A German Voyager's Bold Vision for Tibet's Blind

A German Voyager's Bold Vision for Tibet's Blind

The Braille Monitor

November,

2003

(back)(next)(contents)

A German

Voyager's Bold Vision for Tibet's Blind

by

Jim Yardley

From the Editor: The

following story appeared in the September 20, 2003, edition of the New York

Times. Whenever I read anything about Sabriye Tenberken's work with the

blind children of Tibet, I am reminded of the lyrics of the song, "High

Hopes," all about an ant who succeeded in moving a rubber tree plant. No

one thought it could be done because of the overwhelming size of the problem,

but the ant was not discouraged, and neither was Ms. Tenberken. Her life and

work are a reminder that remarkable things can be done by those who refuse to

take no for an answer. Her attitudes and teaching techniques will seem familiar

to those acquainted with the methods and philosophy of NFB training centers.

Here is the story:

Upon arriving in Tibet,

Sabriye Tenberken decided to tour the countryside, not from the comfort of a

car, but atop the hard saddle of a horse. It was a chancy decision, not only

because the rugged Tibetan landscape can be unforgiving and treacherous, but

also because Ms. Tenberken is blind.

She

thought the horse was perfect. She knew that blindness carried a terrible stigma

in many parts of Tibet, and she had been told that many blind children were

living in isolated, rural villages. She had started riding as a child in her

native Germany, one of many lessons in self-reliance, and she wanted to instill

a similar sense of independence in Tibetan blind children. So she saddled a

horse and, with three other people, began riding.

She

was less prepared for what she and her traveling companions discovered. "It

was quite depressing," she recalled. "We met blind children who were

four or five years old and looked like infants. They hadn't learned to walk

because their parents hadn't taught them."

The

memories are still fresh six years later, though now Ms. Tenberken is seated

in a bright second-floor sitting room above the school she has founded for blind

Tibetan children in the land she has adopted.

Her

partner, both personally and professionally, Paul Kronenberg, is working on

a computer in the next room, as voices of children drift through an open window

from a courtyard below. The children are practicing a play written by one of

them.

In

a Himalayan region known as "the roof of the world," where high-altitude

sun exposure contributes to unusually high rates of eye disease, Ms. Tenberken

and Mr. Kronenberg, who is sighted, now run Braille Without Borders, a program

for blind children in Tibet.

She

created the first Tibetan Braille system, which she is now teaching to her students,

and her memoir about Tibet, now available in the United States, was popular

in Germany.

Nor

is Ms. Tenberken, thirty-three, finished. In coming months she and Mr. Kronenberg

plan to open a second Braille Without Borders program in northern India, a first

step in their goal of expanding their work to other developing countries. Mr.

Kronenberg, an engineer by training, is also trying to develop a lighter, less

expensive Braille machine.

Tall,

with straight, sandy brown hair, Ms. Tenberken still remembers the skepticism

she faced when she presented her plans to local officials in Tibet. She had

first tried to get a job with different international aid groups, but she says

she was told that blind people were prohibited from doing field work.

So

she decided to start her own organization. Everyone, she remembered, thought

she was crazy. "They couldn't imagine I could come to Tibet," she

recalled. "They said, `It's not possible. She's blind; who can take care

of her; who can take her around?'"

The

chaotic streets of the old Tibetan quarter near the Jokhang Monastery present

a disconcerting mess for sighted people, yet Ms. Tenberken navigates them herself

and expects her students to learn to do the same. Her own childhood was filled

with such challenges.

Ms.

Tenberken was raised in Bonn. Her father was a pianist, and her mother directed

children's theater. Her brother is now an artist, prompting her to observe lightly

that she came from an artistic family.

"I'm

the only one who is a little bit practical," she said. She learned about

independence from her mother, who as a student in Turkey during the 1960's dressed

as a man on research trips because women were forbidden to travel. In Turkey

her mother also chose the name "Sabriye," which means "patience"

and "small hedgehog."

When

Ms. Tenberken was only two, her parents learned that she would gradually lose

her sight. They did not tell her about her condition, and by age thirteen she

was blind. Her parents, though, had spent the intervening years filling her

life with images. They took her to museums, traveled extensively, and filled

her eyes with colors. "I have all my visual images in my head," she

said.

She

says she agrees with her parents' decision to keep secret her impending blindness,

because knowing might have terrified her. But not knowing did make her condition

baffling. She kept banging into things without knowing why.

She

finally put a name to her problem when she met another young girl who was blind.

"It was a relief because suddenly I had a word for something that wasn't

functioning as well as others were functioning," she said.

Her

parents encouraged her to discover her own boundaries as a blind person, a philosophy

reinforced when she attended a leading German high school for the blind. She

learned to ride horses, ski downhill and cross-country, and kayak in white water.

"They showed us the teaching and methods and said, `Okay, you have to do

something,'" she recalled. "The whole world was open to us if we knew

the techniques and methods."

She

has adopted a similar philosophy for teaching her twenty-nine Tibetan students,

ages four to twenty-one. In August the group went white-water rafting, and they

plan to climb a nearby Himalayan peak next year. The program emphasizes living

skills like cooking, hygiene, and self-reliance, yet it also teaches workplace

skills like computer use and Tibetan, Chinese, and English. Training is also

offered in careers like massage therapy and music.

Ms.

Tenberken's interest in Tibet took hold at Bonn University, where she decided

to major in Tibetology. She was the only blind student in the program, and Tibetan

had not been translated into Braille. So she did it herself. Her first trip

to Tibet, in 1994, ended quickly. She came down with altitude sickness and had

to fly home.

Undeterred,

she returned for good in 1998, starting her school with one teacher and six

students. They were quickly evicted from their first building for lack of money.

Financing

remains a juggling act. The monthly budget for the entire program is $1,900.

Proceeds from her memoir, My Path Leads to Tibet, helped buy the current

building, while donations have come from people in Germany, the Netherlands,

and Switzerland.

She

has set up a Web site called <braillewithoutborders.org>.

Finishing

her cup of coffee, Ms. Tenberken offers a tour of the school while the students

practice their play. The playwright, Kyila, seventeen, who once lived in a small

village in northern Tibet, could not read or write when she came to the school

a few years ago. Now she is making plans to become a massage therapist, while

her twin brothers, both blind, want to open a teahouse.

Soon

four other students will leave the program to enter a regular Tibetan school,

the first to make that transition. "The kids ask us every day, `When do

we go?'" she said.

Her

own future will remain busy, with planning for more programs in more countries.

She and Mr. Kronenberg hope one day to open a training center, possibly in southern

India, where they could train others in starting up their own programs for the

blind. The main goal remains instilling self-confidence and self-esteem so that

blind children will "not be embarrassed anymore."

A blind child, she notes,

will never be able to drive a truck. "But they can read and write in the

dark," she said. "And who can do that?"

(back)(next)(contents)