Lakeway dentist Dr. Tejas Patel didn’t travel to Peru to fill and clean teeth for four days in return for financial gain, but he will always treasure his patients’ words of thanks and smiles.

Patel traveled to Yucay, Peru, as one of six dentists on a Kindness in Action mission trip from March 5-12 to perform dental exams and fill teeth.
He was taking a continuing education course in July in Las Vegas when he first learned of the mission trip from a Canadian colleague who had gone on previous trips to Yucay.
He didn’t feel like it would be a gamble to go.
Nine years ago, Patel had volunteered on a dental mission trip to Nicaragua so he had an idea of what he would be getting into on this journey.
“It left a lasting impression. I’ve always wanted to do another one,” he said.
His fond memories of that experience prompted him to sign up with Kindness in Action, a Calgary-based nonprofit that promotes children’s health and education in remote, impoverished areas of the world.
Combined with his friend’s testimonial and Patel’s fluency in Spanish, he felt prepared for this new adventure.
After flying to Lima, Peru’s capital city, and then to the city of Cuzco, he arrived by bus at Yucay, high in the Andes Mountains.
Since January, the small town in the Sacred Valley of the Incas near the ruins of Machu Picchu had been battling the effects of the flooded Urubamba and Vilcanota rivers.
Heavy rains earlier in the year created mudslides that plummeted into the river swelling it until it destroyed several homes in the town and other cities in the valley as well as railways, roads and bridges around the Cuzco region.
The chain of events didn’t garner much news in light of the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti, but the disaster rocked the lives of townsfolk who Patel treated. Many lost their adobe homes.
“It was interesting to be there for oral health care, but also witness [the aftereffects of] a natural disaster in a way,” he said. “It was very eye-opening.”
The next morning when he walked to the makeshift clinic in an unused municipal building that was part of town hall, he arrived to the sight of a crowd numbering in the hundreds, which was somewhat daunting, Patel admitted.
The line of patients stretched to the courtyard outside and mixed with the crowds there to meet about recovering from the flood, so the dental team had difficultly gauging just how many people were seeking treatment out of the masses.
“It was pretty intimidating walking in and seeing that,” Patel said. “The whole town was there right outside our doorstep, and a lot of them were coming into our clinic.”
The team of dentists, dental hygienists and translators didn’t falter in getting to work using portable units of drill, suction, air/water spray and other dental equipment to provide cleanings, fluoride protection, education, tooth-colored and silver fillings for cavities, and extracted teeth, when necessary.
During Patel’s four days at Yucay, he and the other team members saw what seemed like an unending stream of patients. Some were young children who came alone to the clinic needing treatment.
“We were just bombarded with people,” he said.
Their resourcefulness was tested as well.
Working in an empty shell of office space, they treated patients who were lying on mattresses taped to tables. Instead of dental sinks or basins, patients spit into black trash bags taped to either side of the improvised chairs.
Although they had electricity in the clinic, the lighting was not bright enough to illuminate inside patients’ mouths, so dentists wore camping headlamps or had an assistant hold a flashlight.
Dentists and hygienists also were standing throughout the day, which altered the ergonomics that Patel was used to in the United States.
They pressed ahead and were able to save a lot of teeth, which was evidence to the team members that they were making a difference. Dental care in Third World countries is often an afterthought because of more pressing needs such as having access to food and potable water.
“It was great that we were preserving a lot more [teeth] than having to pull [them],” he said. “There was a lot of hope with seeing that.”
The gratitude of the townspeople lifted spirits as well. For many people in Yucay, the annual Kindness in Action trip has been their only source of dental care for several years.
“There were a lot of people we met — older and younger – who left a good impression of the good we were able to do,” he said. “The people were so appreciative.”
He also found solace in his surroundings.
Although it was not as remote as some villages higher in the Andes, Yucay was a far cry from Austin or Houston where Patel studied dentistry.
“Basically, I felt like we were in the middle of nowhere in Peru. We were in this valley surrounded by mountains covered by greenery. It was a very picturesque place to be, which was nice,” he said.
The Peruvians’ agrarian lifestyle made an impression on Patel who immersed himself in their culture by seeing their church Mass, watching the town’s children play soccer games and eating their food.
“They just live off the land. They sustain themselves in a very simple way,” he said. “It was a great community.”
The team members gelled as well. Even though he was one American among 25 Canadians on the Kindness in Action team, Patel said the camaraderie could not have been higher.
“Everyone there was amazing. We all had positive attitudes about being there to help. We had the want to give back and we were all appreciative of what we saw,” he said.
Although they spent their days together working in the clinic, team members would eat dinner together, go on hikes, watch a soccer game or see other cities in the Sacred Valley.
On Patel’s last night there before flying out, his team members made him an honorary Canadian citizen. Several people asked if he would return to Yucay, which Patel said was a strong possibility.
“I would do that trip a million times over again. It was a great experience,” he said. “What I can offer as a dentist is something that not many people can offer to people in parts of the world who don’t have access [to dental care]. I feel like it’s an obligation to share my talents with other people, especially on that level.”