Tabi (my daughter), Perla (my granddaughter by a son), and I went to meet the group on Tuesday morning. After the FEDICE meeting, and lunch, we
all got on the bus to go to the community centers where we would be
working. The first thing that
impressed me was the drive up to the community. As the bus swayed back and forth on the cobblestone road, I
looked down on my side of road into the deep ravine immediately to the right of
the road. It strengthened my faith
right there….I was praying the whole time that driver knew what he was doing
and the bus wouldn't fall into the ravine. Later on, I found out there were ravines on both sides, and
the driver had to carefully miss the larger rocks and the steep gullies.
First we went up to the Methodist church to see where we
would be setting up the first eye clinic, where I would be working as a
translator. The view from the
church porch was fantastic, over the blue San Pablo Lake and the volcano of
Imbabura to the right. Next we
went back down the mountain to the new Children's center, which was built in
front of the old center where the Medical clinic was to be set up. Perla and Tabi would be translating for
the medical clinic, each in one room, with the doctor going back and forth
between the two rooms.
The rest of the group would be working on painting the new infant center to get it ready for the children this year.
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| Eyeglass Inventory |
The next day, we worked quickly to get the eye clinic set up,
the glasses put in order on the tables, the eye charts set up, and the distance
measured. I spent that first day
going between the front desk, the back where the glasses were, and the middle
room where the machine for looking into the eyes was set up. The work was constant but gratifying,
to see people who couldn't afford glasses leave the clinic with glasses
adequate to their needs. There
were big smiles on their faces, and grateful hearts….many wanted to shake all
our hands in gratitude. At the end
of the day, we had to take everything down, because the next day we would be in
the government center of the town on Gonzalez Suarez, at the foot of the
mountain.
The group decided to not go back to the hotel for lunch, as
it was taking too much time, so we took snacks for lunch the next day. We got set up as quickly as possible in
the government offices, and I spent most of my time that day with people who
only needed reading glasses. When
we had some people who didn't know how to read come in, I decided that we
needed some other method for seeing if the glasses were going to work, so we
got a needle and thread, and if they could thread the needle, then the glasses
would work for them.
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| Lisa Working With Mother And Child |
The next day, we set up the eye clinic in a house above the
Children's center, so we were very limited in space, with only two rooms. It seems the word had gotten round that
we were there, so we had more people than we could possibly attend to that
day. We also had some three-way
translation going on there, as we were working with people who did not even speak
Spanish, so we had a couple of people translate from Quechua to Spanish, then
Spanish to English, back to Spanish, and then back to Quechua. We used the needle and thread a lot
that day.
Every day, we saw almost 100 people, and I'm sure that about three fourths were given a pair of glasses, even if they were just reading glasses to
help tired eyes. The people were
very grateful, and are waiting for the next clinic.
From my point of view, the work group was a great success,
and we are looking forward to working with the people from Plano FCC again.
Lisa Renz, FEDICE volunteer
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