Dr. Kim Tsang leads our team of Jill, Veronica, Linda and Kim's partner Dave on an eyecare project to Colima, Mexico!
The Journey starts tomorrow and our eye care team will arrive in Manzanillo late Saturday afternoon and be in their base of Cofradia de Suchitlan, just north of Colima a few hours later. The eye care project begins in earnest Sunday morning. Our team in conjuction with other volunteers from the U.S & Canada will be working with Project Amigo and will travel to numerous areas to provide free eye care and glasses to around 1200 people in need over the next week, for whom this can be a life changing experience (and for us as well!)
We work hard all year to fundraise for these projects but the team that goes also use their own funds and their vacation time to help others. Any contribitions to our efforts are always welcome and appreciated!
All of us at Coastal Eyecare are very proud and inspired by our team.
We are going to post an ongoing blog from our team as we get updates from them so keep checking back for more news!
Saturday Jan.9, 3:00am
The trip to the big city went very smoothly. It was a 'cozy' ride where we all rode in Jill's car. (we all managed to fit our luggage in her trunk.) Us girls are having a wonderful time with girl talk, Dave has been enjoying the sites and staying neutral in the fashion disputes. Jill got us safely to White Rock. We enjoyed a nostalgic walk in the rain (just so we can appreciate the sunny and +28 weather when we go to Mexico) and got some dinner.
We tried practicing our Spanish... TRIED is the operative word... Practicing key phrases such as "I'm sorry" and "Where is the washroom?"
We all called it a night at 8:00.
The excitement grows with every minute. We all want to be beamed to Mexico instantly, however, we begin our long journey to Manzanillo (Veronica is awake already!). I am very excited to meet the other volunteers in LA and hear about their past experiences, and perhaps learn some proper Spanish.
We are very honoured and excited to represent Eyes Around The World (EATW), Coastal Eyecare and Canada.
Time to head for the airport.
Kim
5:00am at YVR. Adios Amigos, we're ready to trade the moose for an iguana!
Only another 14 hours of travel today, the adventure continues below..JPG)
5:00am YVR:
For anyone who will be travelling to or through the US,
please give yourselves a lot of time. It took 1.5 hours to get from
counter through customs. Man bags are not allowed as purses (sorry
guys) and everyone's bag gets throughly opened and handsearched.
Veronica was the lucky winner of a random security check by US customs.
10:33am- LA
We are now aboard the Airplane and just one more leg of our trip until
we are in beautiful Mexico!
Here is just a recap of our plane ride to LA. Linda was dedicated
with her studies and finished 6 chapters of English grammar (she is
concentrating on the wrong language on this trip...), Veronica, and
Dave slept. Jill chatted up with the passengers inquiring about our
lime green T's.
We were anxious to take off until we heard an announcement about all
luggage from Vancouver being delayed until manana! We gasped we
quickly looked for our travel insurance benefits and realized we would
just have to wash our current pair of undies for tomorrow. This is
something to note for our next EATW trip- travel insurance with baggage
delay insurance is important!
Luckily they were swayed by our Canadian charm and held the plane for
all our Vancouver luggage!
We haven't yet come across any of the other Project Amigo volunteers,
of which half are sharing this flight, but we anxiously await to meet
some new friends very shortly.
6:00 Manzanillo
We landed and were greeted the wonderful sun, heat and humid weather
with the palm trees waving hello. The border guards are much
friendlier than our previous experience, they make each family push a
button and you will get either a red light (meeting the man with the
rubber glove) or the green light (pass go, collect $200).
The bus is full of rotarians and volunteers from Washington, Oregon,
and Alberta. Many have been involved with other Project Amigo work
weeks. Our green shirts catch everyone's eye and stirs up lots of
questions. We have become the Vision Week celebrities - most
volunteers are from other professions and businesses so they will be
relying on our knowledge of optics and eyecare.
Everyone is so friendly and excited. Our busdriver, Diego is taking us
to the village. We are enjoying the beautful scenery with a choice
cold beverage. The ride is 3 hours long, but time is flying!
