Artificial Eyes
by Paul, Jenny and Emily Geelen

Next Stop, Darwin and East Timor

On Sunday, I’m off to Darwin for two weeks and then East Timor for one week to run my scheduled clinics.

It’s been a busy start to 2008, with Paul working in the Philippines and now me off on my trip. Paul will be blogging about his trip soon, so stay tuned.

Darwin is going to be a very busy clinic. I’ll be making nine new artificial eyes for clients as well as doing adjustments and general polishing.

Then I’m off to East Timor for the first time, but it won’t be the last. Sadly, in a country such as East Timor, eye loss is common due to injuries from civil war and Vitamin A deficiencies. So the demand for artificial eyes is high.

For this first clinic, there will be 10 people requiring artificial eyes. I would like to find a local dental technician to train up in fitting the eyes.

I was having trouble with a weight allocation of only 13kg’s I was allowed to take on the aeroplane. With up to 70kg’s of equipment, this was proving to be a real headache. Thankfully AirNorth have come to the party and given me the extra weight allocation that I require free of charge. So a big thank you to AirNorth for their compassion.

In a previous blog Taking Artificial Eyes to East Timor I mentioned a young girl by the name of Liliana who lost her eye in a church bombing eight years ago.

Paul made Liliana an eye at the time, but she’s had no follow up since.

Many people have combined efforts and resources to find Liliana so that I can see her while I’m over there. If anybody out there knows of Liliana Trinidade’s whereabouts please can they contact me ASAP.

Let’s hope luck is on our side and we find her. I’ll send news as soon as I can.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *