[PHOTO CAPTION: Mariyam Cementwala]

[PHOTO CAPTION: Mariyam Cementwala]

The Braille Monitor
May
2005
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The Gift
by Mariyam
Cementwala

Mariyam
Cementwala

From the Editor: When
Dr. Jernigan first began teaching me how to edit a magazine, he instructed me
on the value of seed corn, tucking away several articles to hold in readiness
in case they are suddenly needed in a pinch. I adopted his practice and try
always to have a few pieces that I can drop into an issue if necessary.
In a week or two I am
scheduled to upgrade my computer, which means sorting through files and deleting
the things that are just sitting around, taking up cyberspace. This morning
I found the following bit of seed corn and decided that it is still as valuable
as it was when I first read it. Mariyam Cementwala is now a student at the Boalt
Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. She is still
benefiting from the decision she describes making in the following story. It
first appeared in the Winter 2000 issue of the Student Slate, the publication
of the National Association of Blind Students. This is what she says about her
experience:
The first time I heard
about adult training centers was at the 1997 convention of the National Federation
of the Blind. At that time I met Joanne Wilson, director of the Louisiana Center
for the Blind. I had thought that perhaps someday I would go, but right then
I did not think I needed to be at a center. I was on my way to the University
of California at Berkeley. I believed that I had enough skills in living and
travelling independently to survive on my own without first going to a center.
I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and left it in cold storage. I was
a long way from believing that I needed training in the alternative techniques
of blindness.
Four months after convention
I was sitting at Giovanni's Italian Restaurant in downtown Berkeley with a friend
who is a graduate of an NFB training center. It was here that the initial realization
came that I needed to go to a training center. Sure, I was using a cane, but
it was a short, heavy aluminum folding cane. I was not as comfortable with my
blindness as I could have and should have been--as I am now.
The restaurant was dimly
lit, and at that time I thought I needed light to do everything. The struggle
came when it was time to order and I dismissed the idea of letting the waitress
read the menu for us. Even though it took me minutes to decode each menu item,
I wanted to read it myself. My hungry dinner companion finally asked the waitress
to read us the menu. Then he remarked, "You need to go to an NFB training
center, and quickly!" I may have been living alone, but in many ways I
wasn't living independently. That's when the first bells rang in my head. Perhaps
I shouldn't put off going to a center until I reached some landmark time such
as after finishing my undergraduate degree and before law school.
Then, later in that same
school year, I was sitting at a board meeting of the California Association
of Blind Students. Because the lighting was really dim, I could not read my
fifteen-point bold capitalized notes, which my duties as the secretary required
me to use. At that point I decided I would learn Braille, and quickly. However,
I wasn't even sure how to begin. In college I used readers, took my own notes
when I could, and went to the occasional study group. In short, I skated by
well enough. But from associating more and more with people in the NFB, I was
realizing that life is not about getting by but about living well and to the
fullest.
By this time I was becoming
much more open to the idea of going to a center sooner than I had planned. The
fact that my two best friends were at a center and raving about the experience
certainly helped. Yet I still thought that I would have to wait because I simply
could not take a break from college. I finally became convinced to make the
time for training after hearing from many training-center graduates who regretted
that they had not gone sooner because their undergraduate years would have been
so much easier.
That summer I decided to
visit the Louisiana Center for a week. By my third day at the center I knew
that I was going to come that year and do so by the end of the summer if I could
manage it. The rest of my life could wait. We often impose artificial limitations
upon ourselves like thinking we can go to a center only after getting a degree
or completing this or that project.
There is never a convenient
time to go to a training center, because something is always going on in the
rest of our lives--school, family, a job, or something else. Sometimes we just
have to push those other priorities aside for the real priority: becoming independent.
So, after making the arrangements with my vocational rehabilitation counselor,
I entered the adult program at the Louisiana Center for the Blind at the end
of the summer.
Where do I begin in describing
the center experience? I could write a book. It would include the bowling nights,
the baby shower, the cramped vanloads of anxious, excited, tired, and just plain
loud blind people heading off to Mardi Gras or rock climbing or whatever other
adventure was in store for the group.
The center taught me survival
in a big way. It taught me what it means to compete on terms of equality, to
hold my ground, to keep my control, and to look directly at an employer and
say with confidence, "I can do this job." The center taught me skills
such as cane travel and Braille. I also learned punctuality, openness, diplomacy,
discipline, confidence, and giving. It taught me that I have a lot more to learn
and that this learning is never-ending. The center challenged me and taught
me that I must challenge myself. It is difficult to sum it up in words except
to say that the months in Ruston were some of the most difficult and wonderful
times I have ever experienced. The center taught me how to learn--how to go
full circle.
The center experience was
very rich, almost as rich as the chocolate raspberry cheesecake I had at Giovanni's
last Friday night. It was an autumn evening almost two years before when I had
walked into Giovanni's Italian Restaurant in great trepidation with my friend;
I hadn't dared to return since that night. Now, on a fall Friday just as before,
I walked in again--this time without the trepidation and with a new friend.
Using my long white cane, I followed the waitress to a dim table towards the
back. This time I asked her to read us what was on the dessert menu for the
night. My friend was comfortable with my blindness because I was comfortable
with it.
The National Federation
of the Blind, through its positive philosophy and excellent training centers,
gave me a new, better quality of life. Each day at an NFB training center is
like the slow process of unwrapping a great gift. The only constant is that
there are lots of surprises. Each day following center graduation is better
because you get to enjoy the gift you were given and get to share it with others.
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