Sambani is from Kalonga Village in Lilongwe District.  He lives with his parents and four siblings.  He had been blind for two years, and had stopped going to school last year.  He had been doing well at school, and told me “I was an intelligent boy!”  He was in standard 4 but his low vision “made me to be a useless boy” he said.  I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

Sambani in the Clinic

He lives with his father and mother and four siblings, and they were looking after him.

Sambani after his second cataract operation

Sambani told me and nurse Rose, that he is now going to continue his education because he is “still young”.  He wants to be a driver or a teacher.

Sambani

It will be great to take Sambani back home today, so he can be with his whole family again, and then start school again next week when school opens for the new year.  We will try and meet him again in a few months to see how he is doing.

Pieter, the South African missionary living near Monkey Bay phoned me yesterday.  There are many people he has met in the villages who would like to, or need to, come to Nkhoma for their eyes.  Lumbani will be heading down on Sunday with the ambulance to help collect them. We will try and meet with Mary who lives nearby, and see how she is doing, 4 months after her surgery!

Mary with white diabetic cataracts - Photo: Roger Loguarro

With the help of the doctors in the general hospital, she did extremely well.  She felt much better, less tired, but was still blind.   Eventually after 12 days it was her time for surgery.

I felt very sorry for Mary, as she is so young and was doing well at school until relatively quickly her sight was lost.  She can barely move around now, and constantly needs help.  Of course school has been out of the question for her for the past year.

I don’t really see that many people with Diabetes in Malawi.

Meeting Mary on the waiting line

I was a bit scared when operating, as I wan’t sure how far advanced the diabetes in the eye was, but after the first operation all was well.

Half way there, and happy

In the end a small miracle happened.  I was scared that the diabetes had not only resulted in cataracts, but had also affected the retina.  The surgery went very well, the Nkhoma team were awesome in their care, and Mary’s sight was totally restored.  I will try and visit her in her village near the south Lake Malawi lakeshore later this year, and we are helping her with her diabetic medications so she should be back at the hospital in a month or so for a check up as well.

I felt so thankful that Mary had found us, and we’d been able to help.  I really hope that her life carries on in the way she planned.  She was so excited to head home and celebrate.

Mary, ready to take go home to Lake Malawi, 3 hours drive away

I said goodbye to Mary on a Tuesday, and she travelled home with the Nkhoma ambulance early the next morning.  I’ll tell you, and I am so happy for her!

We have spent much of the past months preparing and renovating for the new year.  We will start modern cataract surgeries next week, and theatre is ready for that and many patients that will be coming to Nkhoma this year.

I had to join the Ministry of Health for planning workshops over the past weeks.  The National Eye Care Plan for 2011 to 2016.  Wonderful to be involved in where the country is heading for eye care.

Of course then there were many other planning meetings and report writing tasks for this coming year, and summarising 2010.

Now we are ready to tackle the new year!

With only 7 ophthalmologists for the country, we are sometimes called upon to perform extra duties.  That is a normal part of the work.

One such duty was Bella.

Bella is a beautiful one-eyed lioness in Lilongwe.  She had had a cataract operation in the UK on her right eye, and was having some troubles with that eye for the past couple of years.  As they had to anaesthetise her for another issue, they called me to see if I could come along and take a look at the same time.

She was fine, and a stunningly beautiful animal!

Nature has amazing ways of announcing the last few weeks before the rains. Of course it is hot, but there are plenty more larger spiders, small scorpions (found one in the kitchen sink yesterday morning), snakes (nearly walked on one in the garden three nights ago), and ants. The flame or flamboyant trees are now in full bloom across the landscape. All this means the rains are close. And they can’t come too soon as it would be great to escape this heat! Well, to be honest, the rains can come too soon, and many villagers have to take chances on exactly when to sow the maize seedlings. If they sow even just a few weeks too soon, and the rains stop for a couple of weeks; they can lose everything.

Linthipe Valley dawn

It’s an incredibly important time of year. With government subsidies of fertiliser, good rains and lots of hard work the harvests have been good in the this area over the past years. We hope and pray it will be the same this year.

Jenn and I are off now for a Saturday drive south to the Dedza hills, to try find the hidden Chongoni Rock Art Area.  Hope we can find these two thousand year old rock paintings in the caves and hills, and see why there were recently inscribed the area as Malawi’s second UNESCO World Heritage Site.