I Care, U Care, We All Care For Eye Care

Most of those who came to Guatemala’s grandest-ever eye jornada were born in a war zone, or in its cooling aftermath. Some were refugees daring to re-don traditional garb that was once considered subversive. Some had rarely even seen eyeglasses, much less seen through them; the eye-tingling splendor of the Western Highlands was for them as much a blur as had been, for years, the hope of peace.

Peace has its dividends, and war, its levies; one levy was a stunt on progress so acute that in 2006, ten years after the close of the 35-year Civil Conflict, all of Sololá province lacked a single optometrist. Today there are four and, for one week in April, triple that. They, and a company of other volunteers, brought light into eyes dimmed by war and its lingering privations. One did not need a month’s wages – nor even a minute’s – to own glasses.

The jornada (health fair) idea began with Dr. Patricia Cole, headmistress of Panajachel’s experimental Chinimayá school, and her friend, Chicago optometrist Philip Ortiz. Dr. Ortiz is the co-founder of ICareInternational, a California-based foundation that dispatches optometrists, surgeons, support personel – and mounds of eyeglasses – to wherever they are needed in Latin America.

Trip organizer Lance Kinney, who chronicles ICare missions with his camera, was personally recruited by Ortiz while doing contract work on the latter’s house. “I asked Phil what he did. When he told me about his ICare teams, I enlisted.” Like everyone else, Kinney had to travel light to Guatemala in order to leave room for his share of glasses.

Social Worker Dave McClure, a 20-year veteran of ICare jornadas, was another personal convert. “I grew close to Phil, my own optometrist, after getting a cornea transplant. I discovered that he was making these trips on his own nickel, helping people who otherwise had no hope of seeing well. So I started going along.” McClure’s role is operating a gadget that identifies the parameters of donated eyeglasses.

ICare collects tens of thousands each year, more than they can give away. Some come through the Goodwill and the Salvation Army; others are seconds, discontinued styles, or “blems” (perfectly functioning frames with minor flaws.

“The average retail for eyeglasses is $150,” says Dave’s wife, Colleen. “But on this trip we’ve given away Christian Dior, Prado, Calvin Klein and the like, for which the frames alone cost $400.”

Colleen’s coworker, Laura Gekeler, says the important thing is “seeing joy spread over the face of someone who’s seeing well for the first time in years – or the first time ever – whatever the frames are worth.” The volunteers have seen people marvel at seeing things like clouds for the first time.

In addition to prescription glasses, sunglasses and reading glasses were given out. “They’ll help farmers who toil at high altitudes,” Dave says, “where ultraviolet radiation is intense.” He adds that reading glasses were also given to women who cannot read, “but have to thread needles, for their livelihoods.”

Every volunteer could recall memorable cases. Optometrist Chuck Tribbey treated a child who could resolve nothing beyond her arm’s length. And there was a teacher “who was so farsighted, I don’t know how she was able to teach.” Both were helped.

Megan Chilton, majoring in International Relations, noted that “kids and adults are always happy with their glasses. They’re not self-conscious. But teenagers often are, and we’ve seen some reject free glasses because they’re too big. They’ll settle for a smaller, better looking pair, even if the prescription is a little off.” For unlettered patients, Chilton’s eye-chart station featured charts of arrows, fingers, pitchforks and high-pitched houses all “pointing” in a cardinal direction.

Ron and Michelle Reed, an Illinois couple helping out with logistics, recounted one case that needed a second take. “An elderly gentleman received his first-ever glasses,” Ron says, “but seemed disappointed as he left. He returned the next day with a letter typed by his son, saying that the glasses gave him headaches and eyeburn.”

“Sure enough,” Michelle says, “they weren’t at all in line with his exam results. So we found some that were. They were huge and ugly. But this time the guy left happy and excited.”

High-school seniors Danny Brooks, Matt Margolis and Stephanie Riley, manning the autorefraction station, were touched by seven-year-old Madalín. “She was so thrilled with us, and her glasses,” Margolis says, “that she ‘adopted’ us and hung out with us for most of a day.”

“She went around hugging the volunteers,” Riley adds. Brooks remembers a man who, at 94, was “too old for treatment. But he at least got sunglasses.”

Duane and Eunice Wakeman, married 57 years, have volunteered for 14 ICare expeditions. They are, they say, the high point of their retirement. They brought their daughter, Sue Bea, on this one. Sue and coworker Joan Sable managed a database of the eyeglass inventory. Whenever glasses were given away, Sue and Joan deleted them from the database.

“We don’t find a perfect match for everyone,” admits Sable, “so we give the closest we have. Sometimes, we find we have the lens for the right eye, and another for the left – but on different frames.”

In such cases, it is often possible to mate the lenses into one of the original frames, or into another, in spite of differing shapes or dimensions. For this there is a frypan full of seasalt where frames are heated to malleability for refitting. Lenses, too, can be modified on the spot by filing. Frame arms can be recurved, to fit their new owners.

Klaus Schumann, a German lawyer who immigrated to the United States and became a truck driver, spent part of every day for three months prior to the jornada sorting the glasses. They are always indexed by the right lens, then divvied further according to refractive parameters. At the end of the jornada, Schumann and wife Jay turned over some 2300 undelivered eyeglasses to the Lake Atitlán Rotary Club, whose president, Rufino Caniz, began pondering his task: to find owners. “It won’t happen quickly,” Jay says, “because some of the glasses are for relatively weird prescriptions. But there’re still many for people with commoner vision problems.”

Before the event, Rotarians distributed flyers and posters, and asked local mayors to inform their townfolk of the jornada. One Rotarian business, Panajachel’s El Horno Bakery, donated a day’s worth of meals to the volunteers and provided another three days at cost. Seven sharp students of English from nearby Del Valle University showed up to translate. Some Atitlán expats also entered the translating fray.

“Foreigners who live here need to give something back,” says American Myron Klein, of Santa Cruz. “That’s why I’m here.” Klein’s presence was rewarded in a special way. “A nice seamstress who did work for me 25 years ago popped up in one of the lines. She remembered me, if not my name.”

The jornada ran nearly five days, with most of the first spent logging symptoms and identifying surgery candidates. Over the week, surgeons led by Dennis Deters performed 46 operations in Sololá’s public hospital, with Guatemalan medical students assisting. Another ophthalmologist, Roger Ewald, remained at the jornada site to evaluate additional candidates, and perform post-ops of the work of his colleagues laboring in Sololá.

The hospital also received a donation of a $250,000 Alcon Phaco Emulsifier, a surgical appliance from Vantage Technology, where Dr. Deters’ wife, Ann, is CEO. The gift puts this provincial hospital on the map of vanguard treatment.

The event’s most compelling volunteer might have been retired optometrist Lenny Sable, who filled in wherever needed. Dr. Sable wore a paper Burger King crown all week, and encouraged and entertained everyone with his self-effacing humor. On the final day, he won a kiss from a young translator.

“I can’t wait to come back,” he says.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!