Monday, January 14, 2008
Monday, October 22, 2007
The Hands' stories
Suddenly, I was interested in shooting people's hands when I was in Addis. You can tell the story of the people by looking at their hands, e.g. how do they feel, what do they think at the moment, etc.
Helpless hands - A patient holding tight of her walking stick waiting for screening.
Loving hands - Grandma holding grandson's hand before the surgery.
Hopeless hand - A patient covering himself with his hand while he was waiting for screening
Caring hands - a nurse holding a little patient's hand
Ethiopian traditions
Traditional coffee ceremony
Traditional dancing - it involves a lot of shaking of head and shoulders!! 
Traditional food, Injera, and local St. Geroge beer, yummy!
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Screwed up, BIG TIME
Finally I arrived in California tonight, but I had a really bad day today because I got screwed up big time by UA. First of all, I flew 15 hours from Addis to Washington DC, and supposed to change flight to LAX and then Ontario. However, my flight to LAX got cancelled in the last minute, and I have to change my flights to Daytone -> Denver -> Ontario. Then, when I arrived in Denver, I rushed to the gate because I only have 20 mins to board the next plane. But then I found out the flight to Ontario was delayed for 2 hours. I was frustrated and hanging around the airport waiting for my flight. When I thought things couldn't be worse, I suddenly realized that I've left my mp3 player and a book in the seat pocket on the flight from Daytone. I went back to the gate and saw that the plane was about to leave. I asked them to check it for me but the airline people said they didn't find anything!!! Finally I arrived in Ontario at 9pm, 4 hours later then the original flight, and of course my luggage was missing!! Why all bad things happened to me in one day.....sob... and I broke my nail again....ouch...
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Meeting the President and holding the VISION 2020 Eastern Africa Workshop
Honestly it felt strange to work here without the plane, because we were so used to the hectic FEH mode. But it turned out to be a busy but fruitful 3-week program. First of all, apart from the successful training program, we had hosted the Board Secretary and President of ORBIS in week 3. They came all the way from US and UK to observe our program here. At the invitation of the President of Ethiopia, we had a meeting with him at his palace, followed by a closing dinner for the program last Thursday. The President has been a great supporter and advocate of ORBIS and he visited the FEH on 2003 when it landed in Addis Ababa for the first time. While on board he signed the Declaration of Support of VISION 2020 : The Right to Sight and pledged his cornea for donation. He helped to establish the first eye bank in Ethiopia with ORBIS. He was invited to New York to celebrate the 25th anniversary of ORBIS in March. Coincidently, the second day after our meeting, the President got re-elected by the Parliment again!
Also, We traveled all the way to a rural village outside Addis and visited a trachoma project site supported by ORBIS Ethiopia. Trachoma is the second leading cause of blindness in Ethiopia, but it's completely preventable. However, due to lack of eye doctors and human resources, eye care services are extremely limited throughout the country, especially in rural areas. Therefore, ORBIS Ethiopia have started to train the nurses in community clinics to perform simple trachoma surgeries for the patients in villages. It proved to be very successful and effective and I'm glad we have chance to witness the process.
However, the highlight of the program was a 3-day VISION 2020 : The Right to Sight Eastern Africa Workshop which was held at the UN Conference Center last week. It was organized by the Federal Ministry of Health and National Committee for Prevention of Blindness in collaboration with ORBIS. For the first time, distinguished speakers from V2020 and African Union, as well as more than 50 delegates from 5 East African countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti, Sudan and Ethiopia, had sat together to discuss each country's eye health care issues as well as their blindness prevention strategies and plans. They have identified key challenges and shared best practices in the areas of human resources development, infrastructure development and disease control. for eliminating preventable blindness throughout the eastern region of Africa. As a result of the workshop, a 17-item recomendations and action plans were proposed and the participants agreed to meet regularly to update on the progress. This was very exciting and encouraging, and we hope to organize similar workshop every year.
