Leaving Cedar Rapids

The Kenya-bound EyeCare team is successfully en route and already there are stories to tell. Successfully toting 29 carefully packed bags and boxes of health care supplies, medicine, books and Iowa Women's Basketball Jerseys (Thank you Lisa Bluder), we gave the baggage handlers at the Cedar Rapids Airport a workout early this morning and a dose of travel drama too. British Airways--the carrier transporting this very excited crew from Chicago through London to Nairobi--has changed their baggage weight limits. This was an incredibly valuable piece of information that we learned about 2 hours before our flight. While American Airlines accepts packages up to 100 pounds, the new British Airways baggage weight limits accept no packages heavier than 70 pounds. We were able to shuffle the materials in 29 of the 30 different bags and boxes laying in the middle of the airport ticketing area to accommodate the new requirement. But there was one, there always is, one Goliath, one large piece of equipment that would not, could not, weigh any less than 113 pounds.

This unruly travel companion was the Lens Edger--a lens edger cuts lenses down to fit perfectly within each uniquely sized set of frames. Last year, the EyeCare Kenya team outfitted a new eyecare clinic with donated examination and diagnostic equipment. The stout lens edger was the piece of equipment missing from the Kenya clinic that would allow care-givers there to examine, diagnose, and then provide glasses to the people that needed them. Unable to take on the powers that be of British Airways from our Cedar Rapids post, we had to find an alternative shipping solution. I am happy to report that the lens edger will be arriving fashionably late in Eldoret, just two days behind the crew.

When asked to describe this year's launch, Doc just looked up from her book, with a big smile, and said, "Awesome!"

Signing off until Eldoret.
Team Kenya