Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner with Special Guest Mauriz Felix - A Journey from a Kenyan Village to American Dental Hygiene, and Giving Back with Safari Smiles
Picture yourself in a small village in Eastern Kenya, surrounded by the wonders of wildlife and the vast landscapes. Add to the mix, a life-changing encounter with American tourists stuck in mud, and a journey to America that transforms a humble village boy into a dental hygienist. This episode is all about that, and much more as we sit down with Mauriz Felix, the founder of Safari Smiles, who shares his incredible story of perseverance, change and giving back.
Have you ever considered the privileges we take for granted in our daily lives? From the accessibility of basic healthcare to the luxury of clean drinking water, we delve into a world where these essentials aren't a given. Mauriz takes us back to his childhood, recounting a horrific crocodile attack and paints a picture of the harsh realities of life as an immigrant. Yet, in all his experiences, Mauriz's spirit remains unshaken, inspiring us to appreciate the luxuries we often overlook.
The highlight of this episode is Mauriz's dream of building a clinic in his homeland and his successful venture of connecting the US with Africa through dental care. Amidst the challenges of a pandemic, Mauriz's dedication to his mission shines through as he discusses organizing a trip for 53 Americans to provide dental care in Kenya. As we wind down our conversation, Mauriz leaves us pondering about the privileges we enjoy, the importance of giving back and the profound impact a single act of kindness can leave on someone's life. Don't miss this heartwarming conversation and be sure to check out the extraordinary work Mauriz is doing at Safari Smiles.
Hi everyone. My name is Mauriz Felix, aka Mauriz Mogo, and I am the owner and founder of Safari Smiles. I am super, super excited to be one of my favorite podcasts over time with Dr Shaheen, and I can't wait to share with you One of the major press polls that I believe in and that's about my set. Coming from a little village in Eastern Kenya 9 years ago, I'm with 200 of them and right now I'm practicing dental hygienists, and I can't wait to share with you some of the press polls that I believe we all need to apply in our lives to change it all around. It's all about the mindset. I can't wait to talk to you all.
Speaker 2:Awesome welcome to another episode of Shaheen's Corner. I'm really excited. Today's guest is just an overachiever. Really excited to have him. I'm Dr Shaheen Safarian, founder of Shaheen's Corner and Love Bites Dental, and I want to introduce you to our speaker today, Mauriz Felix, how are you, my friend?
Speaker 1:Good Dr Safarian, how are you?
Speaker 2:today I'm doing great. The African safari dental guy very cool man, I love the name.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I love the last name too. It's almost safari, but there's more to the safari.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, there's nothing wrong with safaris. We'll talk about that and it's close to me, since it's somewhat my last name, right? I've never been on a safari, so we need to start listen. Every time I want to go on a safari, my friend send me an email or a video that a lion just ate a guy on a safari. So am I going to go to a safari and be eaten by a lion man?
Speaker 1:As long as you're not trying to take a selfie with a lion, you'll be totally safe.
Speaker 2:Well, I tell you what. That's what the guy was trying to do. He walked out of his car he was in the car taking photos, walked out. How smart are you to do that? And you know trying to shake the lion's hand, and it didn't quite work out that way. So who is Mauriz Felix? Tell us a little bit about you, my friend.
Speaker 1:I still consider myself a village boy. I was born in a real village in eastern Kenya. You're not familiar with Kenya. Kenya is on the eastern side of Africa. I was born on the slopes of Mount Kenya, born and raised in eastern Kenya, a real town called Meru, and currently I am a dental hygienist in Washington DC area. I practice in DC, maryland and Virginia, but deep in my heart I am still that village boy from Africa just living the American dream.
Speaker 2:What brought you to the US? Why from Kenya to America? What was your reason to move here?