Finally, I'm all set and ready to fly across the Atlantic tonight to California to join the long-lost team and the Flying Eye Hospital!! I can't wait to see my team again in Victorville next week. We will be doing the packing and having an orientation there. Then, we will be flying back to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau for a goodwill tour in November. Yes, the plane is coming home again!!
Here are the photos from Ethiopia.
Also, We traveled all the way to a rural village outside Addis and visited a trachoma project site supported by ORBIS Ethiopia. Trachoma is the second leading cause of blindness in Ethiopia, but it's completely preventable. However, due to lack of eye doctors and human resources, eye care services are extremely limited throughout the country, especially in rural areas. Therefore, ORBIS Ethiopia have started to train the nurses in community clinics to perform simple trachoma surgeries for the patients in villages. It proved to be very successful and effective and I'm glad we have chance to witness the process.
However, the highlight of the program was a 3-day VISION 2020 : The Right to Sight Eastern Africa Workshop which was held at the UN Conference Center last week. It was organized by the Federal Ministry of Health and National Committee for Prevention of Blindness in collaboration with ORBIS. For the first time, distinguished speakers from V2020 and African Union, as well as more than 50 delegates from 5 East African countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti, Sudan and Ethiopia, had sat together to discuss each country's eye health care issues as well as their blindness prevention strategies and plans. They have identified key challenges and shared best practices in the areas of human resources development, infrastructure development and disease control. for eliminating preventable blindness throughout the eastern region of Africa. As a result of the workshop, a 17-item recomendations and action plans were proposed and the participants agreed to meet regularly to update on the progress. This was very exciting and encouraging, and we hope to organize similar workshop every year.
Finally, I'm all set and ready to fly across the Atlantic tonight to California to join the long-lost team and the Flying Eye Hospital!! I can't wait to see my team again in Victorville next week. We will be doing the packing and having an orientation there. Then, we will be flying back to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau for a goodwill tour in November. Yes, the plane is coming home again!!
Here are the photos from Ethiopia.
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| The Millennium and 13 months of sunshine in Ethiopia |
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Post-operation the day after the surgery
My favourite moments of the job are :
1. when our doctors take off the patches on the patients' eyes, and they can count the number of fingers in front of them.
2. when the patients see their family for the first time after a long period of blindness.
3. the happy smiles on patients' faces on the next day of surgery, and many more....
1. when our doctors take off the patches on the patients' eyes, and they can count the number of fingers in front of them.
2. when the patients see their family for the first time after a long period of blindness.
3. the happy smiles on patients' faces on the next day of surgery, and many more....
13 months of sunshine in Ethiopia
After a long break, I returned to Ethiopia for the 3rd time for a 3-week ORBIS program here. But unlike the previous times, one thing was missing here - the Flying Eye Hospital because it's still grounded in Victorville for final maintenance check. So we have changed the format of the program to a hospital-based program, meaning only the volunteer doctors and half of FEH team will come to conduct the training program. We arrived one week after the Millennuium celebration in Ethiopia, and we can still see all kinds of decoration on the streets. According to their traditional calendar, Ethiopia is 7 year behind the world, and it has 13 months a year!! So it's excited to be here to witness the celebration once again!
A taxi celebrating the Ethiopian Millennium.
The Ethiopian calendar is seven years behind us, therefore, I'm officially 7 year younger, yeah!
Street of Addis Ababa.
Shop in the city.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Celebrating the Millennum AGAIN in Ethiopia
I'm so excited because in less than 20 hours, I will be hopping on a plane again to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a hospital-based program there. And I'll be meeting some of my long lost, as well as new FEH teammates again, haha....We will be conducting a 3-week training and surgeries in the Menelik II Hospital. Ethiopia just celebrated its Millennum on Sept 12 because they are following their own calendar which is 7 years behind us. I never thought I'll be celebrating the Millennum twice...interesting!
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