, and
lacking 4 wheel drive. Remind selves that flexibility is a must on
this continent.