Speaker 1:My first reason is to be able to achieve my goals. I got to America by absolute chance, by living in other people. So just a quick, short background now. I got to the US. I got to America by helping an American people, by just helping Americans. So from my real village is the only route that you can access Mount Kenya. Anyone out there who hikes likes to do mountaineering. If you're going to go to Mount Kilimanjaro, you know the next mountain you're going to go to is Mount Kenya. So in my village there's a road that goes to Mount Kenya and one Sunday afternoon I got to help some American tourists push their Land Rover stuck in the mud in the little dirt path that goes to Mount Kenya camp and that brought me to America.
Speaker 2:That's amazing from just helping somebody out of the mud that was. They were American tourists. So tell me how that transition occurred, like what was the discussion? Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:One Sunday afternoon I never forget it was in October. October is the rainy season in Kenya and it rains like crazy. So I'm just walking to the market. I was brought up by my grandmother. I lost my parents when I was a young boy and she said the worst possible times, one rainy Sunday afternoon, can you go to the market and bring me some flour? I'm walking to the market and then I see this green Land Rover Defender 110, I never forget stuck in the mud. And I said to myself stupid tourists stuck in the mud again. They never check the weather. I'm walking towards them and the older it seems to be the older guy. He said this is my son. I don't know if it was the son or he was just making fun and we are going to do trout fishing on top of Mount Kenya, the Crater Lake, there, and now we are stuck. Can you help us? We pushed me and the son the older guy was the dad, was driving the Land Rover and we couldn't push the Land Rover out of the mud. I told them give me 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:I walked back to the village, I called my cousins, I called my friends. I said there are some tourists stupid tourists stuck again and they need our help. But they seemed pretty cool, they seemed really nice. So can you come and help me, help them? We go back, we push the Land Rover out of the mud. They are already on the main road, they are ready to go up the mountain and they said what can we give you? Obviously they are going to give us US dollars as a tip. If they give us 10 dollars, that's enough food for our month.
Speaker 1:But something inside me said I need more. So I told them I want to go to America. I didn't know the Americas in Kenya. If you are not black, you could be Russian, you could be from Ukraine, you could be from China. If you are not black, you are American. I told them I want to go to America and the young guy said I don't know about that. And the older guy luckily, they worked at the American Embassy in Nairobi. The older guy said I know a way to get you there. I said I want to go. He brought me a piece of paper. He went back to the car and he wrote diversity visa. He gave it to me. He said that's a ticket to America. He just wrote it down. He wrote the university visa, wrote it that I have to go and play. I have to go online and play.
Speaker 2:And apply yeah.
Speaker 1:So I went. At that time I was a first year university student in Kenya. I had, of course, no access to internet. So when I went back to the university I looked it up. So my cousins and everybody that tell me push, they got $15. But I stuck to the paper. I went back to the university and I went to the Google. I sat at the university visa. I said oh, it seems legit and I applied for. I said how much is this gonna cost to apply? Cause I didn't talk that kind of money. I applied. It was zero cost. I applied for it and I never looked back.
Speaker 2:And when did you find out that you won the lottery?
Speaker 1:This was in October. You applied November. So in November I was ready to apply cause you open it. In November that's when I applied for the lottery. I put all my information until I got to the place where they need a professional profile of picture Two by two white background, and the picture I had could not qualify. So I went to the local studio and they were charging me $3, that's 300 Keneshirins. I did my math and 300 Keneshirins, which is three bucks, I could eat in the student mess. I could eat rice and beef for the rest of the semester. I said forget the American dream. I'm gonna eat rice and beef the rest of the semester.
Speaker 1:I'm not paying three bucks for a picture. But my roommate at the university was a journalism major. He said I can take this picture for you. I have two people hold a white bed sheet behind them. They took the picture and two by two, he cropped it. That's the first time I had a professional picture in my life. Never had a picture taken of my face. He took the picture and he said seems good to go. I applied for it in November. You find out in May that you are. That's when I found out out of 100,000 random people, so there was like seven million Africans from all over the world. They pick 100,000, but only the first 50,000 get the visa. I was number four out of all that number. The fourth person picked.
Speaker 2:Wow, that right, there is an amazing story. It's an amazing story, man. So let me ask you so it's nine years later Tell us you came to America with what in your pocket.
