Martin:
We arrive in Kitale, an agricultural town in Western Kenya. Population, just over 100,000. Main cash crop - sunflower, with a smattering of tea, coffee and pyrethrum (the flower-base for insecticides). Kitale may not hold many obvious attractions, but for us this is probably the most exciting and interesting stop of the trip.
We're here to meet and work with Dr Hillary Rono, an ophthalmologist and zonal eye surgeon for the North Rift Region of Kenya. We've been introduced to Rono by Andrew Bastowrous of the London School of Health and Tropical Medicine and the inventor of PEEK. Andrew will be over in a week or so's time for the PEEK trials which we'll be following, but in the meantime we've going to make a short film with Rono to help convince local cataract sufferers to come to hospital for an operation.
As far as eye health goes this region is a challenge with the highest prevalence of trachomas in the country and a serious level of cataract related blindness. Rono and his staff are dedicated to eradicating avoidable blindness but one of the problems they face is convincing local people to come to the hospital for cataract operations. There's a level of fear and superstition in the local community over just exactly what the surgeons will do to their eyes. Many worry that the doctors will remove them from their heads and work on them on the table or that they may end up even more blind than they are now.
We're aiming to document the journeys of a group of patients from blindness, through diagnosis and operation, to successful recovery of sight, and so show exactly what happens along the way. Hopefully we'll be able to create a film the hospital can use to encourage more people to have the operation.
Our first stop is to the home of Simeon who is near blind in one eye from a cataract. He's already having problems reading and writing which is proving a real problem as he's afraid he may have to give up his voluntary job as secretary for his local church. He's also having problems keeping tabs on his cows. Simeon is worried that he may eventually also lose sight in his 'good' eye but has heard horror stories of what might happen during an eye operation so is not sure he will go ahead with the procedure.
Justace is already blind in both eyes and knows he is becoming a burden to his sister and brother. In a rural village there is very little he can do to help himself and its too dangerous to venture far from the house without help. He's very keen to have an operation as soon as possible.
Ann is also blind in both eyes and similarly can't wait for the operation. Whatever she fears may happen it can't be worse than what she is already experiencing.
Over the next week or so we'll follow all three through their operations.