10:10pm Hacienda
The remainder of the bus ride was filled with laughter and shared
stories of past volunteer experiences. Dr. Kurt Wilkening, the
optometrist who pioneered Vision week for Project Amigo has a
contagious enthusiasm and excitement for our up coming week. His
passion for the people of Colima is heard with all the stories he
shares as he points out the roadside landmarks such as the
cockfighting stadium, the bull riding arena, iconic Colima dog
statues, and of course the active volcano that towers over Colima.
The Hacienda is in the middle of the village of Cofradia.The bus
ride into town never had a dull moment as Diego manuvered the Project
Amigo bus (see below) through very narrow cobblestone roads. As we unloaded in
front of the Hacienda, the gates opened to a magical courtyard of a
beautiful outdoor kitchen, waterfountain, flowers, complemented by
the great smell of supper being prepared.
We have time before dinner to explore and get settled, where we
discovered a room with walls covered in Rotary flags from all over,
including Ladysmith and Port Alberni.
We were greeted with church bells and fireworks, which signalled us to
witness a parade honoring Guadalupe, the patron Saint of Mexico. We
are fortunate enough to come during fiesta week, when the streets are
filled with music, dancing and singing.
Next, dinner is served. We are well fed and watered with some of the
best Mexican food you could imagine. They then get us more excited as
Project Amigo staff Tom Brown and Susan Hill give us a wonderful
orientation and presentation on the history of the group and the
various work weeks they have throughout the year, including a sneak
peak of Vision Week.
I lay in bed after a 20 hour day, I am exhausted, but full of energy.
We haven't even started, but have experienced more than we could have
imagined at 5:00am this morning.
Buenas noches,
Kim
Day 2 - Sunday Jan.10
5:30 am -Hacienda
Well, I tried to get more sleep, but to no avail. The roosters have
been serenading the whole village since 4:00am - they are insistent
that everyone follow their timeline. The town is now continuing their
celebrations honoring St. Guadalupe. The chuch bells are ringing, the
fireworks are firing, and what sounds like a full marching band is
playing on the streets of Confradia (I wonder how the others are doing
trying to sleeping though the festivities).
Take a look at our itinerary - it all truly starts today! We have a
jam packed week, but we are so thankful to be here. Our seasoned
traveller, Jill says that this has already been an expeience better
than any all inclusive resort could offer. And there is so much more
to come!
11:00 am- Project Amigo bus
The group has divided up for the morning. A small group of Vision week veterans are busy finalizing the inventory of glasses for our clinics, and the majority of us are getting a tour of the various successful programs that Project Amigo has been involved in.
We just left the village of Queseria. Tom was wonderful with explaining the village history. It is a migrant community of Native Mexicans who come from southern Mexico for part of the year to work in the sugar cane fields. Project Amigo built a school and pays a full time teacher to provide education to the young children who do not have access to the normal school system because they arrive and leave outside of the cutoff days. The children were curious to see us while the adults seemed intimidated and hid in their camps. Tom opened the school yard for the tour and the kids poured in for a chance to play on the swing sets. Veronica was so busy giving fun pushes on the swing sets, she missed the chance to see the beautiful classrooms with the tiny chairs and handmade crafts in the kindergarten room.
The community is very impoverished. The camps are a bare 10x10 cement rooms with only one window, each camp had courtyards made of sheets of tin and tar, of which the tenants built to try and have more living space for their families. Most children were without shoes. They are provided only one new set of clothes a year during Christmas fiesta, which is made possible by another Project amigo work week.
A very special moment was when one of our volunteers, Maryanne, found her sponsor child and personally gave her a pink calculator for her favorite subject in school in her favorite color. Some of us were moved to tears seeing this first hand. It was very difficult to witness. You cannot help but feel helpless as the amount of poverty is beyond what any of us could solve.
11:30 Casa Amiga
This is a boarding house built by Project Amigo for college students going to the University of Colima. This is an inspirational place as these students come from a successful program, the students started in kindergarten classes provided by Project Amigo. Students stay on scholarship money donated by Rotarians and alumni. It is a beautiful house run by a lovely house mother, Chala. She provides healthy meals and takes care of the house (something every college student dreams of, I'm sure!) The house has an 18 student capacity, but more rooms are needed. It is a dream of Project Amigos to build a second story for more study space and more dorm room and an exercise facility to promote healthy living. This one of many places to donate to and for which local Rotary clubs can help out Project Amigo.