Speaker 1:Now there's a problem. I have one green card. I'm thinking I'm a green card winner. Just have to show up at the airport in Nairobi with my little email and I get on a plane and go. That's not it. You have to have a bunch of money. You have to have a lot of money to pay for the medical visa clearance. You have to pay for the visa interview, the plane ticket. Nobody pays that for you. You have to pay for it yourself.
Speaker 1:But as an orphan, my grandmother had only $50 that she saved our life, that she could give to me. And I'm still in school. I don't want to go to university. It's a big deal. Out of one million kids that finish high school, only 4,000 make it to the public university out of one million, and I want one of them. So I don't want to give up my chance and then find out that, oh, I can't go to America. So why did? I went to the local villages and I turned out to be a cow vendor. I was flipping cows and goats. I'd buy a cow for, let's say, $50 and I would take it to another village where there's a need. I don't sell it for $100. So I got $200. The maximum I could get. I paid for everything along the way and I got to the US and that's where I went.
Speaker 2:So all of the costs to get to the US came from you. Flipping cows and goats, did you say?
Speaker 1:He was in town and goats. My girlfriend of that time she's my wife now. She's a pharmacist here. She was selling clothes and she was helping me flip cows and goats and ship. That's how I made my money to pay for the print ticket to get in the US.
Speaker 2:And so that was, that was a couple hundred dollars. How much did you have in your pocket when you came to the US? When you landed in the US, how much did you have?
Speaker 1:Oh, the rich man. I got to Dallas, Virginia, the airport in Virginia. I'm $200 to my name $200.
Speaker 2:That's 20,000 Kenyan shalex and that's a lot of flipping cows, man.
Speaker 1:That was a big flip. But to me, landing in America with 20,000 Kenyan shalex, that was like going to Miami with a million dollars to spend. And I asked the guy at the airport I was so nasty because I never end anything on the plane. I thought in the airplane, everything I'm going to take drink it. They're going to sell it to me. So I never end anything. I'll throw it in my flight until I realize it was free. So they said you want a soda, you want juice? I was like I'm good, because I thought they're going to charge me money. So I got to Dallas, virginia, and I said I'm going to starve, we need to get a soda. But they told me I never forget. They said a soda. The big, big cup was $2.73. I said I look at my girlfriend, my wife there. I said okay, we have $200. It's $2.73. We are not going to survive in this country.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of money, so we got $200. They want $2.73. I didn't know it was $2.73. Because in Kenya we don't use cents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting. Wow, man, that's listen, one of the things that look. I've lived in this country now 40 plus years. I came here in 1978. I was an immigrant from Iran. You know that's a little bit of a story back then.
Speaker 1:There was. The very first person to give me a job in this country was from Iran.
Speaker 2:Really, we're going to talk a little bit about that, but here's the thing that I wanted to stress is is, in this country, one of the biggest problems that I genuinely believe we have as a society is entitlement. This society is so entitled and it's interesting this discussion brings this idea in my head that my dad came as an immigrant in 1978. And he didn't even speak the language. He was a medical doctor in Iran, spoke the medical language because he studied in, you know, in English, the medical books, but he worked well over 100 hours a week a week, week after week, year after year. And now we have men in their 20s that are working 45 hours a week and they need therapy or they need substance abuse or they need medication because they're overworked and they feel like the world is ending for them.
Speaker 2:So look, it's very close to me being an immigrant when I hear stories like this of how you immigrated to America and how we take so much for granted here in America, because of the hardships, the true hardships that people go through to get to America, and then, when they get here, it doesn't get any easier because you have the language barrier, you have the accents, you have the different looks right.
Speaker 1:I agree with you on that.
Speaker 2:I'll say it's interesting because now I have two kids that are first generation Americans, right, and I'm married to an American. My wife is American and this is one of the things that I talked to her about a lot is that Americans are so entitled. You know that you don't really appreciate what is really going on around the world and how good we have it here, and yet we think the world is coming to an end, not realizing that you have the best of everything.
