Before we embarked on this family adventure – called sailing Aphrodite – all six of us had our eyes tested.

But a year later, since starting school in Luperon, Dominican Republic, our daughter, Betty,  had been complaining that she couldn’t see the blackboard.

Enter Ana Lopez, proprietor of the Casa Lopez convenience store, and patron saint of English-speaking cruisers.

Ana has been helpful to our family on many occasions. She is valued by me to the point that she is on our family’s school contact list. It was Ana who recently helped locate us when Paul was having an allergic reaction.

I visited Ana’s shop and solicited her help to find an eye doctor for Betty, Ana contacted a pediatrician, and then she contacted a large hospital called Clinica Corominas in Santiago.

After making several phone calls, Ana found Betty an English-speaking pediatric eye doctor. The eye doctor is called Dr. Tania Sarita.

Incidentally, if you are an adult and in need of an eye doctor, then Dr. Sebastian Guzman is another English-speaking eye doctor. He also works at the Clinica Corominas hospital on the same floor as Dr. Sarita. My husband, Rick, saw him this afternoon when he went with Betty to Santiago.

And if you are very interested, Rick’s eye appointment lasted a full hour and cost 1500 pesos, which is about $40 US. Betty’s eye appointment lasted about 10 minutes and cost 2200 pesos, which is about $55 US.

Betty has been to the eye doctor in Ottawa since she was three years old, but she had the need for glasses before. That changed today.

Betty is now the ecstatic owner of a pair of perfectly pink eye glasses.

Her reaction was very similar to mine when I got my first pair of glasses, which were also pink. I was about her age and the difference that glasses gave me felt miraculous.

She says it’s like she’s been looking at a painting but now that she hasn’t glasses she’s actually part of the painting. She commented on the texture of many things, and said she could read the boat name of the boat that is moored next to us.

My description is not doing her excitement justice. I shall let Betty tell you in her own words about her new glasses.