12:00 Colonial Rotaria
This is a community built entirely on Rotary club donations from the US and Canada with a matching grant program. They were able to build 50 homes, a community centre, a park for kids and a cyber cafe exclusive to the community. I think the most amazing story here is that after a few years of help by the Rotarians and Project Amigo, this community was able to become self-sustaining with its own home owners association! After the people have lived in their homes (of which they receive by a lottery process) for 5 years, they are given the title to their home and have the rights to sell their property. Project Amigo has helped to make them become true home-owners. We now head to the Colima Rotary club where we begin our work. We are geared up and inspired by all the good the previous projects have done. We are excited to make our own contributions.
7:30 Project Amigo bus
We just completed our first afternoon of seeing patients. We were all assigned our stations. Let's recap each station and find out where our EATW team was...
Station 1: Registration
The patients are screened by the government welfare program and are given a ticket that qualifies them to be seen. This station was manned by local volunteers.
Station 2: History
Here is where their chief complaint and medical history is taken by local volunteers. One of the volunteers taking history was a graduate of the Colima Medical School as a Project Amigo scholar. It's is an inspiration and truly shows that the program works!
Station 3: Blood Sugar & Blood Pressure.
We had a little conversion mishap at this station. It would be similar to interpreting - temperature readings as Celsius, when actually it was reading in Fahrenheit... We quickly cleared that up!
Station 4: Acuities
Jill used her expertise here and measured and recorded near acuity. She made many of her patients laugh when she said "No hablo espaniol".
Station 5: Dilation and Dominant Eye
I gave a tutorial session with these volunteers on how to determine dominant eye, and the best techniques to instill drops. They then asked me to translate the directions to give to patients - "No hablo espaniol".
Station 6: Auto refraction
Two auto refraction machines made it easier to determine prescriptions and interpret the data from the previous stations also.
Station 7: Doctors
We performed medical exams, interpreted the data and counseled the patients. I had the pleasure of meeting Alex, a local Colima optometrist who has been volunteering his time with Project Amigo for 8 years. We quickly had so much to talk about. We shared stories and I learned how different optometry is in Mexico. I was thrown headfirst into this. Alex and Kurt were away tending to other volunteers, when the first patient sat in my chair. I was lucky to have an excellent and experienced translator (or I would have been doing charades all afternoon). This station is about tending to the patient's chief complaint, check for health issues and triage those to doctors and surgeons when needed.
Station 8: Computer Inventory
Dave was put to work with his computer expertise. The donated glasses are well organized using a computer inventory system which finds the available glasses that best match the patient's prescription. There has been a big glitch where the inventory has not been entered and sorted properly. It was up to Linda and Veronica to help at the dispensing station. Dave is in the process of trying to solve the computer problem.
Station 9: Dispensing
Veronica and Linda were priceless additions to the dispensing group. With the inventory so out of order, some of the glasses were filed wrong. Linda said, "We got prescriptions that read -3.00, but glasses from the computer were a +5.00." They helped train some of the new people in how to do basic screening of these errors. The girls said they were also very thankful for translators to educate the patients how to use their new glasses- they couldn't have done it without them. Linda said she wished she knew more Spanish; it would have been so much more rewarding to know what they will do with their new glasses. Perhaps Coastal Eyecare Spanish classes for the 2011 EATW team?
Station 10: Counseling
Local volunteers educate the patients on specific medical conditions, gave pamphlets about these conditions and/or refer them on for treatment to their family doctors or ophthalmologist.
Thoughts on the first clinic day:
There is definitely a lot to practice and learn still, but we managed to see 60 patients today, just enough to get our feet wet. Tomorrow we are scheduled to see about 240 people, a lot of opportunity to learn and practice! It was special to see all these grateful people. The patients were all washed up and dressed in their Sunday best. Everyone was very happy to be having their vision problems dealt with. There is still a desire to have fashionable glasses, about which some patients had voiced their concern. One lady pointed at Jill's glasses and asked if there were any in the boxes like that for her. There were advanced stages of disease such as diabetes, cataracts and pterygia - all of which were referred for surgery. Many of these patients do not get proper medical care or don't know they have a life threatening condition such as diabetes.
