Preparing for the trek (From The Argus)

Preparing for the trek

5:00pm Monday 21st February 2011 in Blogs

Thoko Pooley, 38, lives in Hove with her husband Jeremy and 13-year-old daughter Jasmine.

She is the Government Relations Manager for Sussex-based Sightsavers and for the last four months has been helping Comic Relief plan the BT Red Nose Day Desert trek in northern Kenya.

Thoko is following the team of nine celebrities including Ronni Ancona, Craig David, Lorraine Kelly, Scott Mills, Olly Murs, Dermot O'Leary, Nadia Sawalha, Kara Tointon and Peter White, who will witness Sightsavers' work as they brave sunstroke, snakes and sandstorms and witness first-hand how Sightsavers helps tackle the devastating effects of cataracts and trachoma, diseases that cause millions of people in Africa to go blind.

Last night, the celebrities and we all spent the night in tents under the stars for the first time and it was a very exciting experience!

We sat around a camp fire and could hear the rustle and noise of animals everywhere out there in the dark and I think we all did a thorough search of our bedding for insects and animals before going to sleep!

The celebrities are very enthusiastic, but perhaps more than a little nervous about the trek ahead of them, as am I!

Today we visited an eye camp (description - under a banyan tree/in a village hut?) organised by Sightsavers and the celebrities saw for the first time the kind of work we do.

Dozens of Rendile people, who are the local tribe living in this dry and arid land, came to have their sight tested and many of them had very poor vision or serious eye conditions, but had not had the opportunity to have treatment for it before.

Rendile people are semi-nomadic, living in semi-permanent village communities in Northern Kenya, moving two or three times a year to find scrub to feed their herds of camels, goats and cattle.

The climate here is very harsh and there is often drought. They wear very colourful and exciting tribal jewellery, including many circles of brightly coloured beds around their necks, red cloths around their bodies and often face paint and heavy ear rings.

Seeing these people really made us realise how far away from home we are!

Bob and Mary from our country office organised the camp and our local team were able to provide prescription glasses for several of them.

Others were suffering from Trachoma - a very painful condition caused by repeated eye infections, which is common here where there is a lot of dust and clean water for eye washing is scarce.

Their eye lashes turn inwards and scratch the eye ball, like needles.

Several have been signed up for operations to turn their eye lids out again and stop the pain at our eye camp at the end of the trek.

Others booked for cataract operations or received antibiotics to cure infections.

The celebrities were moved by the experience as many of them didn't realise what awful conditions are so common amongst poor communities in many less developed countries.

They needed to understand about our work, as they will be helping to spread the word as they progress on their trek, so that we will have a major eye camp at the end of it.

It was hot, dusty and there were a lot of flies and insects to deal with at the camp, which made it quite exhausting today.

We were all pretty early to bed in our tents after a campfire supper.

The trek begins tomorrow!

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