The Swiss Clitoraid team gathers the first medical shipment bound for the Pleasure Hospital in Burkina Faso

The following report is one of a beautiful human adventure where 19 volunteers from the Swiss Clitoraid team met at a Medical Depot in Saland, Switzerland, to gather some of the donated medical goods necessary for Clitoraid's 'pleasure' hospital in Burkina Faso, due to open on Oct. 8.

Elisabeth recalls: "After traveling over 200 miles for most of us, we all arrived well before the opening of the warehouse at 9AM where we had been invited to find free medical equipment for the Pleasure Hospital. The legendary Swiss punctuality was once again at work. LOL!

Our leader, Philgood gathered everyone for a brief meditation that made us fully aware of the humanitarian action we were about to participate in... Bertrand informed us of the team we were to join and what function each one of us was to perform. Our kind organizers: Bernard F and Philippe R had carefully mapped out the day: Nothing was missing from the tools to the proper logislics. They had done a remarkable job prior to this day which allowed everyone to remain in harmony throughout the morning. Emilie had brought all the necessary set up to make delicious French crêpes for us at lunch.

Stéphane Lanz soon arrived and introduced himself to everyone. He opened the doors to the warehouse and our fabulous team began working like ants in an ant house. The warehouse was huge and it was necessary to proceed methodically.




In a few minutes, the team was already working efficiently: first and foremost, to find the surgical instruments which Lilipeace, Bilitis, Alexandra, Elisabeth, Lilou immediately set out to do. Then, to find the first aid boxes, a job handed out to Allan, Etienne, Markette, Nac , Mario who were careful to check each required item and transported the bundle on pallets toward the center of the warehouse.



There, the bundle was given to François, Lucie so they would count everything. Simultaneously, another team made up of Nac, Markette finalized the pallets while Markette, Nac, Jacques, Sonia tied them up and secured them with wooden wedges.



Meanwhile, our great Mario ran from one pallet to the next to film the end product in this huge space. It was then Allan's turn to transport the pallets with a fork lift toward the back of the warehouse and with the help of Philippe R and Bernard they displayed them with care, they weighed them and measured them. Lilou and Etienne finally tagged them on all 4 sides.



Stéphane Lanz, the manager of the warehouse affiliated with MPT (Medicine for all) was stunned. It was the first time that he witnessed all this including Emilie making crêpes in the middle of the warehouse at the center of this busy beehive... a great moment !



Stéphane even asked for a picture! We all had our task and with the 19 of us, we managed to succeed at preparing, wrapping, weighing, tagging (though it is far from being our job in our daily lives), 5 tons of goods moved in 5 hours.



Stéphane Lanz had never seen this done in this way and admired us. The atmosphere was so wonderful. Philgood, our leader and Diplomat maintained good communication with Stéphane and at the same time visited each team to insure that all was going well.

Marc André photographed these great moments and Etienne filmed each step of this day and as this report shows, each one of us handled many different tasks to reach our commun goal. All was fluid, admirable and will remain a great moment in our life filled with positive emotions. We were working together in harmony. At 2PM, the doors of the warehouse closed upon a mission well accomplished and all bundled up... We were all consciously happy to have been part of a great moment . Now, the pallets are put away and ready to be shipped to Africa for the Pleasure Hospital.

Finally, it was time for all of us to drive away back to our respective homes following this extraordinary moment but not before stopping for a well deserved restaurant break gathered together around our leader, Philgood.