You can now keep track of the latest CBM UK news by following us on the popular micro-blogging tool – Twitter.

Follow us now at www.twitter.com/cbmuk

These eight days visiting the CBM UK projects in Bolivia have passed so quickly and I am sad that today is my last day.

I spent the day with Gonzalo getting all of my notes in order and asking a few last-minute questions that would fill in the gaps in my research. Gonzalo and I had got on so well and he had been the perfect ‘walking guidebook’ for Santa Cruz. We’ve swapped email addresses so that we can keep in touch (I think he wants me to recommend him some good audio books!).

When we got to the airport, I felt sad to be saying my goodbyes and thanked him for helping to make my trip more enjoyable then it needed to be. I reflected on my journey around Bolivia as the plane left the runway and I reminded myself of all the places i’d been fortunate to see and all of the staff and patients that had welcomed me and just how incredible the projects in Trinidad, Riberalta and Santa Cruz were. All of them had left me with a lasting impression of just how dedicated the staff were, and how hard they worked with CBM to treat and support those people who rely on them when faced with living in poverty with blindness or deafness.

Together we achieved this and together we can do more.

I had to get to the clinic early this morning, so I told Gonzalo to meet me after the cataract surgeries were finished.
The theatre is quite small and there’s only one room used for operations, which limits the clinic’s capacity somewhat but I was able to go in and take a few photographs.

After breakfast I met up with Gonzalo and we returned to Aprecia to interview the Theatre Manager and some of the other staff members involved in the surgical unit of the hospital, including Fernando – one of Aprecia’s Trainee Surgeons (pictured).

The hospital does have some boarding facilities for the poorer visitors to the clinic who don’t live or have friends and relatives in the surrounding area. I found that the shade of the courtyard played host to people escaping the heat and taking advantage of the drinks that are often served there. In this relaxed atmosphere, the young girls sit on the benches to chat and braid each-others hair whilst waiting for relatives.

Gonzalo and I were pleased to be joined at lunch by staff member Milton. We were grateful that he could take time away from his busy office to talk to explain some of the problems and challenges that Aprecia has faced in the past and those that it is still overcoming today. CBM has made an incredible difference to Aprecia already through your generous donations but there is still much more that can be done here to help treat and support this close-knit community and avoid blindness.

I found out today that the operating theatre will be open tomorrow for one of the cataract patients that I’ve been documenting. He’s having his first operation and he’s quite calm now considering, but says he’ll probably feel a bit more nervous closer to the time.

I asked to be shown around the rest of Aprecia with Gonzalo and soon found that in addition to being able to treat patients, they also have an amazing facility for training and working with blind children and adults. They train some of the adults in vocations such as weaving.

The kitchen was very busy with workers baking a range of local recipes for an up-coming fundraising event. They offered me one of their freshly baked buns – it was absolutely delicious! Their local recipe uses a Manioc paste which they mix with local cheeses before baking it in the oven.

Having munched on this very tasty treat, I reluctantly left the kitchen, got back to my camera and moved on to the next classroom where we found a group of deaf blind students going through their lessons.

Here, Gonzalo kept teasing the head of the department for ‘kicking him out’. Gonzalo went on to explain that he couldn’t learn Braille as fast as some of the younger pupils and so he dismissed himself from classes purely out of embarrassment! He still jokes with the teachers about how ‘unfair’ it all was!

After a fantastic day of interviews I said goodbye to some of the patients on the way out, and led Gonzalo back to his house.

Gonzalo met me again at the hotel from where we were then driven back to the clinic.

This morning there were plenty of new patients coming into the clinic and they kindly came to talk to me while they waited to be seen. They all told me about how grateful they were to be receiving either cheap or sometimes even free medical treatment and life changing surgeries.

Miriam – the hospital’s matron, was mentioned all day in words of praise for her hard work and gentle manner. It wasn’t long before she came and talked to me too. She told me about some of the social issues seen across Santa Cruz and about some new clinics that had been set up in neighbouring areas. She told me how concerned she was to see new patients arriving at Aprecia after having had disastrous treatment in some of these new clinics.
We continued meeting and interview patients well into the afternoon and after all of the surgeries had taken place, I was able to have a look around the operating theatre to see exactly where the life-changing surgery takes place.

My fourth day in Boliva saw me visit a clinic called ‘Aprecia’ in Santa Cruz de la Sierra which caters for the needs of people with various visual impairments including cataracts and blindness through to diabetes, glaucoma and eye injuries.

My translator, Gonzalo, was blinded eight years ago as a result of diabetes and as we walk together in the morning from the hotel to the clinic, he fills me in on life in and around Santa Cruz.