11:30- Hacienda
We have made it back to our home. We are welcomed by another delicious authentic Mexican meal, followed by an educational session about a famous Mexican export. With both a lecture and lab component, we are now experts in this exotic treat. Please ask us personally for a tutorial, as there is much to learn. Outside the Hacienda, the festival continues. Kurt encourages us to go out and experience the festivities first hand. Jill, Veronica, Linda, Kurt and I met cowboys on horses, rode on some carnival rides and shot our first BB guns. I got to enjoy my first Churro, which is a deep fried doughnut-like treat. What an experience today was, and so much more to come! But first, some sleep!
Buenas noches
Kim
Day 3, Monday, January 11
This blog entry was truly heart breaking… not necessarily because of the stories, but because I lost the file and had to retype it 3 times.
Enjoy!
10pm Hacienda
We have come to the end of another successful day and our first full clinic day.
We saw 210 patients between 10:00am and 6:00pm. The stations and its volunteers were running like a well oiled machine, though at the start of the day, we were anticipating disaster with the glasses inventory.
The new database for the donated spectacles was a complete mess. Not only were the computer's record of the glasses prescription mismatched with the label, but the label was mismatched to the true prescription of the glasses! We were anticipating donating only readers, and leave a lot of people without the glasses they needed. However, three of our computer and technical experts solved the problem of the mislabeled and misfiled inventory! Bravo!! I can't imagine what we would have done otherwise.
The dispensary has some of the most memorable and rewarding stories. Veronica got cheers from a group of elderly ladies when she tried to speak Spanish. She successfully dispensed a +12.00 prescription and the whole station witnessed this patients eyes light up as her world became clear and full of happy people's faces. Linda received many hugs of gratitude, and had a few moments where she did not have a translator with her, she is getting better with her Spanish. Jill jumped in to help operate the auto refractor and label the most recently donated glasses from one of our volunteers. Dave also got into the action as he was asked to help manage the large number of people in the dispensing station. He got survival skills in adjustment, optics, and patient counseling. Linda was so impressed, she made him an honorary optician to be available on call at our office.
The dispensers also made 3 brand-new custom made glasses. Kurt developed a system with completely spherical frames he designed and pre-cut blanks with high cylinder prescriptions. The lenses were custom chosen and inserted into the frame, and then the astigmatism was rotated to the proper axis for the patient! This is the test drive vision clinic for this system, but I think he's on to something. It was truly amazing!
Prior to all the excitement in the dispensary is the doctor station. I saw approximately 100 patients on my own. First, I helped the patients visually with glasses prescriptions based on their chief complaint, their visual acuities, and their auto refraction or retinoscopy. Many of their needs were met with just simple over the counter reading glasses. To put it into perspective, something that is so easy to access to us we can take for granted, yet just one pair can reopen the door for patients who had given up reading or sewing. In many cases, we have given the patients back their ability to help support their families.
Next was health portion of the eye exam. Diabetes is a serious and widespread problem amongst the locals. Too many blood sugar readings I saw were higher than I'd ever seen or thought possible without a diabetic coma. Basic patient education on proper diet and medication control goes a long way. I wish I had spoken Spanish to give the patients this information. However, given the language and time restraints, I left that to a referral to their family doctor (welfare would provide one if they did not have one already) who will hopefully provide them with the proper information and medication they need. Unfortunately, I will never know how these patients do, or if they get the care they truly need.
Half way through the day, some welfare officials of Colima came and gave a formal presentation thanking all the volunteers of vision week. They provided us all with gifts hand made by a seniors group. It was very touching when the patients in the clinic cheered and applauded when the doctors were named, and when they were informed that the volunteers were from Canada and USA. (this is a rough translation based mostly on an educated guess and my very limited Spanish picking up key words - such as when they mentioned my name). This is just an example of all the positive energy and enthusiasm that was fuelling us all day.
After 9 hours of non-stop work, and over 200 patients later, we don't feel any more tired than a regular day of work. The happy patients, and hugs and constant gratitude was so re-energizing. It was such a natural high.
Here is something I learned today learned from the people of Mexico - be patient. The locals line up outside of our clinic doors in the warm sun, waiting to be seen and receive their glasses. The doctor's station did get backed up a few times, where we had over 20 patients sitting and waiting to be seen. Not once, though, did I ever get a grumpy man or woman sit in front of me. I was always greeted with smiles and handshakes. Then after, we would hear many patients cheer in the dispensary as their patient number was called to get glasses, even though they'd been there already for 2 hours.
