Opening Eyes

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/opening-eyes/?_r=0

By Austin Meyer November 10, 2015
On my 2015 win-a-trip journey with Nicholas Kristof through India and Nepal, I spent most of the time reporting on issues related to extreme poverty, malnutrition and human rights abuses. As I wrote these columns, I battled feelings of futility and hopelessness. I was determined to change hearts and minds through human-centered stories, but I was afraid that the scale of the problems I was witnessing would engulf any efforts made to combat them.

But then I arrived in a town called Hetauda in southern Nepal to see the miracles performed by Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Dr. Geoffrey Tabin in their cataract surgery camp. Watching them blew away my fears. In just five minutes, I watched them cure people of blindness and change their lives forever.

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Since losing her vision, Maya cannot walk properly. She can no longer cook for her family or farm her land. She says she is helpless.

72-year-old Tilo Chan Rai sits next to Maya and shares a similar story. Chan Rai has been blind for a year and half. He used to farm his land but since losing his vision, he can’t walk or go to the bathroom without help.

“I feel like I am dead now,” said Chan Rai. “I can’t do anything.” Maya nods her head.

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Dr. Ruit and Dr. Tabin can each do 100 surgeries in a single day. The surgical method, pioneered by Dr. Ruit, costs just $25 a patient. In the US, cataract surgeries cost thousands of dollars. This dramatically helps poor people like Maya who can’t afford surgery. The Hetauda Community Eye Hospital subsidizes treatment for those who can’t pay, by having those who can, pay extra.

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The night after the bandages came off, I found it hard to fall asleep. I was so inspired. I texted my mom, tongue in cheek, that I was ready to head off to medical school.

What I realized in Hetauda was I can’t let the scale of global development challenges cripple me. If Dr. Ruit had let the scale of global blindness stop him from developing a groundbreaking cataract surgery procedure, Maya would never see her daughter again. And if I let the scale of global development challenges stop me from dedicating my life to help end them, I will never get to be a part of a moment when eyes are opened to a new world — and a life is changed forever.