Speaker 2:So when I hear your story, it just, you know, I just have to reiterate how good we have it in America and the things that you went through to get here and just a dream of coming to America. I mean you could have said I want to go to England. You could have said I want to go to Australia. Why America? Well, there's a reason for that. There's a reason why you want to go to America, right, because people just hear, just you know, the entitlement, taking things for granted, it's pretty, it's pretty sad. You know, we have it so good and we don't realize how good we have it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for saying that. I really heart off to your dad because your dad reminds me of the very first time I came to this country and he's one of the many immigrants in this country that go out of their way to make sure their kids succeed. You talk, you are talk on entitlement. When I was 11 years old, I almost lost my life to a crocodile going to fetch water drinking water for my family. When I was 11 years old, I got attacked by a crocodile going to fetch water.
Speaker 2:When I get to this country, you almost got eaten by a crocodile at 11.
Speaker 1:Yes, at 11, I was going to fetch water. I never forget it was a day that I went to fetch water and a crocodile attacked me and my friends. I've lost at least three friends that were close to me when we were growing up to attack my crocodiles Just going to fetch water for the family, because when we are a boy that's a job. You have to go get the water for the family in my culture.
Speaker 1:So when I got to this country I never thought it was Botomor community college and a boy throwing a tantrum and smashing the Botomor towards the wall because the water from the fountain was not cold enough. It was summertime, the water is not cold enough. I asked one of the people what's wrong with you, is he okay? This is mad because the water is not cool enough From the fountain outside the classroom. I never forget that. So at 11, I'm walking 15, 16 miles to fetch water. Crocodiles are attacking me. But the way I saw this I never. This picture never got off my mind and I'm not a judge person. I know that Gryapia has probably never been outside of his country, but he was yelling and screaming and throwing the Botomor. I said what's wrong with you, is he okay? They said the water from the fountain is warm. So when you talk about what your dad it goes even further.
Speaker 2:Your third in line at the grocery store to buy bread Right, the light doesn't turn. You know a lot of this road rage. Stuff that you hear is just people that didn't get their way driving Right. I mean, it's just the things that people go through in this country that causes them stress is laughable for the rest of the world. It's laughable.
Speaker 1:I'm a game of that I never forget.
Speaker 2:And this is the issue. The issue is why are we so? Why should we be so different? People wait for hours to get bread. People have traffic problems that takes them two, three hours to get home. People don't even have cars in many parts of the world.
Speaker 1:Right, yes so.
Speaker 2:I mean, I could go on and on, man, but at the end of the day you made it to America, so you bought the bottle of that soft drink. And what happened next for you? Talk to me, what was your next move?
Speaker 1:I never actually bought the soda when they said it was 273.
Speaker 2:You don't have enough money.
Speaker 1:I got 200. You're talking about 273. I said, okay, I'm okay.
Speaker 1:So I never bought it. So somebody picked me up, went to his place. He hosted me for a while and all my life I want them to be in dentistry at some capacity In Kenya. You never choose a career. The government chooses the career for you. So I had never been to the dentist until I was 13 years old. My mom saved 10 and 10s of money to take me to the dentist. I know you do a lot of cosmetic cases. I've been following up with cases. You do beautiful cases, beautiful job and my canine. I have an impactant canine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And right now I'm doing my investment. So I went to the dentist first time I was 13 years old in Kenya and the dentist gave me a shot and I ran away. I took off. Later I became friends and he introduced me to dentistry. I really liked dentistry. I was, I speak six native tongues from Kenya, so I was interpreting from the nationalists that coming to help, volunteers coming to help I would help interpret from them. So I got to the US and they said somebody spoke to me. He said you're not going to be a pilot, you're not going to be a dentist, you're not going to be whatever you're going to be. This is the place.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I said, oh, I love my life, I want to go into dentistry in Kenya. You go to the university. The government chooses the course for you in Kenya. Don't choose the course. The government says if you're from a smaller tribe like me, we give you anything they like. It's not for you to choose. So I said I can get into dentistry in this country. They said absolutely. And I started working towards my platypus sites for dental hygiene. I saw the cost for dental school. I said okay, that's, I didn't even know you can get student loans or anything like that. So I ended the cost for dental hygiene school cost for dental school. I said how can I be a dental hygienist? I think you can manage that. That's a different story, but that's how I got to graduate from dental hygiene school without debt, because I thought you have to pay it every single day. You have to pay everything and I was buying stuff from Goodwill or Drift Store and selling it and making my payments for dental hygiene school and that's how I got into dental hygiene.
