Saturday, May 16: Prosthetic Promises reaches farther!

Saturday was a busy day with fabrication. We had to set up the rest of the equipment that we hadn't had time to do yet to get started on laminations. 

Chris setting up the equipment and first leg for laminating.

A look at our work area.

This is John's work table. Some fabrication and adjustment processes for the prosthetic eyes requires grinding and polishing. This is the messy part, so he set up this work table in the garage. The painting and cleaner part of the eye fabrication process took place in the guesthouse where we stayed. Once we have a clinic built, John will be able to do all his work in one area...that will be nice!

Chris working on laminations. We split up the work between the two of us for efficiency. Chris is much faster at laminations than I am, so she took that part. I had the next model set up for lamination as she finished one. We also split the tedious parts of the process up--she did the grinding and smoothing of the sockets, which is incredibly itchy from the carbon, and I did all the sewing of the sails for the sockets, which is quite trying on patience since neither one of us is a great seamstress. Our sewing machine is a used garage sale find that takes some coaxing to work properly. 

In addition to a properly functioning industrial sewing machine, we'll be needing to purchase a new lamination jig. [Note the black electrical tape at the bottom-left holding that all together.] The used equipment has made 3 wonderful trips happen for Prosthetic Promises...we just have to start replacing some now.

Chris and I took a break for a snack around 11AM at The Ark where John was working. Part of the process of fabricating eyes requires cooking them in water on the stove (yes...cooking eyes). The power went out as John had the eyes on the stove, which is a concern if they cool down and then heat back up, it could affect the outcome of the finished product. Thankfully, the power was only out about 10 minutes this time, so the water didn't have time to cool down. A gas burner plate is something John may need since power outages are common. 

Action shots of John fabricating eyes. 

He has such detailed, delicate work to do for a small prosthetic eye.

In addition to fabrication, John had a patient come from the other side of Lusaka to see him. Lusaka is around 250 km (155 miles) from New Day, so he came from more than that distance. It took him 10 hours by public transport to get to the orphanage. John was able to fit the man with an eye he had made before the trip with some adjustments to optimize the fit. It's amazing that news of John doing prosthetic eyes has traveled so far! Such a blessing to be able to reach more and more people to help. We were amazed how far patients traveled for prosthetic eyes and legs. 

The messy workbench with our "lamp lighting" that Blu set up for us to continue working after dark. We encountered several complications throughout the day that made fabrication slower than we had hoped on Saturday, but we did get several laminations finished. The laminating resin we were able to ship to Zambia had to be non-hazmat. Neither Chris or I had used this resin before, so it took some time figuring out how it reacted and worked for our laminations. The cost of buying the resin, paying for shipping and paying for customs added up to be quite expensive to get resin to Zambia. We will be do research before next year's trip to try to figure out a cheaper way of getting resin there. 

Looking at the sunset from the garage. Another busy day in Zambia over...a lot more work to do.

*Next post: Sunday, May 17: Prosthetics and bees!