Photographs by Daniel Byers/SkyshipFilms.com
Learn more at: www.dooleyintermed.org, www.sherpaadventuregear. com, www.ismission.org/operation-restore-vision
He walks away wearing them. A monk runs after him to explain the “magic glasses” are only for near vision, not far. While eyecare is our main mission, we’re doing what we can for other ailments while here. Just arriving is a 44-year-old Tibetan refugee from the nearby Tserog camp. James Conole, 28, our foundation doctor and oncologist from Leeds, UK, learns the man was told he needed abdominal surgery but can’t afford the 30,000 rupees (about $345) for the operation. Hamilton and others take up a pool and offer to pay if the monks working with us from the Pema Ts’al Sakya Monastery in Pokhara can transport the refugee to the nearest hospital. (Two months later the patient has colon surgery and is reported to be pain free). Later in the day the Gift of Sight team was honored at a community celebration presided by village elders. Ceremonial white silk scarves “katas” - were presented to the doctors and monks. They wished us all long life, good health and prosperity. The remote eye camps may have closed, but this adventure in expeditonary medicine continues with the first leg of our journey back to Kathmandu. Conveniently, the Marco Polo Lodge is located across the street from the Jomsom airport. In fact, the entire town lines the runway. There are solitary cows and donkeys walking down the street, two dogs are sleeping on the side of the road, and a group of devout Buddhists are celebrating the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha. Burning juniper clouds the air, as prayer flags flutter in the cool breeze, each flag “activated” by a Buddhist priest chanting prayers.
Really Flying
Our 19-passenger Twin Otter appears from out of the wind, makes an impossibly sharp left banking turn and roars onto the tarmac. We’re thrilled to see the plane arrive because it means we’ll now get our day back and not have to endure seven hours in a Toyota being jossled over the boulder-strewn road to Pokhara. Scott Hamilton and I are belted into a bench seat in the second row taking photos out the window of both Annapurna and Dhaulagiri as we fly well below their peaks through a mountain pass. We enjoy a ringside seat just behind the open cockpit, pleased to see they have a GPS, altimeter, and other modern avionics. The co-pilot is even wearing driving gloves, which I take as a good sign. I smile when a Nepali member of our team taps the pilot on the shoulder and asks to take a scenic photo over his shoulder. You have to love flying in Nepal. Try that on the Delta Shuttle and you get hauled away. This is flying as it used to be, just a step above barnstorming. As the pilot and co-pilot make banking turns and steeply dive into Pokhara Airport as if on a giant slide, I’m thinking how much these guys are really flying. Apparently, in the Himalayas, an autopilot is for wimps. From Pokhara, the itinerary calls for a quick flight to Kathmandu, 4-1/2 hours to Doha, Qatar, then 13 hours to JFK. We touched the lives of hundreds of Nepalis through the Gift of Sight project. The critical need to provide quality eyecare in this part of the Third World isn’t hard to see.
About the Author: Jeff Blumenfeld, a frequent contributor to these pages, is editor of ExpeditionNews.com, and author of the adventure sponsorship book,“You Want to Go Where? How to Get Someone to Pay for the Trip of Your Dreams” (Skyhorse Publishing, 2009).
CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE
33