Work Hard.... Play Hard

Another busy week of eye exams, with long line ups and having to turn people away at the end of the day.  We get the feeling that we could spend another 5 or 10 years here and still not see everyone who wants an eye exam.  Oh well, you can't say we don't feel needed here in Fiji.

When we arrived this morning, we found
there were 60 people already waiting for
their eye exam.  It didn't take long before
we gave out all 90 numbers we have for
the first 90 patients.  After that, we have
to break the news to those who arrive,
that we have filled our maximum quota, 
and can't see any more patients.

This is Ann breaking the news to these
patients that we can't see them.  With the
sad stories and begging, this puts a lot of
stress on Ann all day long.  We often end
up fitting a few more patients in, and just
stay later to squeeze them in, 
so we often up seeing up to 100 patients.

Here, Ann is checking another patient in.

Here is one of the young girls getting her
eyes examined.

Now it's time for this young boy.

"Which is better, number 1 or number 2 ?"

...Explaining to this father that
his daughter needs glasses...

I've noticed that there are several patients
who come in with completely scarred over
corneas, causing complete blindness in
that eye.  This is usually caused by a past
eye infection that was left untreated,
producing a corneal ulcer.

Another patient with a past corneal ulcer.
Unfortunately there's no treatment for this
problem in this part of the world, as there
is no doctor doing corneal transplants here.

This girl was quite happy with her new glasses

This boy needed glasses, as well.

This sweet little girl didn't need glasses.

After a busy week, we drove up to the far
north part of the island to stay over night
at the "Wananavu" Resort, near Rakiraki.
"Wananavu" is Fijian for "awesome", and
it truly was an awesome resort.  

This is the last part of the road to get to the resort

We passed this galloping horse
on the highway on our way there.

Nice turquoise ocean water at the resort.

The beautiful white sand looked so nice
with the turquoise water in the background.

It was "wananavu".

A well maintained resort.

I found this plant interesting.  Leaves that are 
purple on one side, and green on the other.

A "wananavu" view from our Bure.

We took our friends, the Greenburgs with
us to the resort.  The Fijian in the middle,
named Ebeloni, became our friend.  We sat
down with him for over an hour while he told
us all about different aspects of Fijian culture.

This is the nice Fijian band at the resort.

Here, we just finished snorkeling right at
the beach.  There was amazing coral and
fish to be seen right there in the ocean.

We enjoyed swimming in this lovely pool.

We enjoyed dining together at the resort.
The food was "wananavu".

The Tandori Chicken was "wananavu".

Ann enjoyed her pork medalions.

Here are two of our "wananavu" servers.
They treated us so well.

Someone spent a lot of time wrapping
all the poles in palm leaves.

We found the shower in our room to be
very interesting with the bamboo wall
right outside the glass wall.  

We stopped on the way home to take this
photo of a real Fijian house/Bure.

There were a number of interesting
mountains on our drive.

We stopped to look at this
waterfall on our way home.

What a "wananavu" view....

We found it interesting to watch some of
the local Fijians swimming in the water
hole, and cliff diving from the high rocks.

We stopped to take a photo of this very skinny
cow.  We see a lot of these along the roadside.

The cows are like us humans, looking for
a place to cool down in the summer heat.

Now that we had a short break to relax on the weekend, we are ready to get back to some more very busy days, I think in order to do this kind of a 'mission', we have to 'play hard' as well as 'work hard'.  What a treat it is to have that freedom!

We now have two months left, and some exciting weeks ahead of us!