MISSION OF MERCY: DENTIST, WIFE VISIT KENYA AS PART OF MEDICAL MISSION

Ask Dan Cotner about Kenya, and he'll mention mud, ants, lions and rhinos.

And pulling 105 teeth one day in a tiny village northeast of Nairobi, and 85 more when he returned to the village two weeks later.

Dan Cotner, a Cape Girardeau dentist, and his wife, Polly, recently returned from a five-week medical mission to Rotary International's dental clinic in Kilimombogo, Kenya.

The Cotners worked two days a week in the Kilimombogo clinic. The other three working days, they traveled to outlying villages to perform general dentistry.

"They were even more remote than we were," he said. "And we were remote, let me tell you."

Dan Cotner, now 74, started making medical missions in 1968 when he and Polly and their four then-teen-agers drove to Guatemala to work in a dental clinic for a week.

Polly hadn't been on a mission since the Guatemala trip. The Kenya trip was Dan's 17th mission.

"I'm sure happy she decided to come along," he said, adding the Kilimombogo clinic was "lonely."

Kilimombogo is in the highlands northeast of Nairobi, Kenya's capital.

The name means "mountain of the water buffalo," Dan said, adding the water buffalo is the animal Kenyans fear the most.

"They're big and they charge without provocation," he said.

The dental clinic the Cotners were assigned to is attached to a small Catholic hospital that was established by Irish nuns.

The Irish nuns didn't last, but Nigerian nuns of the same order now run the hospital, which Dan Cotner described as "very small, very poor."

Rotary International opened the dental clinic four years ago.

Recently, Kenya has been suffering the effects of El Nino. Heavy rains keep washing out the nation's roads, disrupting transportation and trade.

"We had a flood right in our back yard," he said. "A helicopter came in to try to help, and the helicopter didn't have the right rescue equipment."

Roads in Kenya aren't the best in any circumstances, he said. When it rains, the roads are muddy. When it's dry, he said, they are dust.

"Sometimes you can see where there had been blacktop," he said.

Dan was there to perform general dentistry -- mostly extractions, but a few fillings -- he said.

Dental hygiene wasn't great in Kenya, Dan said. But the nutrition was good.

"I don't know when I've ever had such difficult extractions," he said.

Polly went along to take care of the household. When the Kenyan driver/dental technician was busy elsewhere, she lent a hand and sterilized instruments.

"I did a lot of reading and we did some walking in the area. But we were in a rural area and there weren't many places to walk to," Polly said.

Muddy roads meant they were regularly stuck as they traveled outside Kilimombogo.

Dan kept in touch with his fellow Rotarians in Cape Girardeau through a series of letters.

In a Jan. 14 letter, after they had been in Kenya for a week, he wrote Rotary president Jim Biundo that the mud was overwhelming.

"Tuesday we were able to travel, with much sliding, and the help of eight bystanders to lift our little vehicle out of a muddy ditch and reach a village of Kereita, which is at a high elevation near the Rift Valley," he wrote.

Kereita was the village where Dan pulled 105 teeth in one day.

While they were in Kenya, the rains had washed out the roads between Nairobi, the capital, and Mombasa, which lies on the Indian Ocean, or eastern coast.

In addition to the muddy roads, the Cotners had to contend with ants.

Lots and lots of ants.

"That was a one-time thing," Polly said.

One day she did laundry and hung a towel out to dry. She's not sure how it happened, but when she picked up the towel, "they were very incensed and all over me."

"I've never been stung so badly in my life," Dan said. "They're just little tiny guys. They were the most ferocious animals we saw in all of Kenya."

It took "a couple of days" before the ants cleared off the towel and Polly could bring it back into the house.

They didn't hang any more laundry outside, she said.

On a trip to the Masai Mara, Kenya's famous game park, they saw hyenas, a herd of 19 rhinos and several elephants.

The couple also saw two lions resting in a tree. "They were trying to get away from the mosquitoes," Dan said.

The rains were a double-whammy for Kenyans, he said. The rains aggravated the spread of diseases like malaria, cholera, typhoid and Rift Valley fever, and washed out roads so the authorities couldn't deliver needed medications.

"It's just terrible to realize how many people are dying over there," Dan said.

Local newspapers reported that 450 people had died of Rift Valley fever in a month and a half, and malaria was rampant. One report said 23 people died of the disease in two days in a northeastern province, and 1,500 died of the disease in a two-week period in a town called Wajir.

Dan attended Rotary meetings when he could in Nairobi. A speaker at one meeting reported 25 percent of Kenya's population is HIV-positive.

All good Rotarians know that missing meetings is not a good idea.

He wrote Biundo that he couldn't make many meetings -- most were held while he was working.

"I hope you will credit me with 700 percent attendance," he wrote.

President Jim Biundo and Fellow Rotarians:"Into Africa" I suppose should be the correct title. Polly and I have now been here a week, following three days of travel.It has rained every day and the seriousness of the flooding is certainly affecting the economy of the country. It is not possible to drive from Nairobi to the Indian Ocean coast city of Mombasa. It is not possible to drive to the famous Masai Mara National Animal Park, which I did want to visit on our last week's extension to see more of the country, Two buses have wrecked on road wash-outs, resulting in many deaths.The Kilimombogo Dental Clinic, Rotary International-sponsored, provides services at our rural setting near Thika on Mondays and Fridays and outlying rural clinics the other week days. Tuesday we were able to travel, with much sliding, and the help of 8 bystanders to lift our little vehicle out of a muddy ditch and reach a village of Kereita, which is at a high elevation near the Rift Valley. On this day we stay overnight and travel to another remote site for work the next day. An alternate route was found to depart, but unfortunately muddy ruts and holes prevented us from reaching the next site.Last night it rained very hard and I am very happy that we are scheduled to work here at our home base today. I expect the El Nino phenomenon will require many changes in our travels, which occur on three days of the week. I can only make up on the last two Thursdays while in Nairobi. Most of the clubs meet at noon, when we are working. I hope you will credit me with 700 percent attendance. Dan & Polly Cotner