Earlier last year, I joined my mother on a two-week long medical mission and encountered first-hand the bleak reality of rural Senegal. Organized by the Africa Cries Out Foundation, the trip was supplied with large bags of different kinds of medications to provide for the local community. This experience was completely different to any other I had had in the past, and I’ve taken away so much from this trip. The values, people, and places I had met and experienced will remain completely invaluable to me, and I genuinely believe I have grown as a person from this trip.

The trip began at midnight at JFK airport, and I was bursting with excitement to meet the other same-aged kids I had seen on the roster. Huge bags the size of myself were being lugged across the airport in stacks. Right when I thought ‘That should be the last one’, another identical bag was pulled over and thrown onto the stack. I watched in utter shock for half an hour as bag after bag was pulled into a pile. By the end, more than 40 bags were stacked in the corner of the airport. Each one weighed more than sixty pounds, filled with medications I could not pronounce, donated shoes, used computers, toothbrushes, and other basic necessities. These will all be used for the mission trip. It took a lot of time hauling, sorting, and lugging to check in all the baggage. Many hours later, we were finally able to board to head to Senegal.

The flight to Senegal didn’t take long, and soon we arrived at Dakar’s airport. The moment I stepped outside of the airport, I was hit with the excruciating reality of the African weather. The unrelenting sun beat down endlessly upon us, but I was captivated by the unfamiliar landscape: what span upon us seemed to be miles of small huts and shrubs of the unfamiliar country. The conservative nature of Senegal required the women be covered from head to toe, and I immediately realized that the heat would be a factor I must become accustomed to.

It was late afternoon when we boarded the bus to head to the base. This trip was ingrained into my memory, as it was my first glimpse of the barren lands of Senegal. Orange lands spread out for miles under the glaring sun, kids ran barefoot out of secluded villages, women walked into poised grace with woven baskets on top of their heads, donkeys and goats roamed the streets carrying carts or free, and shrubs lined the ashy ground for miles and miles. It didn’t take long before we had reached the base – a neat brick house that doubled as a school for chosen Senegalese children, and I had learned it was the best infrastructure in this region. There were the male dorms, female dorms, the central cafeteria, and a large soccer and basketball court for us to explore.

I soon learned that we resided in the best infrastructure that the city would see in miles. However, we were immediately warned not to use the tap water directly for anything other than hand wash, as the water may have contamination and bacteria. The beds were thin and arranged in bunks with four to a room, and the bathrooms lacked any toilet paper. There was little AC other than a small running fan in some rooms. When I was wandering the halls, a group of Senegalese women – around the age of seventeen to eighteen – had pulled me into their brightly decorated room with pink grapes, and floral bedding. They had surrounded me in absolute awe and fascination as they asked in difficulty to form English sentences of my age and my name. I had attempted to respond in my broken French, and it was at that moment that I wished I had paid a little more attention in my middle school French class to communicate with them. However, they screamed in excitement and grabbed my hand as they cried out loud ‘The girl knows French! The girl knows French!’. They chanted my name Victoria over and over, and my heart burst with warmth at their happiness and excitement.

It wasn’t long before the youth group began to work. We needed to meticulously sort out every bag of medication into little plastic bags by dosage. These pills were tiny, and there could have easily been hundreds of bottles of various medications. Furthermore, we were not allowed any error, as a lower or higher dosage could end with health-related issues – carelessness was met with a large responsibility, and the work we were performing was crucial to our mission journey. Under the heat with broken ACs, we had sorted and sorted into the night. It was not until the following day’s afternoon that we finally completed organizing each pill with labeled containers. My eyes were sore, and my hands were numb from the fast movement and the precise counting of each pill.

As I spent my time on the trip in a small makeshift pharmacy at a local school, I soon realized how dire the situation was: hundreds of desperate families waited in unimaginable lines in hopes of seeing a doctor. Under the hot African sun, I saw young girls my age and even younger who were mothers, swaddling coughing children. I watched as the volunteer dentists pulled out rotting teeth with their bare hands; due to the lack of oral hygiene, the teeth came out without using typical instruments. All this while the doctors worked tirelessly without rest under the boiling temperature. The entire sight was shocking and distressing. I wanted to help them all, and I honestly believed we could.

