OneSight: An Amazing Journey - Part One

On May 13th, Mothers Day, I left for The Gambia, West Africa, to join with a group of people I had never met (and who mostly hadn't met each other either), to train a group of students on eye care (of which I had no experience), and to help almost 1,000 people with free eye care services (again, no eye care experience).

First morning meeting

The first night I met briefly with the other OneSight volunteers between airport layovers and a cramped 40 minute ride to the hotel after 10pm - not something you look forward to after 30 hours of travel. Early the next morning we met most of the team (a small group was 6 hours inland at Basse working with the students the first week) and although I have no eye care experience and do not work for Luxottica (99% of volunteers do), I was made leader of 'Visual Acuities' the first station of the clinic.

Our first patients - day one

But I was excited, and as it didn't require years of experience, I figured I could do it. The VA area is where a person 'reads' an eye chart. But in cases where people have a different language or may not be literate, they have one letter - 'E' - facing in different directions and the patient has to cover one eye and show which way the symbol is pointing.

Working in Visual Acuity - Matar and Lisa

Our clinic was in Brikama, a city about 40 minutes away from our hotel. We were working with an established health clinic and an international organization, Sight Savers, who had a local presence. I had one OneSight volunteer, Bettina with me, and three local clinic volunteers who were with us especially to translate, Rumana, Tidah, and Matar.

I learned quickly that even though most people new English and spoke English (The Gambia was a former British Colony), most people didn't know the English words for what we were doing and as it was a bit different for them - many were confused, some concerned, and others a little frightened. Matar was an excellent translator (even though he was from Senegal where they speak different languages than they do in The Gambia - like French!). He told me many people were part of the largest local tribe, The Mandinka, and so began my adventure into learning a tribal language.

Helping a child understand the Visual Acuity chart

Just pronouncing people's names was a challenge as they way they were spelled was not the way they would be pronounced in English. If a name ended in 'R' it didn't sound like an 'R' but there was a slight sound. And word ending in 'K' had a slight 'A' sound after it. Also, many names that ended in 'U' sounded like an 'A' - for instance Babuku sounds like 'Babuka' to me.

Well - at the end of the day I was thrilled. Thrilled that I had helped so many people, communicated with them on some level. And I was thrilled with the OneSight volunteers who were all so positive, energetic, and patient. And the local volunteers were very helpful and so interesting. I learned a lot from them that first day...a lot of personality, and not necessarily easy to translate to what we in the States would appreciate right away.

I couldn't have asked for a better first day - it was like I had been doing this, with these people, for many years. It just felt right.

Senegal Coucal who visited with me the first day

To make a great day even better, I had a moment to sit under a tree back at the hotel - The Kairaba - and watch birds that are not found on my continent. It was thrilling from start to finish. And that was just the beginning!

Check back for the next story - Part Two - soon.

Alexandra Gnoske is a nature lover, writer, photographer, and adventurer!