We head to bed certain we've made a difference in many people's lives and earned a good nights sleep. Tomorrow we head to Cerro de Ortega, a village on the coast for another long day of work. We were pre-warned that it’s going to be HOT! We anticipate that it’s going to be another truly successful and rewarding day.
Hasta manana,
Kim
Day 4 - Tuesday, January 12
9:30pm - Hacienda
It’s now day 4 in our adventure, and fatigue has really hit. After a frustrating evening and morning fighting with the computer to write my blog, I lost a few hours of sleep and missed the routine morning walk that usually wakes me up. Still, the day was a rewarding and fun in the end.
The drive to Cerro de Ortega was the longest bus ride in our week. I had the pleasure, however, of driving out to the coast with Ted and Susan, the founders and leaders of Project Amigo. Ted and I had in depth discussions on how to do further fundraising and how EATW can help Project Amigo in our next trip. There are so many ideas and projects we have hopes for, not only with our local Rotary clubs, but also with some of the Rotarians that we have met through this trip and with clubs in places such as St. Albert and San Francisco. Ted and Susan are amazing and truly inspiring people. The list of the work they have done and lives they have changed through Project Amigo continues to grow every minute we are here. I can't wait to share all these ideas buzzing around my head when we get home.
Here are some highlights from today:
1. Today's clinic was sponsored by Grow bananas, an organic banana company. The company has a vision to support their employees and provide care and education. GROW stands for "giving resources and opportunities to workers" they leased and built an education center for young kids, which is run by Project Amigo. I'll never look at a banana the same at the grocery store - buying organic can do good in more than one way.
2. We saw many children at today's clinic. Many young kids at schools who have never had their eyes tested. Many kids were very healthy and had good vision, and most seemed disappointed that they did not need glasses. One exception was a young boy who was told he didn't need glasses, he raised both his hands up in rejoice as if he was a lottery winner!
3. I saw some unique ocular conditions, some of which I'd never seen before. Kurt and I are both inquisitive and pooled our minds together to solve some of the mystery diagnoses. He loves the weird and unique stuff as much as I do.
4. The clinic ran much smoother today than yesterday. There were no longer any bottlenecks at any of the stations. Kurt spent the day observing all the different stations of the clinic and gave pointers to help make it more efficient.
5. A good number of our patients spoke fluent English. Susan later explained that a lot of families moved to the states for more opportunity, but have been forced to move back due to the downturn in the economy. It was nice to be able to explain in more detail to the patients in English, but I did try to practice my Spanish.
We saw a total of 221 people yesterday. We kicked back and enjoyed our evening with the locals of Cofradia, it was the pinnacle of the festival of Guadalupe (which was organized by the Mayor of Cofradia, who is 24, and a recent graduate of the Project Amigo scholarship program). The night started as it had all the nights prior with fireworks, music, and dancing in the town square. As we entered the square, we saw a very tall bamboo structure. Later in the evening, the bamboo structure was lit and the fireworks attached revealed a beautiful light display. This was called a Castillo, a firework castle. The peak of the fireworks show was the virgin Guadalupe with her crown, which lit and shot up straight up in the air as everyone cheered. The town of Cofradia does not have any public liability issues as there were no safety measures and some observers stood directly under the Castillo. Veronica was standing in the direct path of one firecracker and it made her do a little dance as it burned erratically her feet. What an exciting night!
Our adventure continues tomorrow. More stories to come shortly.
Adios,
Kim
Day 5 - Wednesday, January 13
8:30 Project Amigo bus
We finished what we agree has been the most rewarding day so far. Not only because we've seen the most number of people in a day yet, but there have even been some tears shed.
At the doctor's station, the 3 doctors had one of the hardest tasks of finalizing the prescription, but we never get the reward of seeing the patient with their glasses at the end. I had one patient who had a +5.00 prescription. I was selfish and trial framed the prescription to see her smile and say "muy claro!" and have her hug me and shake my hand with gratitude.