With his help, we interview some of the patients who have come to APRECIA to be treated for an array of different ailments. I soon learn that these people, who are so dependent on their families, have had to travel vast distances just to get here.

After a morning of interviews, Gonzalo and I headed for a nearby restaurant where he told me what it has been like for him since losing his sight eight years ago. He explained that he had to re-learn how to walk; how to take care of himself; and how he had to give up on some of his life luxuries and dreams. Gonzalo is in his sixties and had previously enjoyed years of reading and watching films but now, as he approaches retirement age, he talks about the pain of how diabetes robbed him of these pleasures and how he has had to completely re-adjust his lifestyle.

In the afternoon we took a drive to the outskirts of Santa Cruz – into farming communities, where large communities of people suffer from congenital cataracts. As we traveled along some of the dirt roads, Gonzalo reminisced about his life of travel and talked about some of the books he now listens to on audio cassettes. He makes for a great companion, retaining an incredible sense of humour throughout my journey across this unfamiliar country.

I woke up for my second day in sunny Riberalta and braved a motorbike taxi ride back to the ARCA Maranatha Deaf School where I met with Ricky – one of their teachers.

Ricky was the first person to go through ARCA and to go right through High School with the help of a translator. He now teaches at the school and his enthusiasm has helped Andreas Kolb recruit many new members of staff and provide out-reach into the surrounding community.

With Carol translating Ricky’s sign language, she helped me understand just how hard the staff at ARCA have worked to maintain the school and to help its pupils.

Sarah, Andreas’ wife, is one of the deaf teachers at ARCA. She was teaching a Bible Studies class with the aid of a sign language dictionary containing the words in the Bible that aren’t part of everyday sign language. It was illustrated throughout with photographs of each of the hand signs to help the children learn the unusual words. The dictionary had been made and printed locally in Bolivia with the help of Andreas, Sarah, and a few other members of the deaf community.

CBM has been able, though the donations it has received, to build a number of new buildings for ARCA and these are now used as classrooms. It was great to see that they are now all fully attended and that the children of the school are so well behaved.

ARCA impressed me so much but with a sad ‘goodbye’, I had to leave to catch my flight on to my next location in Santa Cruz.

After another early start, I managed to get my flight on to Riberalta, which saw me travelling further north in Bolivia. My next stop would be the Arca Maranatha Deaf School.

When I arrived, I was met by the head of the school, Andreas Kolb (who is deaf himself) and his assistant Carol. They were thoughtful in coming to the airport to welcome me because I didn’t realise that car taxis are unheard of in Riberalta. I would have had to balance my suitcase and camera equipment on the back of a motorbike, so I fully appreciated their offer of a lift!

The school was lovely – teaching around 30-40 pupils in the morning classes and running workshops and classes in the evenings for the older students, parents and trainee teachers.

Through the support and generosity of our donors, CBM has helped the school to increase their capacity considerably by paying for the construction of four new classrooms and by paying some of the salaries of the newly recruited members of staff.

Rather excitingly, this year is the first year they’ve been able to send a class of deaf children to the local secondary school where the students can participate in regular classes with other children of their own age. I asked the students whether or not they had been nervous about the move to the other school (where there are hundreds of students in attendance), but they all said that even though they may have been at first, they all really enjoyed being able to sit alongside their friends and neighbours in class.

The inclusion into the experiences and situations that their peers are exposed to has really helped them feel less neglected. Some of the children who come to the deaf school are brought there very late in life because they are literally hidden away behind closed doors.

I arrived early in the morning at Trinidad in Bolivia, and after dumping my bags at the hotel I went straight out into the muggy tropical air to visit the first of the projects that I had been sent to report on.

The Clinic wasn’t too far out of town and I bounced along in an old Nissan Sunny to where the new hospital had just been built, complete with an Operating Theatre that provides a much needed service of advanced medical care in the area.

The clinic saves money by making ear moulds that a local dentist helped to design. He came up with a way of making them locally using his knowledge as an orthodontist. His design has helped the clinic to cut the cost of importing them in from elsewhere.

A lot of new equipment has just been set up within the clinic, which is helping to measure a patient’s level of deafness with a greater accuracy than ever before. This in turn is helping the medical staff to better appreciate each individual situation and come to a more informed decision regarding possible treatment.

Diego Santana and his wife Joanna, are part of the board that run the clinic. Joanna works in the logistical side of things whilst Diego consults patients throughout the day. Their daughters attend the local primary schools and are growing up as half Scottish and half Spanish children in Bolivia.

After lunch with Diego and Joanna, I visited a primary school to see a little boy who, though almost totally deaf through meningitis, has been integrated into one of the classes there.