“What charitable services can Tzu Chi provide in this earthly paradise?” Huang actively looked for “fields of blessings” for Tzu Chi volunteers to cultivate. He found that there was a Christian charity organization that held relief distributions. It was operated on a large scale but did not offer free medical services.

“We can provide free clinics.” It so happened that in Brisbane quite a few members of the Tzu Chi Collegiate Association had graduated from dental schools. After discussing with other Tzu Chi volunteers, Patrick Lu, a senior member of the association, proposed to the Christian organization that they cooperate together. Originally the organization was happy with this prospect and invited Tzu Chi to submit a plan, but when they learned that Tzu Chi was a Buddhist group, they politely declined the offer.

The Tzu Chi Collegiate Association is a global organization. The majority of its members in Brisbane are Taiwanese students who went to Australia to study when whey were in their teens and later went to medical school. Most of them chose to study dentistry because very few vacancies are available in the medical schools. These students have graduated one after another, and they are all less than 30 years old.

Lu, whose nickname is “Stewed Egg,” had always had a wish: he hoped that all members of the Tzu Chi Collegiate Association who had acquired their professional specialties could pay back to society for everything they had received in this country. By fortuitous chance, he came to know Ross McCaster, who was in charge of the dental care division of the health bureau of the Queensland government. McCaster told him that the inland areas were in dire need of dentists.

“Queensland is huge,” Huang explained. “The government can provide equipment, but few doctors or dentists are willing to practice in the inland desert areas. In some places, there are only nurses but no doctors. Even if there are any, they are mostly Indians or Pakistanis who have signed a two-year contract with the government to practice in hospitals or clinics in remote areas.” Because Queensland encompasses such a vast expanse of area and is so sparsely populated, doctors and dentists who make rounds through the region can only stay in a place for a couple of days. And it is unlikely for them to visit a place again until several years later.

Australia is such a well-known paradise that it is surprising to know that the outback areas are so lacking in medical resources. McCaster was overjoyed to learn that Tzu Chi could provide free dental services in the wide country districts, and he did his best to help Tzu Chi carry out its first free clinic. Since July 2002, the foundation has conducted five free clinics (twice a year). Volunteer medical workers have traveled as far north as Doomadgee, near the tropic of Capricorn, and as far south as Tasmania, facing Antarctica, to bring free dental services to people in need.

1,500 kilometers

To finance the first Tzu Chi free clinic, McCaster applied to the government for funding and was given A$10,000 (US$7,143). However, that was only enough to cover the medical personnel’s plane tickets and room and board expenses. There was no budget for Tzu Chi volunteers who were not medical workers to go with the team. “We will pay for ourselves,” Huang said. “The dentists from the Tzu Chi Collegiate Association are all very young. How can we rest at ease if we senior volunteers cannot go along to take care of them?”

It takes over three hours to fly the 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from Brisbane to Longreach, the biggest town in central Queensland. When no plane tickets are available, a bus ride takes as long as 15 to 17 hours. After arriving in Longreach, the Tzu Chi team bought food and daily necessities. They split into groups, each composed of two dentists and two or three assistants and senior volunteers, and drove separately to nearby towns in need of medical services. A “nearby” town usually lies 120_200 miles away.

The first free clinics were held at the same time in Alpha and Aramac, both small towns with less than 300 residents. The locals were innocent and unsophisticated. A nurse told the free clinic team a joke: When the September 11 terrorist attacks happened in the United States, the local people were terrified that Osama bin Laden would come to blow up their two- or three-story houses the next day.

The nurse also observed that to the local people, who are mostly poor, their crops and cattle are the most important thing. When they have a toothache, they simply pull the tooth out with pliers or take painkillers. “There was a child who took painkillers for half a year to soothe his toothache,” said Huang. “When our dentists came to the town and gave the boy an injection in his gum, both blood and pus spurted out.”

The hospitals in Alpha and Aramac are poorly equipped. Owing to lack of equipment, the Tzu Chi free clinics in these two places had to share whatever was available. Huang and McCaster traveled between the free clinic sites, 300 kilometers (186 miles) apart, to deliver equipment. Because dentists rarely come to these regions, McCaster kept asking the young Tzu Chi dentists to pull out patients’ teeth: “No one knows how many years they will have to wait before they can see a dentist again.”

