Any Old Glasses?

The Redoubtable Walkers are just back from Luang Prabang where they had a wonderful time, despite  their van being hit by a truck on a narrow mountain road, PLUS they discovered the body of a young Italian man who'd disappeared a week earlier while swimming in a river. (They reported it to authorities, then watched the local fishermen go out in a flotilla of boats to retrieve the body and, in a very touching and beautiful ceremony, reverently ferry him back to shore.) (Someone needs to put the family of this young Italian tourist in touch with the Walkers so they can hear all about it. I'm sure it would bring much comfort to them.)

All very sad and dramatic, yes,  however, that's not what I wanted to tell you. It's this:  the old eye doctor actually broke down in tears.

Yes, the elderly optomologist wept.

What happened was that when we were in Luang Prabang several years ago, we heard about an old retired optometrist working among the poor in Laos, treating eye problems gratis.  Then, back in HK, I was just about to throw out all my old glasses when I recalled this fellow, and since Lois and Paul were about to leave for a holiday in Luang Prabang, I gave all my unwanted glasses to Lois to pass on to our friend Ruth to pass on to this doctor.

Lois did so and said Ruth was grateful that someone cared about what this eye doctor was doing, and said she'd definitely see he got them.

But then I found another half dozen old pairs (gosh, I can really shop, can't I!) so - since getting donations to Laos is always so fraught - put them aside waiting for someone else to visit LP so they could be delivered personally,  and when I heard that the Walkers were about to depart for those shores, I gave her the glasses and told her about the elderly optometrist, and The Redoubtable Mrs Walker, so much more efficient than I am, passed on word among her friends and gathered many many more pairs to drop off to Ruth.

And that's what happened, and that's when Ruth told her that when she delivered my previous donation of old eye glasses (thank you Lois) the doctor actually broke down and wept in sheer gratitude.

So that's how badly this lovely now-retired optomologist needs glasses. Like how much he desperately, desperately needs them. It's because the poor of Laos have NO access to getting anything even vaguely optometrologial and the elderly among the Mhong hill tribes really do need them, and it was breaking his heart that there was really nothing much he could do to help.

So, as Ruth also told Mrs Walker, what happened to my old glasses was that the eye doctor went to the nearest poor village, drew pictures on the hands of everyone who needed a pair, and got them to try on each pair in turn and the any person who, at a distance of one foot away from their eyes, could identify what he'd drawn got to keep that pair.

And my collection of unwanted glasses hardly went any distance at all.

So please keep that in mind if you too are about to toss out your unwanted glasses. There is an old eye doctor in Luang Prabang who can be reached through Ruth who desperately needs them. However, since donations aren't generally delivered to the right people in Laos (a shamelessly "the buck stops here" kind of place.), take advantage of anyone you know who is going to LP so they can be personally delivered and that way we can know for sure that he's getting them.