It’s a clear night and I’m looking down on southern England. I am on a Virgin Atlantic flight out of Heathrow on my way to Johannesburg, South Africa. My destination is Durban. I am on my way to attend the Technology Committee Meeting of 20/20. I want this Journal to be about travel so I try and avoid a discussion of work, but maybe a short exception is in order.
20/20 is the world vision plan - it is the plan to reduce preventable blindness by the year 2020. The plan was developed by a consortium of Eye Care NGOs – I am not sure if there is official governmental involvement, but there is an unofficial involvement. Cleverly, it also refers to 20/20 vision.
One of the advisory committees for 20/20 is the Technology Committee. The Committee has about 25 members and meets yearly, usually in conjunction with an International Associate to Prevent Blindness meeting. Last March it was held in London at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Disease at the University of London. The group deals with appropriate technology for the developing world and has created a ‘Standard List’ of recommended and approved equipment to guide eye care providers.
This year it is being held in Durban, South Africa in conjunction with ICEE 2007. Since I was attending the Technology Meeting we decided to present a paper and a scientific poster. The paper is on developing optical shops and integrating them in a comprehensive eye care service. This is a little outside of my area, I was the traveling body so I will present. I haven’t paid much attention to optical services in the last couple of years – optometry and optical services are outside my experience.
Refractive error is an enormous problem in the developing world and has finally been recognized as one of the major causes of preventable blindness. MY lack of experience aside, I will have to learn the technology. And to that end a few days after I return, I will travel to New York City to attend a optometric conference – mostly I am going to met manufacturers and broaden my knowledge of optical technology.
I will be in South Africa for about 7 days. I leave the 19th unless I can arrange an earlier flight. I try and travel on free tickets – American Express Rewards program mileage. It can be difficult to get the exact days that you would like to travel – especially if you do not plan long in advance – for which I never seem to have the time. As a result I will be in Durban a couple of days longer than my business requires. Unfortunately Durban is dangerous – uncontrolled crime. The empty days are a weekend, so I would not have to take vacation days, and since I could not get a earlier return flight my expenses are covered. I found that when I tried to change my return reservation from India to an earlier departure I did not have a problem getting an earlier flight, so, I’ll probably try to return a day earlier, possibly two.
I left for the airport yesterday around 12:30 pm. The first leg on the trip was to Newark. It was an ordinary flight, delayed for about an hour. I had a four hour layover – spent the time drinking beer. One of the things that stuck me, particularly after seeing Heathrow today; airports have become shopping malls. There were always shops, a diner, newspaper/candy store, maybe a duty free shop in the international airports, but not any more. Now it’s full blown. At both Newark and Heathrow it was difficult to see the airport signage because of all the merchandizing. I wonder if the airport authorities are receiving any benefits. You would think so, but I have my doubts. Business claims public benefits from taxes and employment; true enough, but they also believe their own propaganda, ‘what’s good for business is good for the country.’ It was never an absolute and many, many, many times business interest has been in conflict with the public good.
The flight to London was on Virgin Atlantic. I had never flown on Virgin Atlantic, I was hoping for an experience similar to my Air France experience. It was similar, but not the dame. Not quite as comfortable, kind of a stingy version. This is something I hate to say, VA has less class than Air France. The service and the food were fine, in fact, better than fine, better than any of the American airlines that I have flown. I’m tempted to divert into a diatribe on American business and how they always seem to miss the ball. But I will not go there. Suffice it to say, Air France was more comfortable.
I arrived in London a little after 9 in the morning. My flight for Johannesburg was not leaving until about six, so I found a ‘left luggage’ company in the terminal and took the Tube into London. It was a beautiful day, 50 deg. F in the shade, 70 deg. F in the sun. It was clear and bright. I started out with two missions, one, ride the London Eye (the enormous Ferris wheel on the Thanes), and two, see the London Tower Bridge. I did not do either. I did see the Eye – but the line was long and I would have been trapped on the wheel for I guess about an hour. I walked around; almost fell asleep on a bench on the Westminster side of the Thanes. The area was crowded but pleasant; it was not frantic tourist activity. Rather it was strolling, enjoying the weather, probably more Londoners than tourist.
Which reminds me, the flight to London was packed with the ‘student trip abroad’ kids. One of the teachers told me there were 150 kids on the flight. I forgot that it was spring break time, and the kids were on the move. I have two sitting next to me, neither said a word to me the entire trip – they both climbed in there iPods and the in-flight movies. I was never a fan of these trips. They are expensive, and I never thought the kids got enough out of them – I have always thought they were ‘send your local teacher to Europe’ trips. That’s probably not fair, supervising the kids has to be a nightmare. Nevertheless, spending g a couple of thousand of dollars to have the kids see moving postcards seems a waste. Now to be completely wishy-washy, Americans have too little experience with the rest of the world, and the world resents it; so I guess, any exposure to the world outside the suburbs is a good thing.
I reconsider the Tower Bridge, and went to Nodding Hill Gate and High Street instead. The tubes were under renovation so getting around is a little more difficult than usual. I will say they were organized; it was, the tubes were posted clearly, and they had people around helping to direct you to the right alternative route.
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