At the free clinics, Tzu Chi volunteers busily disinfected instruments and appliances, developed x-rays, received patients at the counter, introduced the work of the Tzu Chi Foundation to patients, and photographed and videotaped the whole event. In order to see more patients, the dentists and their assistants skipped meals; to stave off hunger, they simply gulped down a few cookies and some water. It was already midnight before they could finally sit down to a square meal. The free clinics ran for four days. When the team completed its mission and returned to Brisbane, it was already 9 p.m. Many Tzu Chi volunteers were waiting at the airport to welcome these “expedition heroes” home.

Excruciating heat

Five months later, the Tzu Chi team set out on their second free clinic mission. It was December, the peak of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. “From the second free clinic onward, the government of Queensland stopped funding our free clinics,” said Huang. “All the team members had to pay for their own expenses.” This time, in addition to Alpha and Doomadgee, the team also went to Jundah and Windorah. Jundah is also called “women’s town,” and Windorah is called “giant fish town.” Half the towns’ populations are aboriginals who rely on farming and animal husbandry for their livelihood. It is dry there all year round, and sandstorms occur continually. The total rainfall for the year before amounted to only 56 millimeters (2.25 in). Most inhabitants were forced to sell their livestock or move to places where water and grass were more ample.

The Tzu Chi dentists at the free clinics did everything possible to avoid pulling out teeth. They patiently gave patients root canal treatments and taught them to protect their teeth. Volunteers even visited local schools to deliver toothbrushes and toothpaste and to convey the importance of good oral hygiene to teachers and students. One schoolgirl especially made a chocolate cake for the team to express her gratitude.

Because of the heat, the dentists could not extract teeth during the day for fear that the blood flow could not be stanched. Inadequate medical equipment and a shortage of medicine also added to the difficulties. “So our dentists often performed extractions at night when the temperature was much cooler,” remarked Huang.

In the past, if blood kept dripping after a patient’s tooth was extracted, dentists would give the patient painkilling shots and put cotton in the hole. The patient then had to drive by himself for more than 10 hours to Toowoomba, a big city 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away for further treatment. “Although our dentists were young, they were as careful as could be,” said Huang. “Besides, we had a rapid reaction team ready to tackle all kinds of emergencies. We are grateful that all went well.”

Huang and Stewed Egg traveled between the free clinic sites to provide assistance. In only a couple of days, they accumulated a mileage of over 1,500 kilometers (932 mi). “It was also hard to have our cars refueled during the daytime. The heat caused petrol to vaporize, and people at the service stations were unable to pump any petrol. They often asked us to come back at the following daybreak.”

It was almost as difficult to get vegetarian food (many Tzu Chi volunteers are vegetarians). Huang and Stewed Egg searched all over a local supermarket for food and found only half a pumpkin. They went to another supermarket and all they could get was half a cabbage. In the end, they had to drive over 300 kilometers (186 miles) to Longreach to get enough water, vegetables, and fruit. Although it was difficult to get vegetables, the team still managed to maintain a vegetarian diet.

Drunk disturbances

At 3 a.m., a group of people gathered at Huang’s home. It was April 2003, and Tzu Chi was providing free medical treatment in the outback for the third time. The group took an early flight on Qantas Airways and arrived in Mount Isa, located in north-central Queensland. After purchasing mineral water and vegetables in Mount Isa, they flew further north in two small propeller airplanes to Doomadgee. Then they divided into two groups. One stayed in Doomadgee and the other went to Alpha.

Ninety percent of the residents of Doomadgee are Australian aborigines. The rest are white people who work as teachers, nurses, police officers, or bakers. In Doomadgee, the most beautiful building is the hospital, which is even equipped with air conditioners. But it is surrounded by protective wire mesh fences, because some medical workers were once raped in the hospital. When the Tzu Chi free clinic team told the hospital nurses that they hoped patients could make appointments before coming to the free clinic for examination and treatment, the nurses shook their heads, smiled, and explained that the aborigines had no sense of time--they might tell you they would come the next day but not show up until two weeks later.

Many curious children came to the hospital to see the Tzu Chi “foreigners.” The volunteers gave them candy and told them to tell their parents to come to the hospital for free dental treatment. Through word of mouth, news of the free clinic spread and brought in an almost endless stream of patients. “A girl about 13 or 14 years old came with a baby in her arms,” said Huang. “We thought it was her younger sister, but later we found out that it was actually her daughter.”

