Help us cure blindness in Eritrea

The little boy sits in an endless line of cataract patients, all bearing a handwritten I.D. number taped to their foreheads. They are waiting for their turn on the operating table. Most of them are older women. Occasionally, one of them leans over to comfort this young boy, to reassure him that he is in safe hands.

Dr. Menghis Bairu, a native Eritrean and member of Cure Blindness Project’s Board of Directors, approaches the boy, kneels down in front of him, lowers his blue surgical mask, and begins speaking to him softly in Tigrigna. "What neighborhood are you from? - Really, me too! - What sports do you like? - Soccer? Me too!" The boy’s tense body relaxes as he gazes into the doctor’s kind eyes.

Moments later, the head surgical nurse takes the boy's hand and leads him to the operating rooms. The boy’s father has now joined his son. He’s wearing green scrubs, standing close, listening as James, the eye nurse, explains - with Menghis translating - that he will be inserting a needle behind the eye to paralyze the rectus muscle and that it will hurt, but only for a moment. “You must be very still,” he is told.

The boy listens but can’t imagine enduring a two-inch needle inserted into his eye socket. He dissolves into tears and leaves the operating room, weeping in his father’s arms. Minutes later he is back up on the table with his new best friend, Menghis, who is promising him an energy bar afterwards. A nurse drapes a sterile cloth over his little body. Nurse James and Menghis hold his head tightly while James inserts the needle alongside the eye.

Dr. Sadik’s eyes narrow as he peers through his microscope. His experienced gloved hands quickly go to work. The brave boy did not move. Dr. Sadik looked up, smiling over at Menghis then said, “That boy doesn’t need anesthesia. He’s got you.”

The boy’s eye, now ready to heal itself without stitches, was pressure bandaged with a large ball of cotton. The brave boy’s other eye opens. He doesn’t understand what has just happened, but he is happy to be helped off the table, still holding fast to Menghis, who gently lifts him up with his loving arms and carries him down the long hallway, crowded as always on both sides with waiting patients.