Friday was our last day of screening. We woke up early and head down the path to Adziwa. When we arrived there were already about 20 people sitting and waiting on us. I figured today would be a busy day since the community knew it would be their last chance to be screened and possibly get glasses. We started setting up our area for screening. I think we have gotten quite good at this after doing it each day this week. We all know what we need and where we need it and can pretty quickly get things moving. I began taking names and setting people up in the line. It’s been funny to me that the age question seems to be a difficult one for people to answer. In the USA we are so obsessed with our age and here it seems that most people over about 50 have no idea exactly how old they are. Most know the year they were born, but there was actually one woman who couldn’t remember that!
I’ll take a side note here on something I forgot to write in yesterday’s blog. When we were at Kauma screening teachers yesterday there was one teacher I was registering who I have known for the past 2 years. She has worked both years with my friend Kat King and she even took Kat to see her home on the last day of the teachers trip. Anyway she gave me her name and age and as it happens she is 40 years old. I’ll be turning 40 in January so I said to her smiling “oh! Your the same age as me!” She immediately turned to me and said “You are 40???” I told her I would be turning 40 in a few months and her response has stuck with me the past few days….here it is
“Oh!! You look much older than me!” I don’t think I need to elaborate on how this made me feel…..enough said 😉
Back to our last day of screening. Sai and Chimwemwe have been training with Gordon all week and both have really done so well! I am confidant they together can run a clinic now all on their own. This is the plan in the years to come. The screens seemed to take longer this day and I think it was that everyone we were seeing was over 50. Most needed the help glasses could provide and so finding the right set takes some time. We ended up only screening about 40 people but it took us just as long as it had taken to 50 or more on other days. Once the line was finished we began packing up and taking some pictures with our team. I’m sure Gordon will be sad to go on Sunday as I think he has taken to the folks who we have been training. We said our goodbyes and I told everyone there that I would be back next week to wrap things up and have some final meetings with James.
In total over 4 days we screened 219 and gave out 133 pairs of glasses. We have 9 people who needed prescriptions we couldn’t fill. I’ll be working on getting a plan together for those folks. All in all I think a very successful week!
The walk back was nice and we enjoyed being with Gordon as he had his final hike back to the village. Just as we got to the bottom on the Kumbali road I went up and he and Sai went back to the village. I needed to post a blog and wanted to call home and chat before my family left for the holiday weekend.
Around 3pm I walked back down to the village to meet with someone who is potentially going to work with our organization here on the ground monitoring the Adziwa project and doing some training with our community there in the gardens. I’ll update everyone more on that later. Exciting possibility though!
In the village a party was planned for the evening to celebrate Guys son John and his wife’s first anniversary. Gordon and I just happened to be lucky enough to be invited. About 20 people got together for a special dinner in the village. It was a Mongolian BBQ. This means there was a TON of fresh ingredients all chopped and some raw meat and rice and noodles. Each person created their own stir fry and got to cook it themselves. There were many different sauces and spices to add and it was incredibly fun to do and delicious! We listen to some music and then eventually I snuck off to bed. I had walked around 8k already that day so I was sleepy and just knew I needed to rest. I went into my hut and sat at the edge of my bed to take my shoes off. Luckily the generator was on because of the party in the village so I had a light on in my hut. Just as I slipped my shoes off I saw a little (huge) visitor walking across the mat….a little (BIG) spider friend. I let out a loud expletive and grabbed my sandal. I had no time to be afraid. WACK! And then I just sat there for a moment collecting myself…slowly I lifted the shoe to ensure I had In fact killed the visitor. Yup…done. I found a piece of paper and swept the little (enormous) spider out the door. What a way to end the day! Hope to post again tomorrow about today. It’s only about 10am and we still haven’t decided how we will spend Gordon’s last day. Thanks again to all those who follow the blog.