Day 6: Hodgepodge


Wow!  There’s so much to share and it’s overwhelming to try to write about it concisely.  Today was our last day of clinic for the trip.  We had our busiest day yet with 130 people fitted for glasses.  The final numbers haven’t been tallied yet, but that brings us somewhere near 450+ people served with more than 700 pairs of glasses and another 450+ pairs of sunglasses as well.


The attached video walks you through what our clinic looked like.  You enter into the courtyard and begin with the registration table.  Registrants then waited in the seating area of the courtyard where a short session on caring for your eye health was held and then the witness for Christ by either Pastor Rudy or Pastor David.  From there, registrants went to the nursing station where they discussed their eye health history and learned about the use of eye drops and received an eye dropper and a recipe for making their own eye drops.  Due to the altitude and the dust or dirt in many work environments, many of the people we saw have sore and dry eyes on a regular basis, and drops can be helpful.  From the nursing station, they were walked to the testing station, where we had two crews testing to determine their prescription.  Anyone who’s ever been to the eye doctor knows what this involves…this one or that one?  Number one or number two…


After their prescription was determined, they moved on to the pulling and dispensing station, where five of us worked to pull a selection of glasses at, just below, and just above where they tested.  Our testing flippers can only determine by the half measure, but we have glasses by the quarter measure, so the dispensing station is where we really nail down the best prescription for their final pick.  We also work to select glasses that are appropriate for gender and fit the face of each person.  Once the right pair of glasses - and sometimes two pairs if they need both reading and distance glasses  - has been selected, they move on to the final station, where fittings, repairs, adjustments, and cleaning take place.  Here, they also receive a glasses case and a pair of sunglasses, along with instructions for how to care for their glasses.  


This process is pretty remarkable when you think about it.  As a team, we are fitting and dispensing 15-30 pairs of glasses an hour.  So many of those we saw haven’t had glasses in a while and some had never had them, despite having terrible vision!


The ability to see clearly is definitely something we take for granted.


Tomorrow, we’re off to Antigua for a cultural day before heading home on Friday.  I look forward to sharing additional photos and experiences tomorrow!



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