Chennai!

So, leaving Kathmandu was an incredible hassle. First, my flight got delayed 4 hours because of weather- it's monsoon season, meaning the weather is hot, rainy, and very cloudy and foggy. This meant I would miss my connecting flight on a different airline from Dehli. I arrived in Dehliu (5 hours late) (apparently the plane almost made it to Kathmandu, then turned around back to Dehli, then cam back to Kathmandu to get us- all with the other passengers on board!) and I was sent to the ticket window after clearing customs. I was told that they would cancel my flight and book me a new one, without refunding me for my original ticket, and making me pay for the new one. Then I got sent to 4 different terminals and maybe 20 diferent windows- each airline has several seperate windows for different tasks, all with rediculously long lines, and many agents who don't speak any english. Meanwhile, the weather outside was worsenning- clouds gathering and rain falling as I took crowded, hot busses from terminal to terminal, trying to figure out what to do. On top of it all, my phone stopped working. I finally talked to a manager who helped me out and as she handed me my boarding pass (it had been 3 hours since i landed by now) the whole power in the airport shut off.

luckily, it was only a minor blackout, so all that was left now was to wait for my flight for 3 more hours. hoping my bags were still somewhere, I waited. about 5 minutes before boarding, they announced that all flights out of Dehli were delayed indefinently. By this point, I had given in to being stuck in the Delhi airport for the rest of the summer.

Anyway, my flight finally left and I arrived in to the hotel here at about 1:30 am, after leaving the hotel in Kathmandu at 6:30 am.

So, I've been in Chennai 3 days now, and working with Unite for Sight is great!

There are 11 volunteers here total, and we've been doin eye camps in the city- today some of us went to the hospital and got to watch cataract surgeries and see post op patients. At each one of those camps so far, we saw over 200 patients, gave out around 100 pairs of glasses and identified about 15 candidates for surgery. Tomorrow some of us have a day off and we're going to Mamalaporrum, a city near here with a cool 400 year old temple there. Then on wed we do some village camps. Yesterday we went to one of the volunteer's friends, Shahool's beach house, which was amazing- huge place looking right out at the ocean right where the tsunami hit- he was there when it hit, and it destoyed his old house there and he was swept about a km away by the water, but was ok. Then we hung out and had dinner at the resort his father owns near there, which was amazing! Early sunday morning Shahool wants to go snake hunting for poisinous snakes- apparently one of his favorite activities. :)

The lack of pictures is not because I haven't taken any, believe me, but the computer cafes here are very old and the internet incredibly slow- this one does not even have usb ports, so even if I had the hour it would take to upload one picture, I wouldn't be able to. So, imagine up to a dozen indian children crowding around us and smiling and saying "hello!" they ask us to take photos by yelling "photo?" and then giggle, smile and run shily away after we show them the picture on the digital camera. Then a few minutes later, they run back and ask for another photo- one little boy stayed with us all day, asking for hundreds of photos.

This is a long post now I guess- there's so much to write about here, but I'll have to go now and write more later.

Eric

Hello from Nepal!

I'm sitting in the airport in Kathmandu and it's about 730 am here. I arrived yesterday and met some amercians who finished a semester with NOLS at the airport in Dehli, and hung out with them last night here in Kathmandu. I'm waiting for my flight to Pokhara where I'm backpacking for a few days before heading back to Kathmandu for another night and then off to Chennai for Unite for Sight.

Let's do a recap though-

From Boston I flew to London, which was a ton of fun. I did all the typical tourist things; rode the double decker tour bus, saw big ben, westminister abbey, camden, buckingham palace, hyde park, pubs with Kiwi from French Woods, took the tube, went on a boat on the thames, went to borough market, and more.

Then I flew to Amsterdam for a brief stay to wait for my flight on to Dehli- breakfast at Barney's was amazing.

I landed in Dehli and was not allowed through security until 3 hours before my flight to Kathmandu, so I waited and met some American students who were also going to Kathmandu on a later flight. We met up (stayed at the same hotel) and went to dinner last night at a traditional Nepali restaraunt where they sing, dance, and you sit on the floor to eat. We ate with our fingers-the other tourists there did not. One of our waiters came with us after dinner to show us around- we went and watched football (soccer) and listened to a nepali band playing everything from marley to pink floyd- they were very good actually.