As I passed out medication diligently, conveying my hopes of recovery with warm smiles and gentle nods, I quickly learned the purpose and chemistry behind various medications, and was even able to assist the translator in communicating the necessary dosage to the patients, who grabbed my hand in extreme gratitude.

The day went on and the doctors worked tirelessly, never stopping to rest or drink water. I had watched as my mother looked at patient after patient, her hands never stopping. I had to remind her to hydrate constantly in the close-to-100-degree weather from time to time. She was sweating and exhausted, as were the other physicians. The youth group were assigned to work in rotations – shadowing doctors to gain medical experience, working at the reception to log patients in with temperature and heart rate, and at the pharmacy to pass out the pill each patient was prescribed to by the doctor. My newly made friends and I even passed out candies to the young children, and many of the adults reached out hungrily and desperately at the candies. It was then that I realized how severe the situation was, and how much they needed our help.

Despite the positive impact I felt in those unspoken connections with the patients, I had witnessed doctors having to turn away patients because we lacked proper technology and resources. A few days into the trip, the medical group visited a leprosy village with the fellow medical team, where I saw cases that were heartbreaking – the necessary medical treatment many of these people needed were far beyond the scope of care any one of us were able to provide in a few weeks. As the days went on, I watched helplessly as old men and women described the pain they had faced for decades, but we had run out of the medication they needed. I believe it was one of the most difficult moments of my life to verbalize to the translator that we had none left of the required pain medication they had desperately requested, and that all we were able to provide was multivitamins instead. The resilience and strength of the people facing these challenges were both humbling and inspiring.

My experience in Africa was supplemented with an immersion into Senegalese culture – an aspect that humanized the experience in many ways. Four days into the trip, we had traveled to Gorée Island to learn more about the enslavement history in Senegal: a significant, and deeply rooted aspect of Senegalese history. The boat ride over was adorned with bright blue waters and a pleasant breeze. The island was covered in traditional arts and merchants trying to sell us musical instruments and handmade bracelets. The day spent with my group of friends whom I had quickly grown close to over the past few days, was spent laughing and talking with the locals who were excited to share their culture with us in every sort of way. We witnessed their traditional sand arts, and the locals taught us how to play a traditional drum-like instrument by spinning our hands a certain way. We bought bracelets and statues while bickering in joy with them over prices – though disappointed at our suggested offers, the vendors loved that we loved their culture. That night, we were stuck on the island as the ferry would not come until midnight. Trapped on the boarding deck, my friends and I brought out music and sang and danced. Locals trapped with us saw us and joined our circle, smiling and laughing at our “American” music.

The next day, we had gone into the city to visit a church, and this was one of the most treasured memories I had made. The pastor gave a speech in French, which was later translated into Chinese and English for us. The ceremony didn’t take long, but the locals immediately erupted into a chorus to sing Hallelujah in their native language – Wolof. The joy I felt from the villagers was unlike any other, they danced, sang, raised their arms in praise. There was a level of community and raw human connection I had never seen before, and my heart swelled with appreciation and gratitude. There, my friends and I kicked soccer balls with the kids and showed them how to use an instant camera – a small, innocent gadget we had brought along the trip. To our surprise, the children were immensely fascinated with the technology they had never even heard of and grabbed us enthusiastically into group photos. Their eyes lit up in both awe and shock as we generated picture after picture, and they screamed in pure joy at the foreign technology. Young girls surrounded my friends and I, touching and braiding our hair out of fascination with the texture. At that moment, I felt complete happiness.

 

 

This trip, in a way, was absolutely life changing. Not only did I gain a newfound appreciation for my life back in America, but I also realized that medicine involves a long-term commitment to change. It became clear that my journey into a healthcare career was not just about providing immediate relief but contributing to long-term, systemic changes that could uplift communities. I was able to witness firsthand the transformative capacity of compassion and empathy, and it was this lesson forged during the mission that has pushed my passion into creating meaningful change in the world of healthcare.

 

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If you feel moved to support our ministry in Africa, please contact us：

 

Jun Xu’s WeChat: jun9174343767

Email: Africacriesout@gmail.com

Public WeChat account: LifeExploring (人生天路)

Website: https://africacriesout.net

 

Editors in charge: Cao Juanjuan, Zhang Kun

Translator: Zhi Hua Duan

English editor: Xi Wang

Editor: Doris Cruz