Another memorable patient was a 96 year old man with a prescription of +13.00 . When he put his new glasses on, it was so cool to see how happy he was to see again. There were lots of cheers in the dispensing station at that point.
Veronica fit a patient with -6.00 glasses. There was an instant transformation. She said to Veronica (translated) "you've completed my life. You were sent from God."
Some of the most fun we had was solving the problem of fitting some difficult prescriptions with our limited selection. We calculated a few monovision corrections with one pair of simple reading glasses. I felt like an engineer trying to build something with little resources in creative ways. So fun!
We enjoy a quiet evening as we head into the second half of our trip. It's sad to think that our adventures are half over. We are happy to share these experiences with you all. Thank you for reading my blog thus far and supporting us. Stay tuned for more shared memories.
Buenas noches,
Kim
Did I forget to tell you something?
You may have still be wondering - exactly how many patients did we see today? Can anyone guess? ....260!
NOW it's bed time!!
Day 6 - Thursday, January 14
Today, we set out a goal as a group to break the record of most number of patients seen in a day. Everyone worked very hard. We become more efficient every day and today we provided care to 270 patients!
Today I recall some really heartbreaking cases. We saw many people with diseases that had gone untreated and will become blind. Patients as young as 42 with diabetes who have gone blind from diabetes affecting the eyes. Many people just don't have the knowledge to help themselves. We are fortunate to know the consequences of unmanaged disease and to motivate them to control their blood sugar.
Patients with untreated glaucoma and who have no sight left couldn't even detect a trace of the bright lights we shone in their eyes. Kurt has said that the cost of the eye drops used to manage the disease makes it impossible to manage glaucoma.
These are just two examples for me of how important it is to manage our health in a proactive way such as eating healthy and also getting regular medical and eye exams. Blindness could have been prevented for these patients.
One little girl truly touched the hearts of the volunteers. I had the chance to see 5 year old Cindy. She was a beautiful cute little girl who had an incomplete development of one of her eyes. She was SO fortunate that the critical part of her vision, her macula, still developed so she was able to see with the help of some glasses. She asked if I spoke both English and Spanish, and I sadly said no. She was very curious about things we did. At the dispensing station, she smiled from ear to ear - "I look so pretty in my new glasses" her translator interpreted as Linda helped her. These moments gave me strength during the really tough cases.
I saw something that is so common to us, but never would have thought I'd see on an eye care project: Contact Lenses. We were so fortunate that Jill, with her many years of experience, saw the patient wearing contact lenses! The patient proceeded to get tested after removing the lenses. This is just another example of how essential the experience and training of our staff had been for the volunteers.
Veronica and Linda have continually given advice on prescriptions, adjustments, and educating patients on glasses. Many of the patients say they would have otherwise received glasses that would not have been appropriate, or would not have known how to use. They have even dispensed a couple pairs of progressives. Great job ladies!
Dave has been actively seeking opportunities to practice his Spanish and expand his vocabulary. One particularly memorable story started when he had an older gentleman who needed reading glasses. There was only one left of the power he needed, which was a large pair of aviator style frames. The man seemed to reject them and said "chaquita?” Dave, surprised to think that the man thought these glasses were feminine, said "no guapo"! Another selection of smaller, more feminine frames was placed in front of the patient; he obviously favored these frames. Dave tried to tell the patient that the larger pair was more masculine, but the patient would not have it. It wasn't until the translator came to inform Dave that "chaquita" means "smaller" that Dave realized the patient did not have a backwards sense of fashion and style. Keep working on your Spanish Dave, meanwhile make sure you always have a translator with you :)
We are near the end of our trip. We feel like our work is just beginning, there is so much more work to do. Kurt said we are close to breaking another record for most number of patients seen in total for Vision week. It's an exciting goal that we are determined to achieve.
Stay tuned.
Kim
Day 7 - Friday Jan 15
Today started much like all our other work days, sadly knowing though, that it would be our last. Our whole team has learned a lot throughout the week about optics and eye care. We shared all this experience with the people of Pihuamo at a beautiful facility.
The highlights of the day include some truly heart breaking stories as well as some heartwarming ones - all with the potential to make you a little teary. One patient made Veronica cry. She was a 17 year old girl, with a very high prescription. She has had crossed eyes all her life and is only in the 5th grade because she cannot advance, possibly due to limited vision. We did not have glasses to accommodate her prescription, and she had to leave without any. Kurt generously offered to make a new pair of glasses for her and mail them to her. I hope to hear how she does.