Many people who came to the free clinic asked if they needed to pay for the medical services. Only when they learned that it was free of charge did they sit down in the dental chairs. On the second day more patients came, and the dentists pulled more than 20 teeth. All the medical workers were kept so busy that they did not even have time to eat.

It was a Wednesday that day, and the government was distributing low-income subsidies. Some drunk aborigines rampaged through the hospital. Fortunately, nurses who were more experienced in dealing with them succeeded in coaxing them into leaving. At 9 p.m., the hospital guards locked the front door and increased patrols in the hospital compound.

“The hospital is the only place in the area where there is activity at night, so the local drunks like to gather there,” observed Huang. “On the fourth night, a group of drunks gathered at the hospital again. It looked like the situation was getting out of control, so the nurses asked us to go back to the dormitory and stay there.” The team quickly cleaned out the place, gathered their things, and retreated to the dormitory. A Tzu Chi dentist was accidentally left behind. After hiding for half an hour, he availed himself of an opportunity and rushed back to the dormitory. “I wondered how the nurses dealt with the troublemakers,” said the dentist fearfully.

Singing and pets

In September 2003, Tzu Chi held its fourth free clinic. This time, one group went to the southern island of Tasmania, and the other went to Jundah and Bedourie in the northwest.

Bedourie is located in the famous Simpson Desert. With a circumference of 180 kilometers (112 mi), the town has a population of less than 100 people. There is only one school in the area, with one teacher teaching 20 students. The teacher uses electronic facilities to provide distance education to children who live on remote “stations” (ranches). During the four-day free clinic there, a surprisingly large number of people came for treatment. People came from other towns without appointments. The Tzu Chi dentists and their assistants kept working each day until two o’clock in the morning.

The group that went to Jundah consisted of two dentists and three assistants. After landing in Longreach, they made a short stop to clean their medical equipment and purchase daily necessities. Then they got into a sedan and a jeep and drove to Jundah. While speeding on their way, they had to keep an eye out for kangaroos that could jump out onto the road at any time. “When we arrived in Jundah, we dined with the local nurse and her husband,” said assistant Anne Kuo. “Then we cleaned the mobile medical van and the equipment.”

The medical van in which the free clinic was to be held had traveled over 1,000 kilometers (621 mi) to Jundah and was covered all over with mud. In order to provide patients with a clean environment, the team worked hard until daybreak to clean the inside and outside of the van.

To ensure that more patients could be treated, volunteers placed a table outside the van and put some food and water on it so that the dentists and assistants could grab a bite to eat or drink when they walked past the table. There was also an area in which books and other publications published by Tzu Chi were displayed. Pens and paper were provided to children so that they could scribble and draw while their parents were receiving treatment.

“There was a very friendly patient called George Walter who even sang and danced to entertain our team,” said Kuo. “Some patients brought their pets with them, among which were a newborn lamb and a parrot that could talk.” The locals were all very affable. A country singer invited a lot of people to sing at the free clinic and presented the team with a large cup on which were many signatures.

On the last day of the free clinic, volunteers cleaned the site and made a poster to express their appreciation to the residents and to say goodbye to them. The medical workers keyed in all the relevant records of the patients on a laptop computer. It was not until late at night that all of them went to bed.

Angels in face masks

When the Tzu Chi team arrived at the free clinic site in Davenport, they were surprised to see five brand-new, well-equipped consulting rooms. Local nurses had carefully put all the medical instruments and materials in order.

“We’re so glad to see you since we haven’t seen a dentist in more than a year,” said the nurses. After putting on their masks and white robes, the dentists immediately went to work. Every one or two hours, a patient would come out of a room and volunteers would promptly step forward to provide assistance.

On the second day, a number of news reporters came to the free clinic. It turned out that the Tzu Chi team had created quite a sensation in the area. An elderly woman said on TV, “I pay the government taxes every year, and now I finally feel it’s worth it.” Alice Chuang, leader of the Tzu Chi team, said in an interview, “Our Master Cheng Yen teaches us that as immigrants we should be grateful to the local communities for receiving us and do all we can to pay back to society.” On the following day, a story entitled “Angels in Face Masks” appeared in a local newspaper.

A government information officer was so touched by the kindness of the Tzu Chi volunteers that he took A$50 (US$34) out of his pocket and said, “Go to the pub and have a drink like we Australians do after we come off work.” Chuang smilingly explained to the officer that as Tzu Chi volunteers they must not drink, and that if he had no objection, she would donate the money to help the needy.

