Herding cows is such a fundamental part of Maasai culture that it is common to hear people in that community greeting each other with, “I hope your cattle are well!”
So, when 70-year-old Parmuat, a Maasai herder in Kajiado County, Kenya, thought he might have to sell off his cows, he was devastated.
Several years ago, Parmuat looked outside his home and couldn’t see his cows anywhere. When he found them, he realized they had been right in front of him all along, on a hill near the house. He hadn’t been able to see them because of his increasingly blurry eyesight.
Photo: Patrick Wainaina, Operation Eyesight
As his vision got worse, Parmuat found it harder and harder to care for his herd. He didn’t know how else to make an income, and he worried that he and his wife would become a burden to their 12 children, now grown up and raising families of their own.
Parmuat’s luck changed when a community health assistant, whom we’d trained in primary eye care, knocked on his door during a door-to-door eye screening and diagnosed him with cataracts.
Just a few weeks later, Parmuat learned he would be among the first patients to get cataract surgery at the new eye unit at the Kajiado County Referral Hospital.
After surgery, when a nurse removed the gauze from his eyes, Parmuat marveled at his restored vision. “Everything was clear again,” he says, “as if the sun suddenly came up.”
Now back at home with his wife, Parmuat says that he doesn’t need to sell any cows. In fact, he adds with a twinkle, he’s thinking about buying a couple more.
With files from Patrick Wainaina
