The woman was leading her elderly mother while holding her tiny daughter against her chest, navigating the crowds in the main hall of the Opthalmology hospital in Omdurman. Her reddish brown thob was of the common variety and her hair sneaked out from the thob’s head cover. This eye hospital where I had been going once or twice a week for the past two months as a co-patient for my diabetic brother who had developed a hard crystalized cataract in his left eye leaving him with poor eyesight and other ailments. Many times I would seat him and spend the next four or five hours standing up or leaning against a desk. The hospital was making a killing but seemed unconcerned by the lack of accomodation in the facility. Most of the patients were elderly men and women, mostly from rural areas and always accompanied by their children to both guide them around and handle financial matters. The few children there for treatment were usually the victims of accidents and sported greusome looking scars around their eyes. They mostly slept on their mother’s lap, sometimes their grandmother like the boy who had one eye shut after being poked by a steel rod. He was fasting and scheduled for surgery later on in the day. His mother was on her phone and only stopped to look at me with an annoyed look for chatting up her mom. Ocassionally, I would tease a young boy or girl to aliveate the stress and that is what brought me to the woman in the reddish brown thob. Both the woman and her daughter were dark skinned and impassive,with no discernable emotions on their face, while the grandmother who had a lighter complexion seemed to enjoy looking at the crowd and trying to pick up any story lines to tell her family and friends later on. I approached the mother and daughter, beamed a big smile at them, leaned forward and pinched the girl’s cheeks expecting some reaction, smiling and maybe even a cry but her face remained calm and unaffected. I was puzzled, but continued my assault on her tiny cheeks while inquiring about what brought them here. We have surgery today, the woman answered. Her mother seemed unconcerned and the grand-daughter strangely quiet. Her mother suddenly said, it’s baba! The girl flashed a quick smile but the calmness returned with what I now understood had been anxiety in her part. She was blind and the surgery was for her not her grandmother. I stumbled back in shock, ashamed and greatly saddened, while the family got up from their seats and disappeared in the crowd
Khartoum Bahri on June 5th, 2026