Speaker 2:So when did you graduate to become a hygienist in the US? What year?
Speaker 1:I graduated in 2018, 2018.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. So let's fast forward a little bit, because you know, obviously you came to the US nine years ago, so it took you about five years to become a dental hygienist here in the US. But I want to talk about this notion of what you're doing now. I know last I believe it was just about three months ago that you had a trip for dental professionals. Was it back to your village in East Kenya where you had the safari and smiles, and let's talk about how that came about as the founder of safari and smiles, and then what you're doing with it moving forward.
Speaker 1:So the pandemic hit. I'm at home. I got a newborn son. He was born a preemie, so I'm at home. There's no job, my office closed down. I was a little bit alive in my job and then this pandemic shows up. Now I have to stay at home. I'm with a newborn and I have to provide for my family, so I'm sitting at home. There's no temp jobs to do, there's nothing to do. And something came to my mind and said when I was in university in Kenya I took a pastime job as a tour guide.
Speaker 1:Most of my patients. I based my communication with my patients the opening line, of course I have a strong accent. They'll say where are you from? I'm from Kenya. How is it like living in Kenya and growing up in Kenya? And I tell them it's so hard to explain unless I take you there and experience it.
Speaker 1:So an idea came and an idea comes to me and I say all the patients, all my colleagues, all my doctors, they always asking how is it like growing up in Kenya? Maybe I can take them there and show them instead of telling them, not just showing them and telling them. I would love for them to give back to the people there, because the people there, they supported me so much when I was coming here. How can I give back to them? I got so much support from people that I met in this country since the first day that I landed in this country. How can I give back to them and how can I show them the Africa they never see on TV? How can I help them conquer their fears of going outside of their comfort zones?
Speaker 1:And that's when the idea of Safari and Smiles came to me. I thought I could take these people to Africa and leave the people there with smiles on their faces. It could help fix teeth and the people going could leave Africa with smiles on their soles. And I thought Safari and Smiles. And from there we never looked back. We started just a Facebook page. I called a friend of mine, elijah Desmond, and I told him I'm at home, currently unemployed, and I'm thinking it would be very good to take people from here to Africa and show them the love of African people, give back to the people there, give back to people here. By going, you are changing your mindset about Africa, about Africans, about what you can do to change other people's lives. And Safari and Smiles were born in the mid-east of the pandemic.
Speaker 2:So 2020 is when you launched Safari and Smiles.
Speaker 1:It was actually January 2021.
Speaker 2:Got it, and so you just had your first trip. Tell us a little bit about that trip.
Speaker 1:Our first trip was filled with uncertainties because we're not certain it's gonna happen fast, because there was lockdowns all over. It was set for November last year and our main focus was to give back to a children's orphanage back there. So, growing up as an orphan in Kenya, orphanages were my place. That was the place I got a lot of help. That's the place I got a lot of people that really cared and gave me books, pens. When I went to school without a pen and for a week I couldn't write my notes, I could find writing pens from orphanage.
Speaker 1:So when I had about this orphanage in Masayimara that was Lesquing Girls and we could help them out, that's when we decided we're gonna help that orphanage out and we said November is the time to go. To my surprise, we had 53 people sign up. That's why I love this country from the bottom of my heart. Because the deal with people in America. When you tell them I got this, I got an idea, they come out and they support you. So 53 people, what do I do?
