It was hard to tell his age. He was probably no more than fifty but looked seventy five. People get old quickly in Aden. He appeared at the gate long after the clinics had closed. Patient questioning by the guard established that he had come from a hill village three hundred kilometres east of us. His cautious feeling of the gate and tentative steps through it suggested at least partial blindness. His journey by communal taxi and mini bus had taken eight hours paid for by selling one of his four sheep.

He had nowhere to stay so the guard, Sahel, took him to a succession of open air street dormitories – steel bed frames put out on the pavements and rentable for a pittance per night. None would accept him. The proprietors were suspicious that Sahel was wanting to dump an aged relative. Indignant, the old man declared he had his piece of cardboard and would sleep on the ground, but he was persuaded to return to the church and eye clinic, where a mattress was put down and supper brought. He was a lively engaging character. Sadly, tests the next morning showed there was nothing that could be done to restore his sight. He said he was grateful for the hospitality and had come on the recommendation of a neighbour in his village who had had a successful operation with us eighteen months earlier.

Many like that friend do receive sight through the work of the Eye Clinic. Some 6,700 outpatients were seen and 700 cataract operations performed, the majority in Aden but 200 on outreach to Mocha