Donating Eyejusters in South Sudan, Part Three

Mobile Health International is an outreach program. Every week they travel to a nearby village, set up camp for a few days and provide medical aid to that community. During our stay in South Sudan we got to come along for an outreach to the village of Pure.

Even though Pure is not that far away from the EAM compound in terms of distance, it feels like a long drive to get there. There are not many paved roads in Kajo Keji (in fact, I don't know if there are any at all) and the dirt roads get pretty beat up by the rain.

Once we got to Pure we looked to find a suitable spot to set up the testing stations. We still had no walls and no roof. So we decided once again to stick the distance vision charts to the Landcruiser and to place a chair under the shade of  a tree.

Kristen, Lars and I tested people's vision for two days. MHI and WHI staff alternated between providing medical aid and translating and vision testing. We got to test a lot of people and to dispense a good number of glasses. We saw a lot of elderly people as many of the younger adults had gone to the market to prepare for South Sudan's first independence day.

My fondest memory is of testing an 18 year old mother. Her distance vision was good, but her near vision was terrible. She could not even see the first line of the near vision chart. It is hard for me to imagine how incredibly inconvenient so many everyday tasks must be for her. Cooking safely, sewing, examining her baby up close.

Singing a mix of French and Norwegian children's songs to keep baby girl happy while her mother was getting tested

We had her try on some positive power Eyejusters. The improvement was impressive! She was able to see clearly all the way down to the 11th line. And to see her baby clearly up close for the first time.

We had such a great time in Pure! We got to move way out of our comfort zone in terms of modern commodities and that is a very good thing. The camp was very nicely set up but I won't pretend that it a comfortable stay. Roughing it is, well, a little rough. Especially for camping novices such as ourselves :) I am so happy and grateful for this experience. The MHI and WHI crew were simply amazing.

Lots of love, K

Donating Eyejusters in South Sudan, Part Two

Once we felt confident with our vision testing skills we got to work testing some people in Wudu.

We started with the WHI team. They were drilling a well at a nearby school so we went over to check their vision. 

There aren't really a lot of buildings large enough or with good enough lighting to perform vision test indoors so we tested al fresco, using the LandCruiser as our wall. Fortunately the sky was cloudy that day so harsh sunlight was not a problem.

All the members of the WHI crew had pretty good vision and none of them needed glasses.

One of the children's mothers was around so we tested her as well. It was a little tricky because the children really wanted to be a part of it, and obviously we want the subject to do the test without others helping them.

You might be wondering why we didn't test any of the children that were hanging around us. Unfortunately the Eyejusters are not suitable for children under the age of twelve. 

***

Once that was done we went over to the Darfurian refugees who live across the road from the compound. They were very eager to get their vision tested.

We set up two testing stations, one on each side of the LandCruiser. We tested as many as we could, until the sun set and no-one could see the charts anymore, regardless of their vision.

Now this part gets sad.

The last person I tested was a 20 year old man named Moses. He was very enthusiastic and all smiles.

I pointed to the top line of the distance vision chart. He said he couldn't see it. I tried encouraging him. he smiled, looked at the people standing around him and said "No, I can't see it".

Great....I was stuck with the joker of the group. This kid must be having fun at my expense, but I am tired and I just want to go back to the compound. I looked over at Lars to see if he had any suggestions.

We figured we'd let him try some glasses and go from there. He was still smiling. The Eyejusters helped him some, but not enough. He was able to see the symbols down to the 5th line. It's an improvement, but still far from good.

Then I looked over at Moses and I saw that he was really sad. That's when I realized that he was not trying to have a laugh at all. He had just been really hopeful. And now he was devastated.

I felt like such a cynical bitch for thinking the worst of him. It was really hard knowing we could not help him properly. He had waited patiently while the others were tested and helped. Then when it was finally his turn the magic stopped, and he would not get the help he had hoped for.

On the way home I cried.

Now why would I choose to tell this story? It's a sucky story that does not paint the prettiest picture of the author.

Well, I am hoping that there might still be some way to help him. The Eyejusters maximum negative power is 4,5. If anyone reading this has a pair of old glasses that they are not using anymore with a higher negative power, I would love to get my hands on them. I'll send them to the MHI crew and they can go over to Moses and try them out. Any pair that ends up not being used will be donated to an organization that works with used glasses. Let me know by commenting or writing an email to karmoie@karmoie.com.

Lots of love, K

Donating Eyejusters in South Sudan, Part One

Let me start off by apologizing for taking forever to get this post up. I won't go into all the reasons I could give to justify this delay. We have so much to show and tell, so I have decided to divide it up into several posts. This makes the task of organizing all our footage and telling the story in a good way feel somewhat less daunting for me :)


I won't give you a day-by-day play-by-play of our trip. Quite frankly that would probably be of little interest to anyone other than my mother - Hei Mamma! :)


This post will mostly be about project planning.


