Dr. Abe Chaukla exemplified kindness in action earlier this month when he travelled to Central America to perform needed dental work on poor sugarcane farmers.

Chaukla, a dentist at the Davidson Dental practice on Washington Avenue, volunteered to join the charitable organization Kindness in Action dental brigade for their March 1 to 9 mission to Esteli, Nicaragua, to work in a sweaty, suction-less and bloody triage dental clinic. He said the experience was so rewarding that he plans to make it an annual humanitarian expedition.

“It’s my first exposure to a dental charitable mission and I was quite moved by it,” said Chaukla, noting he joined the Alberta-based dental charity after learning about it from a former colleague with the Canadian Forces. “I felt like it kind of put my own job in perspective and also it was a good experience to see your work in different countries and the difference you make in their lives.”

While wearing his Saskatchewan Roughriders grubs, Chaukla endured hot and humid weather along with limited dental equipment to perform the emergency work. He said the time spent in the makeshift Esteli dental clinic was difficult and the work was heavy, but the team of Canadian dentists, dental hygienists, nurses and helpers got the job done.

“All the things we use here are taken for granted, but I still was able to pull almost 200 teeth in three days and do a tonne of fillings,” he said. “We were limited in equipment there too. Basically everything was triage. People lined up for…it went around the block. Everything we did was on a visual exam, so if we looked in somebody’s mouth and something really needed to be extracted we did that. If there were fillings to be done, we did that.”

Chaukla said Kindness in Action had his working vacation ready as soon as he touched down in Nicaragua’s tropical capital city of Managua after flying out of the bitter cold of a March 1 day on the Canadian Prairies. He said the volunteer-based dental charity had already completed work on the ground in Esteli to set up bus drivers, tour guides, translators and a supply team for the dental brigade to get right to the business of relieving pain for the greatest number of people possible.

To read more please see the March 31 print edition of The Davidson Leader.