On Fridays we share our clinic location with the Eye Team. On Friday mornings when we arrive it is not unusual for there to be 500+ patients crowded around the gates to our compound. These people are desperate and in need. They would do and give just about anything for an entrance ticket.
Last Friday was absolutely crazy! I was standing in the court yard with my translator going over our strategy for how we were going to get through all the eye patients to find 45 dental patients... Naomi ( my roommate) was standing in the center of the court yard screening people. Things were calm inside the gate however things out side were not so calm.... the security guards decided they'd had enough so they opened the gates and at that very moment about 450 people came rushing into our compound. It was CRAZY! I had never seen anything like it before. I started yelling things in French that I didn't even know I knew how to say. I guess they understood me they listened to me.... anyway after all 450 people were inside Naomi's day volunteer came up with this brilliant idea. He said well lets go outside and start handing out tickets and then they will all ran back out... so they did and all 450 people rushed back outside the gates. I turned around at one point to see what my team was doing and they were taking pictures and videos of the event.
As I glance back at that moment now I laugh at how things like this don't happen at home, but I can tell you one thing my eye our now opened and my vision is clear. As the herds of people were rushing in there were people who were flat out bawling, there were young people carrying there elderly relatives in on their backs, there were little children that were being ran over by adults, there were ladies pushing and shoving other ladies, there were men yelling. It was like a bull race. I thought to myself how does it feel to have such a need that this is the result. There was a point during the crazy rush were I felt like time was being frozen and God was showing me the severity of the needs here.
Anyway today before we left our security guards came to me and asked if it was ok if they try to set up rope and form lines in preparation for tomorrow. I agreed with them that that was an excellent idea. Before we left I walked outside to see the progress. While I was out there I spotted about 20-25 people on the other side of the road: some lying down in the dirt, some standing, some sitting. I asked what are those people doing over there... and one of the security guards told me that was the beginning of the eye line for tomorrow. He said they have been here since 2:30.
Can you imagine sitting and sleeping outside the gates of a clinic for 17 plus hours?
Eyes are used to view the world... and eye problems are huge needs here. I'ts Obvious.
The guards forming the line with rope and sticks outside our clinic walls.
The 20+ people who were in line already @ 2:30 in the afternoon the day before the clinic opens
The belongings of the people waiting all lined up, marking there place in line.
1 comment:
WOW! What a touching story. Something like this really humbles me. We are so fortunate here and to think we complain when we have to wait 30 minutes in the waiting room at a doctors office. Thanks for sharing.
love ya
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