It took us 36 hours to travel from the U.S . to a tiny village in Bihar, India.
Bihar is one of the poorest places in India, which is one of the poorest countries in the world.
The average family here lives on less than $1 a day.
Day laborers make about 17 cents an hour. After four long plane rides, we found ourselves in an old van, driving down dirt roads.
When we finally arrive at the eye camp, we find more than 1,000 children and adults who have come from all over India in the hope of curing their blindness. They are all ages, from 9 months to 90 years old.
In the U.S., blindness is rare and usually afflicts only senior citizens. But in developing countries, blindness is a virtual epidemic that affects all ages. It is 500% more prevalent than in the U.S.
More than 20 million children and adults in developing countries are what they call “needlessly blind.” That’s how they refer to blind people who can’t afford the $300, 15-minute surgery that cures blindness.
Imagine remaining blind for your entire life because you couldn’t scrape together $300.
Because they are poor, none of these children or adults will ever receive surgery unless someone helps them. That’s why we’re here. And we wouldn’t be here without your help – thank you.
As the screening takes place, the loudspeaker calls out names as hundreds of people crowded around different registration tables.
The test for blindness is pretty simple. They hand a person the end of a nine-foot tape measure. On the other end, someone holds up their hand and asks how many fingers he or she can see.
If they can’ t count fingers correctly from nine feet away, they are blind. It’s as simple as that. To register, the women and men lined up in separate lines that went on and on. We slowly walked down the lines, taking photos, asking questions and listening to their stories.
If you look at my photos, you will see desperation and suffering etched into their faces.
To be blind in America is a tragedy. To be blind in a developing country is a matter of life or death. Here, they call a blind person a “mouth with no hands.”
If you can’t see, you can’t work. If you can’t work, you can’t survive. Sixty percent of children die within one to two years of going blind according to the World Health Organization.
In the back of the camp, we find all the blind children. Some were born completely blind. Some lost their vision at 3 years old, 10 years old, or 15 years old.
This camp is run by one of our best partners in the world. In spite of all the poverty and suffering, their goal is to make Bihar the first state to be free of curable blindness by the year 2020. I admire their ambition, and while it seems like an impossible goal, I’ll do whatever I can to help them reach it.
I look at the huge crowd and shake my head. “This is overwhelming,” I tell Mr. Tiwary , the man in charge. “I bet you could do one of these camps every single day.”
He laughs and tells me, “We do five camps a day.”
Then I remember who I am talking to – Tiwary and his team of 12 surgeons and 32 optometrists at Akhand Jyoti Hospital provide 67,000 free surgeries a year. And they’ re trying to reach 100,000 free surgeries a year !
If anyone can make Bihar blindness-free, these are the folks who can do it. And we are proud to be helping them do just that.
All of the children and adults who can get their eyesight restored through surgery are put on buses with their families or attendants and sent off to the hospital for surgery.
We’re going to sleep at the hospital tonight so we are there early tomorrow morning when their bandages come off and they can see.
day 2
Today is a big day.
We’re about to watch almost 300 children and adults who were blind yesterday open their eyes and see! After breakfast, we go outside and find hundreds of new people lined up to register for surgery. We’re told buses arrived in the middle of the night. There’s an endless supply of blind people in India, where one-third of all the blind in the world live.
We begin in the pediatric ward, where we watch the eye surgeon remove the bandages of all the children we met yesterday. The children react differently than adults. Especially ones who have never seen before.
The 7-year-old boy above is serious. We remember him because he walked in all by himself, with his patient chart, and climbed right up onto the O.R. table. It was only after he laid down that he started to tremble. Now his bandages are off. He can see, and he is staring us right in the eyes.
Then there is my favorite – a little girl above who just smiles and smiles! She was SOOOOOOO happy! In the photos she is smiling, jumping, dancing, beaming. And so is her mom. Imagine the weight lifted off of this mom’s shoulders.
I sometimes hold out a finger to see if they can see my finger well enough to grab it. Every kid this morning grabbed it right away.
Next, we go to a large outdoor building where hundreds of adults with bandages are sitting on the ground in rows, patiently waiting. All of them underwent surgery yesterday. I get to stand right next to the head surgeon as he removes the bandages. There is total silence as everyone watches him remove the first bandage from a 50-year-old woman’s eyes.
People are holding their breath. She squints, she blinks, she opens her eyes and – she can see! The crowd gasps. She cries. The line pushes forward.
With adults, after the bandage is removed, the eye stays shut for a moment or two. It’s the moment of truth and many of these patients are desperately afraid the surgery didn’t work.
Then the eye opens. Then another pause – Did it work? Can I see? Once they realize they can see, they react – and you can see what a life-changing moment this is.
Everyone reacts differently. Some are in shock.
Some shake their heads in disbelief. Others just smile. Many of them put their hands together as a Hindu thank-you. Many of them cry. And some try to smile – but can’t. You can see that after so many years of suffering, they haven’t had anything to smile about in a long time.
Watching hundreds of patients have their bandages removed is an extremely emotional experience.
Afterward, we asked the head of the hospital what brought him here and away from a high paying job in Calcutta.
He had a great answer: “I find more comfort for my soul out here in this village in Bihar,” he told me, “than I do in my air-conditioned . office in Calcutta.”
I could relate to that.
After spending one year as an “interim” President of Smile Train, I was very surprised at how gratifying and fulfilling it was. I knew I would have a hard time going back to the for-profit world.
So my wife and I had a frank discussion about our family, our kids, our house and our future. We both agreed that I should stay on as President of Smile Train and forget the high-paying career I had beforehand.
That was about 18 years ago and I have never regretted it.
My charity work has enriched my life no amount of money ever could.
