Trip to Manta

Meeting with doctors from Ministry of Health.  Dra. Betzabe is the Director of Maternal Infant Care and the other doctor was the Director of Children with Disabilities for Ecuador.

I found my birthplace here in Ecuador.  Prince Edward Island (PEI)!!

A view from our balcony at our hotel in Manta.  It was like being in a little bit of paradise!

Our bed with flowers and a towel!

A view of the harbor in Manta.  It was very humid there! Quito is very dry.

Visiting a little health center.  The little girl on the table was getting physical therapy and she was very limp and not very responsive.  The man on the left is Moroni Torres, our boss from Lima.

Dad standing outside of the heath center in Montecristi.

This was our hord'oeuvres for lunch.  Plantains and powdered peanut butter.  We didn't eat any but gave it to our taxi driver who drove us around for the day.  He snarfed them down!!

A store at the side of the road.  Lots of hammocks for sale and I loved the baby bassinetts.

A wall with a picture made entirely out of small wood pieces.  Amazing!

A place of worship at a  vision clinic that we visited.  It's all made out of tiny tiles!

Dad checking out my eyes in the operating room.  There are 2 beds and 2 doctors and they move the microscope back and forth to do the surgeries.  My head is on a little round homemade ring.  The microscope was donated by the church a few years ago.  This small clinic does 12- 15 surgeries a day.

This is the lady who started this eye clinic.  After her husband died she became very depressed.  Her children came to her and told her she needed to do something so she got some of her friends together and decided to start a vision clinic which was desparately needed in Portoviejo.  She lived to be 99 1/2 years old and worked everyday right up until the day she died.

This large government hospital in Portoviejo had a lot of vision equipment but they needed some training on it.  We will see if we can get a doctor from the U.S. to come and do some training.

Took this picture of the fish market in Manta as we were whizzing by in our taxi.  We didn't have time to stop as we had to hurry to our first appointment of the day.

Another picture of the fish market. Next time we go back to Manta we will be sure to visit the market early in the morning when the fishermen bring in their catch for the day.

Building a boat

Our airplane to Manta.  At least it was a jet.  I liked the name "Aero Gal".  We only had very small carry on cases with us for our overnight stay.

Meeting with Dr. Rothenbach an eye doctor who works in a very poor hospital in Quito.  They are in need of a biometer to help measure the eye so the doctor knows what size lense to put in during cateract surgery.  Dad and Moroni consulting with the doctor.

We saw a lot of these huge trees (middle of photo) that were green with no leaves.  We didn't have time to stop and get a really good picture.

Yolanda Loor who runs a vision clinic with one of the patients who just had surgery and was able to see after many years of blindness.

Dad and Moroni consulting with a doctor at Yolanda's clinic.

Dad wheeling me out of surgery in one of the church's wheelchairs that had been donated to the clinic.

Me in surgery.  Sorry the pictures are out of order.

More boats in dry dock in Manta.