Sometimes its the littlest things....

As Dr. Peter , Karen and myself began to prepare for the eye clinic in Singida we had much wonder about this clinic. We had no idea how many would show up, what the need would be for eyeglasses and further more, how many just wanted to come to see the "American's" who blew into town!!!

Our clinic was simple led by two very wonderful doctors who tried their level best to run an eye clinic on a daily basis in Singida. Dr. K and Dr. S did a great job with what they had. We had "toured" our clinic where we would be working everyday for a week and to my surprise it was a very small room. I think the entire working space we had was 10 meters long by 5 meters wide. Not a big place to do exams and set up a dispensary!!! As we pondered the first day how we would make this work, it became easily apparent that we would do our eye exams along one wall and set up our dispensary along the other. Mind you, there were 2 huge desks and 2 big tables that occupied this room already. There was no place to move these pieces of furniture. There was a couch and a bench and one big used examining chair!!! We shuffled all these pieces of furniture around and made this exam/dispensing room work!! I will tell you that from 12-3 this room got extremely HOT!!! We would have anywhere from 3-7 people in the room for exam and dispensing at a time!! The window cloth had to be put over the window at all time so Dr. Peter could test the "eyes" At one point, Karen and I felt we would both collapse ~ the heat was unreal and the door to the outside had to be kept shut!! We made it work!!

The people that came to this clinic ALL needed glasses. There were only a handful that did not qualify for anything. Cataract surgery is needed on a daily basis due to the closeness to the equator and their eyes literally getting "burned out" The remaining patients needed glasses for reading and distance.

We did "run out" of usable glasses at our clinic. Many that had been donated were not the right kind of glasses for our patients. We had a wonderful donator who sent over 1800 pair of sunglasses that we were able to distribute to everyone that came to visit ~ what a blessing this was for those who came!! By the end of the week as we walked around Singida we saw more and more people with our sunglasses on!!! Hopefully they know this is the only way to protect their eyes!!

I know I could work at this Hospital until I die and never be able to help everyone....the one week I was scheduled to work was fulfilling and life changing...it doesn't seem like enough, but sometimes its the littlest things that make a difference.

Until next time~

Cheers!