Saco-Indonesia.com.-Haduhhh, kacamata saya jatuh dan retak! Kata mbak Nen, Mama kacamatanya kok ada kelap-kelipnya (haaa itu retakkkkk, Nak! ”).

Mencari di Jerman susah karena memang hidung orang Jerman tidak sama dengan hidung saya. Modelnya juga Europe minded. Saya pengen yang mata kucing, panjang almond. Hiks, nasib.

Oh. Saya baru memakai kacamata pada umur 30 tahun, itupun serasa tersiksa. Kok ada yang nyantol. Meski hanya minus 1 dan minus 0,5, ini harus dipakai saat berkendara. Blereng … jarak jauh terasa kabur kalau kacamata ketinggalan.

Huh. Saya memang malas memakainya sehari-hari karena seperti ada yang mengganjal disudut mata dekat hidung. Ingin pakai lensa mata, takut. Banyak cerita yang tidak mengerikan terdengar di telinga saya.

Saya imbangi dengan memakan wortel mentah sebanyak-banyaknya. Yaaaa … jadi merasa seperti kelinci. Untung gang rumah kami tidak sempit. Bukan gang kelinci atau gang senggol.

Yaiy. Orang kedua yang memakai kacamata di rumah kami adalah anak sulung. Setelah saya periksakan di Augen Zentrum, pusat pemeriksaan mata di RS kota Tuttlingen (dengan rekomendasi dokter umum kampung kami), ditemukan bahwa ia plus 2. Walahhhh … kok sama dengan Eyang kakung di Semarang? Tapinya si kakek tahun ini telah menginjak umur 74 tahun. Dia waktu itu baru berumur 10 tahun ….

Akhirnya oleh dokter diberikan resep kacamata. Setelahnya, kami menuju toko optik di alun-alun kota. Disana berjajar beberapa toko yang menjual barang yang sama. Kami memilih salah satu rekomendasi suami, F.

Begitu memasuki ruangan, kami disambut dengan senyuman dan ucapan halus, “Was kann ich für Sie tun?“ (ingat kisah cara kakek Jerman membahagiakan nenek …). Artinya, ada yang bisa saya bantu?

Saya jelaskan maksud kedatangan kami dan memberikan resep. Si anak disuruh memilih bingkai kacamata mana yang ia sukai. Ia memilih yang berwarna kuning cleret hitam dari yang diperlihatkan di etalase nul tariff. Setelah dicoba, pas, si embak memberikan kertas pengambilan.

Kacamata gratis untuk anak Jerman dibawah umur 18

Disana tertera … NUL TARIFF alias GRATIS!

Wow, saya tanyakan lagi apakah benar seperti itu. Sekali lagi, si embak yang cantik tersenyum dan mengatakan memang ketentuan di Jerman seperti itu. Anak dibawah umur 18 tahun gratis. Bingkainya memang khusus, kalau permintaan khusus bermerk, lain soal.

Seminggu kemudian, kami mengambilnya. Anak kami mencobanya. Si embak lagi-lagi tersenyum ramaaaah sekali. Oooo … ini image bagus toko optik F, ya? Makanya kondang.

Setelah beberapa menit mencoba dan mematut diri di depan cermin, si embak membenahi bingkai agar pas melekat ditelinga.

Selesai.

Si embak menanyakan apakah mau dimasukkan etui tempat kacamata hadiah dari toko, atau dipakai saja. Si anak mengangguk dan mengambil kotak yang diberikan si embak.

Kata dokter yang memeriksanya, ini akan diuji selama 9 bulan, periksa lagi apakah masih sama atau berubah dan mengganti kacamata dengan yang baru atau tidak. Sekian lama, untung tidak tambah, malah lebih baik kondisi matanya.

***

Wah, asyik ya? Jika asuransi yang dipilih orang di Indonesia bisa meng-cover semua bea kesehatan untuk anak-anak dibawah umur 18 tahun. Saya tidak tahu apakah di tanah air juga demikian untuk kacamata anak-anak …. Kompasianer di tanah air pasti lebih tahu.

Meski nul tariff, saya sarankan anak-anak yang perempuan untuk mencintai matanya dengan membaca di tempat yang terang, banyak makan wortel (saya iris kecil-keciiiiiiiiiiil dalam lumpia atau sup yang dimakan), jus jeruk campur wortel (instan) dan makanan-minuman-buah-sayur yang mengandung vitamin A lainnya. Namanya anak-anak … susah dari awalnya, semoga terbiasa. Mari jaga mata kita. (G76)

Editor;Liwon Maulana

Sumber:http://lifestyle.kompasiana.com/catatan/2013/06/11/pelayanan-kaca-mata- anak-gratis-563978.html

BALTIMORE — In the afternoons, the streets of Locust Point are clean and nearly silent. In front of the rowhouses, potted plants rest next to steps of brick or concrete. There is a shopping center nearby with restaurants, and a grocery store filled with fresh foods.