Most of the patients who came to the free clinic were from low-income families, but when they learned about the charity work done by Tzu Chi, some of them even donated ten or twenty dollars to the team.

Dentist Jackson Liu came across a patient who had to have his six front teeth pulled. After the procedure, the patient looked in the mirror and burst out crying when he saw what he looked like. “I felt awful, too,” said Liu, “but no one knew how long they had to wait before they could see another dentist again.”

Half a year later, Tzu Chi came to Tasmania again to conduct its fifth free clinic. This time, Michael Lin, director of the Australia Tzu Chi branch office, was responsible for providing meals for the team members. He said that an elderly couple in their 80s came to the free clinic to have their teeth checked. Touched by the services of the volunteers, they went home and returned with a book they had authored and gave it to the team as a present.

“The last day of the free clinic happened to be Alice Chuang’s birthday,” remembered Lin. “We and the local health bureau co-sponsored a birthday and farewell party. Volunteer Shu-hui and I worked together to prepare Chinese meals for 30 persons.” The party was scheduled for 7 p.m., but the dentists were so busy that it did not start until 10. In the end, the food was all cold, and everyone was ravenously hungry.

Chuang said, “Molars are the hardest to extract. Coincidentally, we three dentists had to perform minor operations on our last patients to pull their molars out.” On this free clinic mission, all three dentists were young women, and all their hands were bruised from extracting teeth.

Seven frogs in the shower

On the fifth free clinic mission, aside from Tasmania, Tzu Chi volunteers also went to Aramac, Alpha, Muttaburra, and Isisford in inland Queensland. Muttaburra was the first place in Australia where dinosaur fossils were found. Because medical resources are scarce in the region, the townspeople all chipped in to buy themselves an ambulance. Self-support has long been a tradition in the town.

Originally the local people thought that the Tzu Chi team was sent and funded by the government. When they found out that this was not the case, they were impressed by the selfless giving of the volunteers and donated A$1,000 (US$715) to Tzu Chi. Fruit was rare and precious in Muttaburra, but the free clinic team received a large bag full of it. Someone gave the team chocolate, apparently hoping that the team members would have to see dentists in the future, too.

Because plane tickets were expensive, the team tried to provide treatment to as many patients as possible to make the trip worth it. All the members got up before daybreak and did not retire until late at night. Such a tight schedule exhausted them all. Zoe Hsu, an assistant, was finally unable to sustain it. She said she had to take a short nap. She put her head down on a desk and three seconds later she was sleeping like a log. No one could wake her up.

“But to our surprise when the sun shone on her, she moved her desk to a shady place without even waking up. We were all amazed,” said Freddy Lu, who was serving at a Tzu Chi free clinic for the first time.

When the team was providing free medical services in Isisford, Lu was frightened by two big frogs in the toilet. The nurse calmly told him to flush them down. “Later when I was taking a shower, I saw seven frogs staring at me. I tried to drive them out of the bathroom with a toilet brush, but to no avail. One of them even jumped on my arm. I was so scared that I swung my arm with full force, sending both the brush and the frog out the window.” Lu still found it both funny and scary as he recalled the episode.

Frank Wen, who had come from the Gold Coast to help, observed that because it’s so dry in the outback, the only places the frogs could find water were in the toilets or bathrooms. At first the team intended to spend their nights at a hotel, but then they found that all the beds and blankets in the hotel were covered with dead insects. They could only head back to the free clinic and set out to clean the nurses’ dormitory, which had two bedrooms and a living room.

Due to a shortage of space, the male team members had to sleep on the sofas in the living room. “But there was a hen on the sofa that had been sitting there motionless for days,” said Lu. “Perhaps she thought she was brooding, but there were no eggs under her. Maybe the eggs had been stolen.”

At the free clinic, two little girls asked the volunteers what “Tzu Chi” meant. The volunteers answered, “Take out the pain, give people joy.” One of the girls misheard this as “Take out the pen” and immediately picked up a pen on a table. Everyone present burst into laughter at her reaction.

The third day of the free clinic fell on a Sunday. A wedding was scheduled in the town. In addition to the mayor, the bridegroom also came to the free clinic that day. It turned out that he had accidentally slipped and broken one of his front teeth. Fortunately, a dentist was able to glue his tooth back--otherwise he would have had to attend his wedding with a front tooth missing.