As I have mentioned in previous posts we were partnering with East African Ministries to provide glasses in the area of Kajo Keji in Central Equatoria. EAM is the umbrella organization for the Radler Foundation's three East African initiatives: Water Harvest International, Mobile Health International and Leadership Development International. 


Kristen Hansen works for EAM and was in charge of coordinating our efforts (Kirsten and Kristen, that was pretty confusing... :)). She is so friendly, sweet and funny and great at her job! 


We had 270 pairs of eyejusters as well as 300 pairs of reading glasses to donate*.

Norma (middle), Opoka (right) and I (left) carrying the eyejusters out of the car. Opoka drove to the Ugandan border to pick up the glasses. Twice! The first day the bus carrying the shipment had broken down on the way and got delayed. When Opoka got back to the compund on the second day he told me: "Again and again I drive over there for nothing..." I almost started crying :) However Opoka can't keep his big smile in for very long. I was pretty relieved :)

We only had a week in South Sudan so to make the most of our time there we decided it would be best to prioritize training the local staff to dispense Eyejusters. They would be more efficient than us because most of them speak the local language. Also, there was no way we would be able to dispense all the 270 pairs of eyejusters in less than one week, so it was very important to make sure they would feel ready to take over when we left.

Training!

That was a pretty easy job :) They are very bright and really fast learners.

Kirsten the guinea pig :) Lars explains the near vision test to (from left) Violet, Richard and Gloria.

Kristen and I shot some film of Richard, Gloria and Violet practising. I have tried editing it, but this is my first time using iMovie so don't expect anything fancy :)

Gloria wearing her eyejusters

Kristen, Lars and I worked exclusively on testing vision and dispensing glasses. The rest of the people we trained on the MHI and WHI teams alternated between their regular duties and donating glasses.


Lots of love, K


* To clarify, we always donate eyejusters on behalf of our customers, the cost of the reading glasses for this project was covered by Lars and I personally. This is because we want to make sure the eyejusters go to people who really need that technology. A lot of people over the age of 40 just require a simple pair of reading glasses.

Kajo Keji

We are finally here! And it is amazing! We landed in Kajo Keji yesterday and were greeted at the airstrip by a crowd singing and dancing and playing instruments. Their bishop was on our plane and was coming back to the area after having been away for three weeks. So even though we weren't the reason they were singing it was still a wonderful welcome :)

A warm welcome :)

We are staying as guests at the MHI compound in the town of Wudu. The area looks like a postcard. Little huts with straw roofs, goats walking around in the fields and children saying "How are you?". This is the rainy season so everything is very green.

Grace took us to the market

The Eyejusters get here tomorrow so today has been a pretty relaxed day. We went into town with Grace and Kristen to exchange some money and visited the Saint Comboni mission. They have set up a sewing shop for local women with looms and sewing machines. They make some really pretty and colorful handbags under the label Lady Lomin (link here). I bought two, but I want to go back and get more.

Beautiful colors

I am trying to vlog while we are here. I have no clue as to how I will edit the footage. I also do not know if I will be able to upload with the internet connection we have here. We will find out... ;)

In other news, I left my DSLR on the plane, so the whole lens mess-up won't matter much :( I got upset for a second and then tried to see the silver lining: I still have my Canon G11, I have never quite gotten around to figuring out how to make it work for me and now I will have to grow to love it. Thankfully the people at MAF found it and are holding it for me until we get back to Kampala.

Lots of love, K

Africa

Images curtesy of MHI , Wikipedia and Google Maps

In exactly one week we will be leaving for Africa. We are donating glasses to a project in South Sudan. We are partnering with Mobile Heath International (link here) and they have graciously invited us to stay with them as their guests in Kajo Keji in the state of Central Equatoria .

I have been to Africa once before. We went to Tanzania with Lars' parents for Christmas in 2005. It was an amazing experience and, I will admit, a very pampered trip. I expect this one will be a little different :)

L&K in the Serengeti, 2005

We are both so excited and very happy to get the chance to immerse ourselves in the donation aspect of Karmoie! 


For my part I must admit to being a bit nervous. I have not practiced medicine these past few years and I feel more than a bit rusty. I have pulled out my books and plan to take some time to sit down and brush up before we leave. I am not going there to work as a physician, but would nevertheless like to be as useful as I can. Our contact person at MHI kindly sent me a little overview of the medical conditions they are most commonly faced with. If any of our doctor friends (any ophthalmologists out there?) have some recommendations regarding textbooks I should look into, please leave a comment below. I need all the help I can get :)

We have topped up on our vaccines and started getting our gear ready, but as Lars and I haven't really been camping or backpacking a lot, I suspect we still have some shopping to do. Any advice?

Lots of love, K