The charity also helped Zewude’s husband with the operation. “But when things finally went better for him, it started on me,” says Zewude. Although at the beginning she could still live at home, after a while she became almost completely blind and had to move in with her son Ali and his family. In spite of having got his sight back, her husband didn’t manage to take care of her on his own.
“We take care of everything,” reports Ali. While his wife gives her mother-in-law a hand with everyday things, washes and cooks for everyone, Ali tills his one-and-a-half-hectare field. The meagre harvest of wheat, Teff and beans has to do for his family of four and his parents. When he has to buy something, Ali works as a day labourer and earns between 1.5 and three euros a day. “The pressure weighs heavily on me,” admits the 38-year-old.
Through an invitation at the market he learned that the foundation was once again offering operations for cataracts. “I ran home at once and told my mother.” Together they took on the difficult journey to the project headquarters in Mekane Selam. “I’m frightened of the injections, but I want to see the treatment through,” says Zuwede. Like the other patients, she sits in front of the treatment room on a wooden bench, her hair tied out of her face with a plastic bag for the operation. “My husband and other people I know can see again. It must work for me as well,” she says confidently. A little later she is called.