I intend to continue my weight programme - last year the effort to raise money toward installation of the Mercy Ship 'Africa's opthalmic surgery unit when in dock in UK was so slow that the finished ship had sailed off to Africa before I'd lost half-a-pound! So, another year - another pound!
I have emailed the interpreter who accompanied the Chernobyl kids I treated, through the School she works at. I have received the approval of the Scottish and of the UK Chernobyl Children Lifeline for this.
This is not a Rotary programme, though Rotary Perth Kinnoull was involved in their trip to the Safari Park. Whether I receive a reply or not is unknown: time will tell. But the damage these people are experiencing is severe, debilitating and costing a lot of wasted expertise and resouces in a country which can least afford it. Their partner nations, Russia and Ukraine, have each huge mineral resources; Belarus has not.
I have offered possible help in dental decay prevention, which, from my first-hand experience of their dentition, I believe not to have been as a result of nuclear accident, but assumed locally to be so.
This help has been offered to the children by others before, but largely met with resistance. This is because Belarussians, like most Russian and Ukrainian people (and many others throughout the world) believe, unlike in Western countries, that the damage experienced in one part of the body is related to earlier conditions in other parts of the body: if that original condition is unresolvable, then the later damage has to be expected and cannot be prevented.
The difference with me is that while I agree with this holistic belief, I do not believe that 'giving up', 'shrugging the shoulders', is an option. And I think that, as the gambler would say, 'I've got an inside straight'!
Why bother? How would we feel in UK if all fillings, including adult teeth, were done without any local anaesthetic? Very nippy is a understatement !