Our first adventure...

... and we haven't even left the country yet!

It all started a few days after our meeting with our clinical instructor. Jenny was browsing the Craigslist "Free Stuff" postings earlier this week, and she came across a posting for "Free Medical Supplies."

She got in touch with a woman who said they had "cotton balls and gauze" and some other things. Envisioning a few small boxes of supplies, I picked Jenny up early on Thursday morning, and we headed towards the heart of West Kensington to go pick them up. (For those of you not familiar with Kensington, it's perceived as one of the poorest, most dangerous neighborhoods in the city of Philadelphia.)

Once we got the the address, we realized we had been directed to Prevention Point , a non-profit organization that focuses it's efforts on injection drug users and sex workers. The organization runs the only clean-needle exchange program in the city; they also run a drop-in center and help connect their clients to vital services like HIV testing and drug rehabilitation services.

The employees were excited to see us. They were working on cleaning out their storage room, and wanted to get rid of boxes of extra supplies that had been laying around for a long time.

We were shocked when they showed us all of the stuff that they no longer had a need for. Cases of gauze, cotton balls, syringes, medical tape, gloves. They gave us a hand truck and told us we were welcome to whatever we wanted. In three trips, we filled up the entire backseat of my car with cases and cases of supplies.

Jenny and I were completely wowed by their generosity. In my experience, I've had a hard time getting medical supplies donated from the huge University of Pennsylvania Health System, but here we were in the basement of a Kensington non-profit, filling up my car. It was hard not to laugh at the irony.

The moral of this story is: We now have a TON of medical supplies - everything from gauze 4x4s and 2x2s to respirator masks and urine sample cups - to bring with us to Botswana. All we'll need to get are more gloves and hand sanitizer, and I think we'll be all set!