Outback wonders

“Because it was the Easter holiday, we couldn’t get plane tickets, and so it took us 17 hours to get to Longreach by bus,” said Lu. All along the way to Longreach, people liked to gather at night at the service stations. Many locals had never seen Asians before, so they looked curiously at the free clinic team as if they were some rare species.

“At 2 a.m., the bus driver said he had to sleep for an hour. He took out his sleeping bag, lay down on the side of the road, and immediately dozed off. We had nothing else to do but admire the beauty of the night sky. The stars were so big and bright, it seemed as if they were within reach.”

The desert life opened the team members’ eyes. Hung Wen-ho of the rapid reaction team traveled 300 kilometers (186 miles) between Alpha and Longreach to provide assistance, and he came across three kangaroos on the way. “I successfully dodged the first two, but I hit the third kangaroo on its rear end. My headlights were wrecked.” Frank Wen, another team member, also traveled between the free clinic sites to deliver supplies and give help. He said that he often drove 100 to 200 kilometers (62_124 miles) without seeing a car or a house, but he frequently came across wild ostriches and kangaroos.

One time the free clinic team had a flat tire. When they got out of the car to change the tire, a horde of flies swarmed towards them. “There is an unimaginably large number of flies in Australia. On the brims of their hats, local people have a row of strings with corks fastened at the end. When they eat, they shake their heads to drive the flies away with the corks. This kind of brilliant device has become a hot tourist souvenir in outback Australia.”

A vast swath of red and yellow earth decorated with dry grass and lifeless trees stretched to the horizon. In the distance, a flock of lambs was crossing a road. The yellow color of the lambs merged with the color of the earth. If the lambs were not moving, you would take them to be mounds of soil. The Tzu Chi team did not think it hard work at all to travel long distances in the outback to conduct free clinics. On the contrary, they cherished the experiences because they knew that if it weren’t for the free clinics, they would never have the chance to visit the outback.

The team members were once invited by a patient to his station, where they could ride horses and watch men shearing wool. “We posed for pictures with a lamb in one hand and electric shears in the other,” said dentist Jerry Wu. “Unexpectedly, the station owner turned the shears on and the machines automatically began to shear the lambs. We had such a big scare that we all jumped about frantically.” Another time the team passed through a village that was celebrating its “Harmony Day.” The team was invited to join in the celebration. “The experience was really touching and unforgettable,” said Neil Huang, with a look on his face that indicated the memory had been etched forever on his mind.

We’ll be back

“When we were holding a free clinic in Muttaburra, a local head nurse asked us if we could include psychiatrists in our team the next time we go there,” said Stephen Kan. “Droughts had seriously affected the local livestock industry, and many people who were unable to take the blow committed suicide.” At the Tzu Chi free clinics, lots of patients took the initiative in contributing money to the team. They said, “We’re making these donations because we hope you can come again.”

“I’ve learned many precious things that were not taught in school,” said dentist Steven Chen. “When we went to a town where we had provided a free clinic before, we often found the children we had treated the previous year had grown taller. The feeling was very special.”

Neil Huang said that the head of a dental school in Brisbane especially invited them to give speeches at the school, hoping to encourage more students to go to the countryside to serve after graduation.

“Once in a pub in the desert, we nailed a dollar to the bar’s ceiling,” said Huang. It is a tradition the outback herdsmen have. When herdsmen travel with their cattle to look for pastures to graze, they often do not return home until three or four months later. When there is a drought, they have to travel even farther and their trips often take them as long as half a year to a year. The herdsmen leave some money in a pub before their departure. When they return, they can use the money to buy a beer, a Coke, or a cup of coffee. The herdsmen fold up a dollar bill, place a thumbtack in it, and then secure the dollar bill to a cob. The cob is then thrown up to the wooden ceiling of the bar. Those who are more skilled often succeed in fastening their cob at one throw, but people who lack practice often have to throw their cobs several times before they are fixed to the ceiling. The owner of the pub has very good memory. She never forgets which dollar bill belonged to whom.

After drinking their Cokes, the free clinic team “did as the Romans did”: they took out their dollar bills, placed thumbtacks in them, and then threw the bills towards the ceiling. “We had such a good time playing the game,” said Huang. “When we finally succeeded in sticking our money to the ceiling, people in the pub even applauded and cheered for us.”