ENSENADA, Mexico — On a gray April morning, a Mexican boy and his mother sit in a doctor's office in San Diego. A bandage covers the boy's left eye. His right eye, as blue as the deep ocean, has a vacant look.
A birth defect left the 16-year-old unable to see much beyond a few inches. His corneas, the clear tissue at the front of his eyes, are clouded over. It's as though Israel Cortez Guzman always looks at the world through a dirty, frosted window pane.
Today, the doctor tells him, that may change. Just 24 hours earlier, surgeons removed the diseased cornea in Israel's left eye and replaced it with a healthy, donated cornea. There's a small chance that the procedure will improve his vision significantly. If it works, the doctor will peel back the bandage and, for the first time, Israel may see beyond a few inches.
It's a day that Israel and his mother, 46-year-old Francisca Guzman, have long prayed for. The shy boy with coffee-colored skin and a warm, toothy smile wants to be able to work and help his mother, who has raised Israel on her own. He loves machines, and dreams of working with computers.
"I want to do what other people can do," Israel says.
Had Israel been born in the United States, his defect likely would have been quickly identified and corrected. But he was born in rural Mexico, and his defect has cost him much more than sight.
Israel's eyes clouded over at birth, giving them an unearthly blue hue. His father, who owned land in the poor southern state of Oaxaca, thought there was only one way that a blue-eyed child could come from two brown-eyed parents.
"This isn't my son," Francisca says he told her.
He accused her of infidelity. Francisca says he beat her. When Israel was a year old, he kicked her out of the house. She had no money and no job--and Israel and his 5-year-old brother, Angel, to support.
"We had nothing," Francisca says. "Only a change of clothing."
She left Angel with her parents in Oaxaca and headed north with Israel to the Pacific port town of Ensenada. She rented a room, awoke at 4 a.m. each day to make tamales and tortillas, strapped Israel to her back and walked door to door peddling the goods to her neighbors. She barely earned enough to eat.
Francisca first noticed there was something wrong with her son's eyes after his third birthday. When she dropped an object, Israel had trouble finding it. The boy was sensitive to light, his mother said, so much so that tears would flow from his eyes and stain his shirt.
