the blind children - 0830 friday
8:30 Friday morning and I'm sure T.G.I.F. applies much more to a December week in Africa than its New York counterpart as I wake up homesick and ready for the weekend. I unlock my small photo office with its lone porthole and switch on my Powerbook.
I think of a shivering Rockefeller center with noisy tourists and ice skaters gawking at this year's steroid fed tree. A dressed up Madison Ave with inviting twinkling lights and occupied yellow cabs hurtling past its windows like locusts. $80 Christmas trees on 23rd and 6th that don't fit into the trunk, browsing in Union Square's craft market with thirty stalls selling the same thing, one stop Christmas shopping at Virgin and the late night walk from the Angelika to the Mercer.
It's my first Christmas not at the family or girlfriend 's and yes, there are lights and trees and carols and door decorating contests and things green all over the floating hospital ship that is my home but it's always 95 degrees and humid and the thought of Christmas a week away just makes me giggle.
It's 2:30 a.m. in NY and six months ago I'd be sitting in a booth chasing vodka with cranberry or orange listening to 99 problems. But this morning those 7 eye patients are arriving from Nattitingou, a town 500 miles to the north of Benin. It's a story I've been following, and I clean out my hopelessly cluttered outlook inbox as I wait for the call.
It's quite a story... A few weeks ago, Donna, who heads up the eye program onboard my big floating hospital, came into the lunchroom to find it filled with its usual hungry rabble of about 450 nurses, surgeons, technicians, day workers, translators... There was only one seat available, so she sits down next to a Dutch missionary Marjan who is talking about these seven blind children. Marjan is upset because she wasn't able to get these children from their orphanage to our Screening, where we saw thousands of patients to schedule surgeries. Enter Donna. Donna just happens to have eye appointment cards on her, and invites Marjan to bring the children. Marjan breaks into tears, she can't believe that Donna can help her, Donna is happy, and I can't wait to meet and photograph these special kids who are driving 14 hours to be cured and have perfect vision. That's what life is like here, utopia.
Cut to 11 a.m. in a small examination room on the dock and I'm sitting on a crate of medical supplies snapping pictures. The kids are all here and Marjan too, after a long and trying journey. The children look shell-shocked and just plain terrified, but I'm glad they are here and I smile as I hear three of them threw up on the way here, the experience of car travel their first. I'm shooting fast as they are brought into the room one by one and examined, but once we get to Crystal, I put down the camera and realize it's not going well. Donna and Helen, who are examining their eyes, are throwing unsettling knowing looks back and forth, and I start praying. I'm no expert at eyes, having been blessed with 20/20, but even I can observe an eerie similarity in their vision. They can barely see, some can see outlines of a moving hand, some can see that big A at the top of the board a few meters away, but the cataracts we thought we'd be able to remove with surgery don't seem to be the problem with their vision.
It's just me and Donna and Helen in the room now and boy this is going to be rough on Marjan and even rougher on these poor children. It seems their eye conditions have all been caused by severe trauma, probably blows to the head as infants that have detached their retinas. They really do look like they've been beaten, so that fits, but I don't understand why we can't help them see well with an operation and all our western medical technology. Yet we can't. With high end equipment, top eye surgeons flying from the States and Europe to volunteer their time, not a single one of them can we help, and now we've got to break it to the children and Marjan.
They bring Marjan back into the room first, and within a minute she's bawling and saying it would have been worth it if there was only one and I'm rubbing my eyes with my shirt and wondering what it must feel like to be blind and now Marjan's stopped crying so we bring the children back in the room and huddle up. I've got the kid that couldn't really see anything by the shoulders and I'm squeezing him as Helen is speaking or maybe it was Donna and I think we're all softly crying as the children are told that they won't get operations, and that there is no hope for surgery in the future.
Marjan is smiling hard now as she tells them they will spend the afternoon in Cotonou and have a nice lunch and ice cream. I've just met her this morning, but I'm in awe of this woman who can put such a happy face on such a great loss. The bad news slowly registers with the children as we are still holding them tight and they take it with a sad, soft resignation. We pray for them and release them into the bright light of midday.
We tell Marjan to come back after lunch to pickup some stuffed animals for the children, later we make them gift bags with animals and 7 maracas I bought, and I arrange to make a trip to the orphanage to visit the children the day after Christmas. It's feels like the very least I can do.
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I think of a shivering Rockefeller center with noisy tourists and ice skaters gawking at this year's steroid fed tree. A dressed up Madison Ave with inviting twinkling lights and occupied yellow cabs hurtling past its windows like locusts. $80 Christmas trees on 23rd and 6th that don't fit into the trunk, browsing in Union Square's craft market with thirty stalls selling the same thing, one stop Christmas shopping at Virgin and the late night walk from the Angelika to the Mercer.