Speaker 1:So I started calling all the places that I've been before the hotels, the resorts. I told them listen, my name is Moritz. I worked for you before when I was a student at the university. I got a bunch of friends I didn't say clients. I got my friends coming to Kenya and they wanna give back to the community. How can you help me host them? It was for nine days of safari. That could have cost, at least by ordinary tourist means, $7,000 per person, but we changed 2,500. Because when I spoke to the directors of all these resorts and hotels I was telling them you remember me, I was here, I got tourists to your place. I got a bunch of friends coming to help Kenya and people in Kenya and you give them a place to sleep and within a week I had Three hotels secured and a flight secured At the rate that made the local business people calling me and saying what are you doing when the store no industry, this is so cheap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, they upset at you because you went at 2500 instead of seven.
Speaker 1:I got a couple phone calls. I went to some hotels where they would call me aside and say the next trip do not check anything close to this because we're destroying the business for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but.
Speaker 1:I told them these are my personal friends, they're here to help, so that that's what you're doing when just there to help. So went to a Children orphanage. They are donated pens, books, we could. One hygienist got the chance to do actual dental work. She got there a week earlier, but most of us were just donating money, pens, books and speech to the kids there.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, man. That's amazing you. I mean, from you being an orphan yourself to Going and randomly helping a Russian or a Ukrainian guy which turned out to be an American guy, right, yeah, right. And and for you to be here nine years later to be. I mean, this is just a, this is just it. Could you could write a movie about this? You get, you can. I mean, this is, this is an unreal story, and I'm so happy that I'm able to share this with my audience. And so are you telling me that I can't put this podcast in Kenya because you're you're gonna get exposed that these are actually clients and not friends. What are my limitations here, man? Because I mean this is a great story.
Speaker 1:In Kenya. Very funny that you actually asked that because tonight, tonight, with a very good chance I may be meeting the vice president of Kenya is Washington. Dc visiting and somebody is Delegation. They have a tooth issue and they said there's a young man from Kenya living DC anything to do teeth. He may be the one to talk to and I I'm just here back and forth texting the vice president of Kenya. I'll to help them, so I don't think that's an amazing story.
Speaker 2:So so tell me, maurice, when is the next trip? When are you planning on taking another trip? Did all 53, by the way go to the trip where they all, they all, attendant?
Speaker 1:all the 53 attendant and our next trip is this June. We got fixed spots open, so the reason we have we could have taken on these people, but June is a prime month to travel to Africa Because everybody is trying to see the world beast migration, which is a prime man. The weather is perfect, it's perfect time to see the animals. So it's super hard to secure our tales spaces.
Speaker 2:Yeah and June.
Speaker 1:In June. So we got a space that's hoping for. We got like seven more spots to fail and in June we're going back there and we Going to my village, the actual village. The people coming with me I'm gonna show them the spot we are high up the American, ukrainian, russian tourists to push the jib. I'm gonna show them, because they're going to my village we're gonna be doing the dental.
Speaker 2:Well, you might get a lot of Kenyans starting to help tourists being stuck on the road because of this story, right? So you know that that's a great story. So tell us how someone can learn more about your trip in June and more about Safari and smiles. And what do you have planned for the next couple of years? Have you thought that far ahead as far as some of your goals and plans with this program?
Speaker 1:What's the fire? I'm been thinking about that and the only thing I can say Is that there's so much good in the world. There's so many good people in the world people like you. I mean, I'm spending an hour with you here. I'm sure you could be in your clinic. You could probably make so much money in your clinic dealing with that case right now instead of talking to me. So there's so many good people in good deeds in the world and we want to tap into that and Help build the world into a better planet.
Speaker 1:How are we gonna do that? Somebody like you or somebody else wants to go to Kenya. We don't want to limit the time for you that you have to come with us at this specific time. Our dream is to be able to build a clinic where we have volunteers that can go in anytime that the I bought, that the time allows and you can give back to the people there. Don't have to do a full mouth restoration, don't have to do other. Sometimes it takes a very job working seven hours to see you as a doctor and you pull out that bad tooth and they'll be grateful for life. So our plan is to have a clinic when we can give back to the local community, not just a clinic.
