Obito is unlike any other patient we meet in Gamo Gofa. She was about to go in for surgery, yet she didn't seem nervous at all. She was in fact is grinning from ear to ear.
Obito is in the advanced stage of trachoma, a highly contagious bacterial eye infection that can lead to irreversible blindness. Her right eyelid had turned inward. The lashes scratched painfully and relentlessly against her eyeball. Obito’s extreme sensitivity to light made even routine activities like food shopping and preparing meals for her family difficult — if not impossible.
Thankfully, Tsehay, an Orbis-trained eye health care worker, visited Obito’s community as part of a public education program on preventing and treating trachoma and other vision problems.