Miskele Ascno Ebo (age 14) recovering from corneal transplant.

 

from Tim Schottman, SightLife Chief Global Officer

 

5:49 AM in Arba Minch, Ethiopia. Life begins to stir before the sun touches the mountains above the Rift Valley. It begins with the donkey, its braying building to a crescendo. The birds break into a raucous quarrel and take flight, wings beating the air. Mosquitoes buzz, looking for the holes in the netting covering the bed. There's no sleeping late in Arba Minch, a town surrounded by the high mountains of southern Ethiopia.

 

It's our final day here volunteering at a clinic during an eye camp that has drawn close to a thousand patients from up to three days away. My dreams are filled with their images and stories. I will remember for a long time the lines of blind patients and their relatives, waiting many hours to see if their sight can be restored, the toughness of their lives etched in their faces, hoping these doctors will deliver a miracle.

 

The clinic staff and American and Ethiopia medical volunteers (led by SightLife Associate Medical Director Dr. Matt Oliva) have been working 12 hour days in suffocating heat for six days, establishing a production line of surgeries: 500 cataract, 14 glaucoma, and 9 cornea (corneas provided by SightLife). Patients press into the clinic clutching their chart and number as staff thread their way through the throng. Guards with sticks keep the crowd from rushing the clinic. Most bear the wait and heat with calm but eventually tempers flare and fighting erupts, only to be dispersed by the militia firing shots in the air.

 

Dr. Tilahun, Dr. Oliva, Dr. Yewbanesh, and Melese Dele Shanko (parentless 18 year old) celebrate his successful corneal transplant.

 

We pull some corneal patients from the line to interview. A 38-year old woman, back hunched over, looks to be in her seventies. She is blind in both eyes and depends on her children to support her daily needs. Soon she will receive a transplant.

 

An 18-year-old boy, the size of an 11-year-old, whose parents died at five, is then thrown out by his relatives, cursed by his grandmother, and becomes blind in both eyes by age 12. He, too, will be selected for a transplant.

 

As each day of camp begins, surgical patients from the day before line up to have their bandages removed and be examined by the doctors. Their relatives line up behind them. It's a magical moment of celebration or quiet relief as patients begin to see. This is a country with huge social and economic challenges facing people in their everyday lives. Restored sight erases the burden of caring for a non-productive family member in a land where every hand must contribute toward survival. 

 

The morning after surgery: patients wait for bandages to be removed and the surgeons' review.

 

As we interview people, asking them to dream of what they would like to do the most when they regain their sight, their dreams are modest: support my family, work and buy another set of clothes, do the daily functions I can no longer do.

 

Things in Ethiopia are clearly improving so perhaps these dreams will expand in the years ahead. Mostly, this is a country notable for the tremendous warmth of its people. Laughing, curious children join us for the walk home from the clinic, hold my hand, practice their English, and quietly tell me their dreams of going to the university. I fervently hope for these dreams to come true.

 

Thank you for your support!

 

Tim Schottman
Chief Global Officer