Thursday, June 18, 2009

Porto Novo

On Thursdays, the Ophthalmic Field Team travels to Porto Novo Hospital. Porto Novo is about a 45 minute drive from Cotonou and is Benin's Capital city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto-Novo 
The crowd at our Porto Novo clinic is notorious for being a tad rowdy, and today was no exception. It is difficult to capture them all in one frame, but here is my attempt:
This Clinic is run in the same fashion as Godomey...children first, then the elderly and totally blind, then the general population. Pictured here is Robert (left), my right hand man and translator, trying to control the angry crowd:

For some reason, the women are much less compliant than the men. They push, shove, scream, slap, punch, and mob. The men are generally well-behaved, keeping themselves in nice straight lines.
 Here you see Robert in between the lines, distributing numbered tickets:

I met a young lady who claims to be 100 years of age. I am not sure whether or not this is true, but she was a sweetheart and was very happy to be scheduled for cataract surgery:



4 comments:

  1. love the photo of the 100 year old lady...you would be attracted to the older one..haha...the photos are great!!!! praying for you friend!

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  2. Thanks for doing a blog Pete!
    Hope you're able to keep it up. The writing & pics are great.... and good motivation to pray.

    We'll be doing that!
    David Rockholm

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  3. Thanks Dr. Rockholm... I am glad to hear from you again! Hope you are doing well.

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  4. awesome photos! good reading your updates!

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