Speaker 1:Sometimes somebody needs a t-shirt on their face, somebody just needs a pen. A pen means a lot. I remember going to school writing notes for weeks and weeks because I didn't have a pen. So our plan is to have a permanent place. We are able to have people go back and give back to the people in the community over there and Also change the mindset of Americans. Like you said when we started, most people here. We are so spoiled we are, we have so much. We don't want to be drawing Clashing water bottle against the wall because the water is not cold. I want you to somebody to go there and see young kids working 20 miles to get some dirty water to drink. It changes your mindset of a person. It makes you appreciate life, it makes you just appreciative of everything. So our plan is really to be able to get as many people as we can to Africa to Give the people there with a smile on their face and you cut back with a smile on yourself.
Speaker 2:Marie's great story, man, and a great goal. You know, one of the things that Through, just through experience in life, I I appreciate people that like to give back to people and and really don't really ask for anything in return. I think that says a lot about the individual and your story is an amazing story. Living the American dream and Giving back to your community is is not something that everybody can do and it takes a special person, because the reality is you have to open the doors for yourself and sometimes luck does help. But who would have thought I mean maybe you were if you just asked for $3 or $10 from the tourists and they just give you $10 versus where you are today? You know, it's just it's it's amazing how life works and how Simple things lead you to places and areas that you never imagined yourself. So I I appreciate you being on this podcast, I appreciate your time and I appreciate you know what you're doing for your community and obviously, with dental professionals, giving them the opportunity to Appreciate where they are in America and and all that they have, and not to not to get upset if the water is warm. Right, let's just be happy that you have water and you're not being eaten by crocodiles. So you know great story.
Speaker 2:So, maurice, listen, I want to thank you so much for your time today. I know you got a busy schedule yourself and they need for people to learn more about what you're doing. Go to Safari in smiles, right? So Safari in smiles and Com, and then you want to follow Maurice and his group on Facebook and Instagram on Safari and smiles as well. And If I can help you in any way, maurice, you know you got my messenger so you can get a hold of me anytime, buddy, and I appreciate you today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you to from the time and I just want to thank you personally For including this time for me. I know you are very busy, professional, and Anybody out there that dream. There's many, many people with dreams bigger than mine, doing amazing things, much more amazing than I'm doing, and all I'm gonna say to them you just have to find a doctor safari and to your dream, somebody that is willing to Give you a platform to express your dream, and I'm really really heart-bound to be here. I know how long I into it to just even get a spot. If you are now busy, I've been talking about this to every all my patients are probably gonna be watching this because I've been telling them.
Speaker 1:You have to watch it, for this podcast is coming up. So just thank you to you, thank you to everybody out there. I was doing what you're doing and I really, really appreciate your time and please pass. I Want everybody to know that when you get to a position of Dr Shaheen, do not forget the people that Below you or behind you for coming after you. Do not be afraid to lift somebody else up. So, doc, I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I welcome man.
Speaker 1:I'm more than humble, just to be you're welcome, man.
Speaker 2:It was a great story and I appreciate you sharing that with our audience and we'll be in touch, man, we'll be in touch, I'm sure you know. I don't know if I you know, I'm sure as soon as I sign up for the safari and smiles thing and some friend of mine is gonna Send me a video of me being a man being in by crocodile and a lion right, I'm kidding, man, I'm kidding. All right, maurice, thank you so much, man. Have a great day, buddy.
Speaker 2:Look what a great story from being an orphan to having a dream, to by chance helping a tourist being stuck in the mud and Then now, nine years later, having the opportunity to share his story and doing great things. It was a great story and we need more people like him in this world and listen. We Americans need to appreciate what we have not take for granted, everything that's given to us in this country, in this beautiful country of ours. You know stories like him that should remind us how lucky we are. I'm dr Shaheen Safarian, shaheen's corner. Again, another episode, and we will have more episodes Coming in the future. We appreciate you and hope you have a great day.