2006
Khandro-la visited the nomadic people of Lake Tsomoriri, Ladakh (15,000ft). These nomads have deep devotion and trust to her lineage and they would ask Khandro-la to blow mantras on their eyes for blessed healing. Khandro-la was deeply moved by their purity and also their obvious need for eye care. They continued coming to her for blessing to heal their eyes and due to her modern exposure she realized that what they really needed on the material level was good eye care.
2007
During her Australian teaching tour Khandro-la showed photos of these people and talked of their need for western eye care. On the last day of her visit an Australian eye surgeon, experienced in developing countries, offered to visit almost immediately!
The Tsomoriri community does not easily trust NGO’s as they have had bad experiences of inexperienced doctors and experimentation. In contrast Khandro-la herself is deeply trusted. She had to personally travel to the area before the visit of the eye doctor to set up this first programme.
In July that year the surgeon came to Lake Tsomoriri and worked with the Khachodling team which consisted of the Australian eye surgeon, a monk organisor and a western student of Khandro-la whom has been living at the nunnery in Zanskar for some years, as well as Khachodling’s amchi (traditional healer) from Mulbeck. Over 100 nomads were treated and small operations conducted. Both eastern and western modalities harmoniously worked together, just as the Khachodling vision emphasizes.
This treatment and investigatory eye camp found that many eye problems are caused by the high altitude life of spending long hours in the outdoors under high ultraviolet rays while tending yak and sheep. Eye problems are also caused by the smoke of fires used for cooking and heating inside yak tents. Thus local conditions combined with no person locally to be able to treat simple conditions immediately or advise on basic eye care, make for many eye diseases that are fully preventable. At the end of that year the eye doctor promised to return with the vision that there be an annual eye camp which invites specialists and we look for local people to train as “barefoot eye nurse”.
2008
The project this year invited two Australian eye surgeons and on Australian optometrist. Together they worked again with monks, nuns, lay westerners and local traditional peoples to run the eye camp in Lake Tsomiriri. In addition Khachodling offered its service in Leh and two other needy communities on the way to the Lake. Now over 500 local and nomadic people have been treated, medicines, reading and sunglasses provided.
Important links were made on this trip with the one local eye surgeon in Leh (he is the only one for the entire area of Ladakh and Zanskar) began a longer training of our first local “barefoot eye nurse” – a monk with virtually no previous experience or western style education. He has just served his first winter treating the nomads.
Other locals had become part of the training offered by the western surgeons and optometrist – Tsewang from Manali, Ani (Khachodling’s female amchi/traditional doctor from Mulbeck) and Dawa from Lahoul. In Leh, a young female high school student assisted in translating. She enjoyed it so much she was invited to come for the rest of the eye camp. She has been so moved she is planning to become an eye doctor.
The plan is to eventually employ and train up to nine local people as “barefoot eye nurses” and provide them with the support (medicines, equipment and transport) needed to diagnose and treat in local communities and set up treatment for the annual visit of eye specialists.