Diary - Sunday, Nov 19, 2006 

It's only been a short while since our last update but we have seen a huge amount of activity here at the Jambiani Wellness Centre over this past week. Of course this activity has been driven by the arrival of the Third World Eye Care Society "team" and their quite unbelievable efforts to improve the vision of literally thousands of individuals.

Pat and I along with our local HABS director, Mrisho Haji, were able to meet the TWECS delegation at the airport on Saturday, November 11th and to transport them out to Jambiani and to their hotels. Understandably, they were all a bit tired after travelling for almost two days from Vancouver and I'm sure they all slept like babies on that evening. On Sunday, we had a very nice grand opening with several dignitaries present. These included the Principle Secretary for the Ministry of Health, the Regional Commissioner for the Southern District, the Consul General for India, the ex Principle Secretary for Health our dear friend Saleh Sadiq Osman and his wife Farida, the Sheha or Chief of our region and several other representatives from various Governmental departments.

At the end of the ceremony on Sunday, we gathered to set up the clinic "stations" and to go over the anticipated flow of patients from the initial registration procedures to the final station where patients who needed glasses would be fitted with them.

The team itself has been a real delight to get to know and on our next update I'll give you more individual details on each and everyone of these very dedicated human beings.

On Monday we opened the clinic at 7:30 am and proceeded to work our way through over 550 patients and with pre-screening being done in the schools by Pat and some of the opticians, I believe we processed well over 900 patients on the first day. The tally at the end of 4 and one half days was very close to 2500 patients! Now the TWECS team felt they should have seen more but with over half of Jambiani screened, I think they have done an amazing job so far.

This has been quite a week for us all and I know Pat and I and all those very fortunate people who have been given corrective lenses are so grateful to have this group of individuals with us. Their compassion and commitment to helping others in need is admirable and we thank them for choosing Jambiani as their latest destination.

I will follow up this latest update with another in about a week or so after the eye camp is finished.

In the meantime, we hope you are all well and enjoying the anticipation of a positive and harmonious Christmas season.

Lots of love from all of us here in the "Jam"

Here's a picture of the TWECS banner above the clinic door	Here's some of the TWECS team setting up their equipment
Just a few boxes containing some of the 5000 pairs of glasses that TWECS carried with them	The front porch of the clinic during the opening ceremony
Pat with some of our invited dignitaries	Some of the deaf and hard of hearing children who performed some “songs” for the group
Now those are eyes!	A typical morning line up
The initial registration with interpreters on hand	Visual acuity tests
A slightly apprehensive child waiting with his Mom	This older woman was astonished at being able to see properly for the first time