An unexpected situation arose as I overheard Alex, our local optometrist, ask a patient if she spoke Spanish. She responded with a thick southern accent "no, just English". What are the chances where you have an English only speaking patient on an eye care project in Mexico, to end up with the Spanish speaking doctor when we had two English speaking ones? Many of the volunteers later reflect that they had a difficult time with some of the patient instructions in English, and ended up mixing in their Spanish vocabulary.
The girls had our own little adventure as we decided that some shopping needed to be done (actually, Veronica was the one who said "Needed", the rest said "it'd be nice, but not necessary"). We found some really fun and memorable items on our adventure!
Dinner tonight was special. Our innkeeper Tom presented each volunteer with a personalized gift, reflecting some memorable moments throughout the week. The funniest one being Jill's memory. Jill had the broadest Spanish vocabulary out if the 5 of us. She spoke with the patients and asked many questions. She would always ask how old they were by saying, "Cuanto anos tienes?" for everyone who reads Spanish, no accents are missing. All her patients said they were one year old. Ask Jill one day what she was actually saying to her patients. She was awarded a certificate on Spanish pronunciation for her great work.
It was a tear filled evening. Tom's speech helped us reflect on all the work we'd done, the lives we've touched, and all the people we'd shared the gift of sight with. The optometrist Alex spoke up and reminded us how important our work was: "The first step to good vision is to get the eyes examined, which many of these people have never had. You can walk with a wooden leg, eat with false teeth, but you cannot see with a glass eye..."
We said goodbye to the local friends we'd made - so many goodbyes exchanged means you don't want to leave. All are passionate and selfless people who've come together in service of humanity and friendships were built by working together to help others.
As a team we helped 1264 Mexicans in need, a record breaking vision week.
Tomorrow, we will have a relaxing day of tourist activities, including some time at the beach! The forecast calls for sunny 29C weather. A good wind down before we head back to Canada.
Kim
Day 8 - Saturday January 16
Our relaxation day was yet another memorable one. We started the day by visiting a local mask maker who was the 3rd generation mask maker in his family. The masks are carved out of solid wood and he makes gorgeous animal masks and other types of beautiful and absolutely unique faces. Many from our group fell in love with his art instantly, and bought a piece on the spot, others had already bought pieces on previous trips and just enjoyed his latest pieces.
Next, we headed to the coast where we first visited a turtle preserve. Much like the fish hatcheries back home, this turtle preserve takes eggs from the turtles that return to this Mexican beach, and incubate them in a safe setting to try and increase their survival rate. We had the amazing opportunity to release some baby sea turtles into the ocean. It’s incredible how these infant creatures two inches in size have the instinct to paddle their way to the unforgiving infinite ocean.
Later, we head to a breathtaking seafood restaurant on the beach to enjoy lunch and a very brief amount of beach time. The water was warm, the beach was endless sand. The only unfortunate part was we only had a short 40 minutes on the beach to enjoy the clear skies and ocean breeze.
We parted ways with Kurt and some others that were heading to Manzanillo for a few days of rest and holidays. Kurt and I both expressed how we hope that this will be the beginning of a long friendship and just the first of many eye care projects we will share together.
The remainder of the group went back to our home in Cofradia for one last time. We enjoyed one final amazing homemade Mexican meal, savoring each bite. Jack, a veteran of Project Amigo work weeks said "... Vision week was the most rewarding work week I have done. When I saw that the last few patients at my station, I was sad that it was all over. I wanted to keep going..." Mark and Siofra spoke highly of the help and fun they had working with Veronica and Linda, "...without them, the dispensing station would have been a disaster. Many of the patients would have gone home with the wrong glasses, or poor fitting ones. Linda was so patient whenever we needed help."
Tomorrow we leave our friends in Cofradia at 7:30am to head for the airport in Manzanillo and get to our beds in Vancouver around 2:00am.
What an incredible experience. I've tried to capture the highlights of the week, but I know there is still so much to recap. I look forward to sharing these with everyone in person when we return to Vancouver Island.
Hasta Luego!
Kim
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