It's my first Christmas not at the family or girlfriend 's and yes, there are lights and trees and carols and door decorating contests and things green all over the floating hospital ship that is my home but it's always 95 degrees and humid and the thought of Christmas a week away just makes me giggle.
It's 2:30 a.m. in NY and six months ago I'd be sitting in a booth chasing vodka with cranberry or orange listening to 99 problems. But this morning those 7 eye patients are arriving from Nattitingou, a town 500 miles to the north of Benin. It's a story I've been following, and I clean out my hopelessly cluttered outlook inbox as I wait for the call.
It's quite a story... A few weeks ago, Donna, who heads up the eye program onboard my big floating hospital, came into the lunchroom to find it filled with its usual hungry rabble of about 450 nurses, surgeons, technicians, day workers, translators... There was only one seat available, so she sits down next to a Dutch missionary Marjan who is talking about these seven blind children. Marjan is upset because she wasn't able to get these children from their orphanage to our Screening, where we saw thousands of patients to schedule surgeries. Enter Donna. Donna just happens to have eye appointment cards on her, and invites Marjan to bring the children. Marjan breaks into tears, she can't believe that Donna can help her, Donna is happy, and I can't wait to meet and photograph these special kids who are driving 14 hours to be cured and have perfect vision. That's what life is like here, utopia.
Cut to 11 a.m. in a small examination room on the dock and I'm sitting on a crate of medical supplies snapping pictures. The kids are all here and Marjan too, after a long and trying journey. The children look shell-shocked and just plain terrified, but I'm glad they are here and I smile as I hear three of them threw up on the way here, the experience of car travel their first. I'm shooting fast as they are brought into the room one by one and examined, but once we get to Crystal, I put down the camera and realize it's not going well. Donna and Helen, who are examining their eyes, are throwing unsettling knowing looks back and forth, and I start praying. I'm no expert at eyes, having been blessed with 20/20, but even I can observe an eerie similarity in their vision. They can barely see, some can see outlines of a moving hand, some can see that big A at the top of the board a few meters away, but the cataracts we thought we'd be able to remove with surgery don't seem to be the problem with their vision.
It's just me and Donna and Helen in the room now and boy this is going to be rough on Marjan and even rougher on these poor children. It seems their eye conditions have all been caused by severe trauma, probably blows to the head as infants that have detached their retinas. They really do look like they've been beaten, so that fits, but I don't understand why we can't help them see well with an operation and all our western medical technology. Yet we can't. With high end equipment, top eye surgeons flying from the States and Europe to volunteer their time, not a single one of them can we help, and now we've got to break it to the children and Marjan.
They bring Marjan back into the room first, and within a minute she's bawling and saying it would have been worth it if there was only one and I'm rubbing my eyes with my shirt and wondering what it must feel like to be blind and now Marjan's stopped crying so we bring the children back in the room and huddle up. I've got the kid that couldn't really see anything by the shoulders and I'm squeezing him as Helen is speaking or maybe it was Donna and I think we're all softly crying as the children are told that they won't get operations, and that there is no hope for surgery in the future.
Marjan is smiling hard now as she tells them they will spend the afternoon in Cotonou and have a nice lunch and ice cream. I've just met her this morning, but I'm in awe of this woman who can put such a happy face on such a great loss. The bad news slowly registers with the children as we are still holding them tight and they take it with a sad, soft resignation. We pray for them and release them into the bright light of midday.
We tell Marjan to come back after lunch to pickup some stuffed animals for the children, later we make them gift bags with animals and 7 maracas I bought, and I arrange to make a trip to the orphanage to visit the children the day after Christmas. It's feels like the very least I can do.
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2 Comments:
MODEL SEARCH AMERICA MSA SHOWCASE
Let me tell you Mr. Harrison, how wonderful your blog has been to us. I found your blog after a search I did on 'Ganta Leper Colony'. I have been putting together a reunion blog for my group of volunteers with whom I served in Liberia from 83-85. Most of my comrades have been spread around the world, some in the States and some overseas. We have a blog now for our Liberia8385 group on blogger...and when I came across yours, we set a link to it so that everyone shall see the pictures. Your work is amazing. My friend Nancy who served as a volunteer at the Leper Colony in Ganta saw the pictures on your blog and recognized one of her patients, Francis who has survived the war in Liberia and still lives in the Colony. Many thanks to you and your amazing photos for allowing us to see what has happenend in Liberia.
God Bless you.
Best Regards,
Maryam
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