So, why did I go to Kathmandu instead of Darjeeling? There is a general strike there, meaning no tourists can come- it's actually dangerous for them to, so I switched to Nepal, which is awesome. I've only seen a bit of the Himalyas- it's very cloudy and humid here, but hopefully I'll get some nice views hiking over the next few days.

Anyway, I have to catch my flight, but love to everyone back home and I'll try to update this again once I'm in Chennai on the 20.

About to leave the US

Hey! So New York was great last weekend...

Here's the link to the public Facebook album: 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012201&l=db143&id=1295520212

This is a picture of a beautiful sunset in CT on the way up to Boston.

Tomorrow I finish shadowing Dr. Perry Rosenthal (and his team), Founder and Director of the Boston Foundation for Sight, who created the Boston Lens, a contact lens that rests entirely on the white tissue (sclera) of the eye, arching over a damaged cornea creating a space that is filled with artificial tears. The effect is to create a smooth optical surface over the diseased cornea that replaces its distorted surface that improves vision; a bandage for some of the most devastating corneal diseases that torture their victims with constant, unrelenting pain and disabling photosensitivity and for which there was no definitive treatment options in the past. Dr. Jacobs, Dr. Kwok, Dr. Carrasquillo, and everyone else at the Boston Foundation for Sight were incredibly kind, skilled, and great teachers as I learned about eye care for these few days.

So, I leave for London tomorrow night around 7:45 and arrive early in the morning. I'll be in London to the weekend, when I go to Amsterdam to catch my flight on to Delhi! On June 17th, I fly from Dehli to Bagdogra and then head up to Darjeeling until the 19, when I head to Chennai to start my work with Unite for Sight.

I'm heading to sleep, but I'll write again asap.

Bye to the US!

Heres my trip route:

you can zoom in by following this link:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1978202

So where is he?

Hey! Welcome to the blog!  I'll try to update this as much as possible.  Right now I'm in Bethesda with Ben Mackall and taking a class (kinda) at Johns Hopkins.  On Friday I'm heading to NYC and I'll leave there on Sunday for Boston, where I'm shadowing an ophthalmologist for 3 days starting Monday.

Everything is set for me to leave and go to India via London next Thursday.  I'll spend a few days in London and maybe hop over to Paris or Brussels and then head on to India, where I'm trying to work out going up to the Darjeeling area.  Up in Darjeeling you can see Kangchenjunga (the 3rd tallest mountain in the world).  There's some more information about Darjeeling here:

http://india.journeymart.com/darjeeling/default.asp

I'll be there for a few days, then I'll head down to Chennai, India to start my first of three Unite for Sight programs on June 20.  I've been doing all the last of the paperwork and stuff for Unite for Sight, and I'm really excited about it!

Anyway, if anyone is in any of the places I will be in the next week or so, let me know!

This summer

I will be collecting extra sunglasses or old prescription glasses to bring to sites in India and Africa.  If you have extra sunglasses or prescription glasses, contact me and we will work out a way to get them.

I will be a Unite For Sight volunteer in:

Chennai, India 06/20/2008 - 06/30/2008

Bihar, India 07/01/2008 - 07/15/2008

Accra, Ghana 08/01/2008 - 08/15/2008

http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer/pages/?name=eric%20einstein

This summer

Did you know that 80% of blindness is preventable? I am excited to be one of Unite For Sight's volunteers who will be eliminating preventable blindness.

I will work with a partner eye clinic to screen for eye disease, implement education programs, and coordinate sight-restoring surgery for children and adults.

The goal of Unite For Sight and its partner eye clinics and communities is to create eye disease-free communities. Unite For Sight's volunteers (local and visiting) work with partner eye clinics to provide eye care in communities without previous access. The eye clinic's eye doctors and Unite For Sight volunteers jointly provide community-based screening programs in rural villages. The clinic's eye doctors diagnose and treat eye disease in the field, and surgical patients are brought to the eye clinic for surgery. Patients receive free surgery funded by Unite For Sight so that no patient remains blind due to lack of funds. Volunteers immediately see the joy on patients' faces when their sight is restored after years of blindness. These memories last a lifetime.