Eye Glasses Clinic

A few months ago I took a few days to do some work for a Danish organization here in town. They had received a shipment of donated eye glasses from Denmark and needed some help organizing them. I went through all 3,000 or so glasses and organized them into their own little boxes by prescription strength. I knew they would be distributed in the village at some point, but since that day failed to come....I forgot about it. To my surprise, an American friend and Child Care worker, Fay, contacted me last week to let me know that the clinic was scheduled for the weekend and would I like to help out? Of course!

I left the project early on Saturday and met Fay at her office. We left together for the village church where the clinic was to take place. Since this is Uganda, we were late. But not really...since you're not "on time" here unless you're late. We set up in the church office and a trickle of people came in throughout the afternoon to get their eyes tested and receive their brand new glasses. Most of the people had problems with reading close up, but a couple needed help with seeing things far away. Most of the villagers who came were women, but a few were men and we had a couple children who had problems reading the board at school.

Since my writing skills seem to be going downhill fast, here's some pictures:






And baby David, who was thrown down a pit latrine when he was just a new born. He was rescued and is now being raised by the same organization. He's now four months old, laughing, crazy ticklish, making all sorts of noises, and wearing 12-month-old size clothes.