And the National Guard and the police are largely absent. So, too, residents say, are worries about what happened a few miles away on April 27 when, in a space of hours, parts of this city became riot zones.

“They’re not our reality,” Ashley Fowler, 30, said on Monday at the restaurant where she works. “They’re not what we’re living right now. We live in, not to be racist, white America.”

As Baltimore considers its way forward after the violent unrest brought by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of injuries he suffered while in police custody, residents in its predominantly white neighborhoods acknowledge that they are sometimes struggling to understand what beyond Mr. Gray’s death spurred the turmoil here. For many, the poverty and troubled schools of gritty West Baltimore are distant troubles, glimpsed only when they pass through the area on their way somewhere else.

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And so neighborhoods of Baltimore are facing altogether different reckonings after Mr. Gray’s death. In mostly black communities like Sandtown-Winchester, where some of the most destructive rioting played out last week, residents are hoping businesses will reopen and that the police will change their strategies. But in mostly white areas like Canton and Locust Point, some residents wonder what role, if any, they should play in reimagining stretches of Baltimore where they do not live.

“Most of the people are kind of at a loss as to what they’re supposed to do,” said Dr. Richard Lamb, a dentist who has practiced in the same Locust Point office for nearly 39 years. “I listen to the news reports. I listen to the clergymen. I listen to the facts of the rampant unemployment and the lack of opportunities in the area. Listen, I pay my taxes. Exactly what can I do?”

And in Canton, where the restaurants have clever names like Nacho Mama’s and Holy Crepe Bakery and Café, Sara Bahr said solutions seemed out of reach for a proudly liberal city.

“I can only imagine how frustrated they must be,” said Ms. Bahr, 36, a nurse who was out with her 3-year-old daughter, Sally. “I just wish I knew how to solve poverty. I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

The day of unrest and the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations that followed led to hundreds of arrests, often for violations of the curfew imposed on the city for five consecutive nights while National Guard soldiers patrolled the streets. Although there were isolated instances of trouble in Canton, the neighborhood association said on its website, many parts of southeast Baltimore were physically untouched by the tumult.

Tensions in the city bubbled anew on Monday after reports that the police had wounded a black man in Northwest Baltimore. The authorities denied those reports and sent officers to talk with the crowds that gathered while other officers clutching shields blocked traffic at Pennsylvania and West North Avenues.

Lt. Col. Melvin Russell, a community police officer, said officers had stopped a man suspected of carrying a handgun and that “one of those rounds was spent.”

Colonel Russell said officers had not opened fire, “so we couldn’t have shot him.”

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The colonel said the man had not been injured but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Nearby, many people stood in disbelief, despite the efforts by the authorities to quash reports they described as “unfounded.”

Monday’s episode was a brief moment in a larger drama that has yielded anger and confusion. Although many people said they were familiar with accounts of the police harassing or intimidating residents, many in Canton and Locust Point said they had never experienced it themselves. When they watched the unrest, which many protesters said was fueled by feelings that they lived only on Baltimore’s margins, even those like Ms. Bahr who were pained by what they saw said they could scarcely comprehend the emotions associated with it.

But others, like Lambi Vasilakopoulos, who runs a casual restaurant in Canton, said they were incensed by what unfolded last week.

“What happened wasn’t called for. Protests are one thing; looting is another thing,” he said, adding, “We’re very frustrated because we’re the ones who are going to pay for this.”

There were pockets of optimism, though, that Baltimore would enter a period of reconciliation.

“I’m just hoping for peace,” Natalie Boies, 53, said in front of the Locust Point home where she has lived for 50 years. “Learn to love each other; be patient with each other; find justice; and care.”

A skeptical Mr. Vasilakopoulos predicted tensions would worsen.

“It cannot be fixed,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. Why? Because people don’t obey the laws. They don’t want to obey them.”

But there were few fears that the violence that plagued West Baltimore last week would play out on these relaxed streets. The authorities, Ms. Fowler said, would make sure of that.

“They kept us safe here,” she said. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable when I was in my house three blocks away from here. I knew I was going to be O.K. because I knew they weren’t going to let anyone come and loot our properties or our businesses or burn our cars.”