The air was sweltering. Sun rays collided with my forehead, which perspired in protest. But there was no glare. Groups of people bantered in the courtyard around me. But I saw no moving mouths. Persistent fingers tapped keyboards in a nearby room. But there was no glow emanating from the screens. I was blindfolded.
The air was sweltering. Sun rays collided with my forehead, which perspired in protest. But there was no glare. Groups of people bantered in the courtyard around me. But I saw no moving mouths. Persistent fingers tapped keyboards in a nearby room. But there was no glow emanating from the screens. I was blindfolded.
Five minutes before, I had entered the grounds of GADRA Advice and Community Work, greeted by marimba sounds floating on the gentle breeze. This Non-Profit Organisation had taken the Grahamstown Civilian Blind Group under its wing, offering the visually impaired comprehensive programmes to improve their standards of living, develop their senses of self-worth and learn skills assisting in their employment. The marimba band was one such programme. The perfectly harmonious tunes were being performed by people who were unable to see which wooden bar to thump next. But it didn’t matter; they had learned to feel the notes in their bones.
As soon as I felt Zuki’s arm against my clammy hand, I snatched it and gripped tighter with each step she took. She, the sighted Project Coordinator of the Garden for the Blind, was leading me to meet Bongani, the green-fingered gardener. Bongani, although totally blind himself, administers the training garden, helping those also visually impaired to grow their own herbs and vegetables. Produce is sold to the local Fruit and Veg City, providing a weekly income for the gardeners.
“A blind person needs to learn their path,” said Zuki. She shrugged my sweaty hand off her arm. I was to use the fence and walls to guide my step by running my hands along their tops. If I trod on something rigid and uneven, I was veering off the rock-lined path.
“Gardening is like my daily bread,” said Bongani when we reached his turf. I wished he could see me smiling. I wobbled onto the patch of rumpled dirt, following his voice.
He told me to remove my blindfold. Zuki must have noticed my confusion. “He’s a perfectionist,” she said. “He redoes parts of the garden when he’s not satisfied with what others have done with it, even if I think it looks perfect.” After I’d observed Bongani meticulously plant a row of carrot seeds, I was allowed to be plunged into darkness again before I planted my very own row.
Once again, I had one less sense and suddenly the rest of my senses were completely overwhelmed. My skirt gently flapped against my knees in the wind. Bits of gravel creeped through the gaps in my sandals and prodded my heat-swollen toes. Chickens squawked from the nearby pen. Car engines rumbled, frisky feet treaded, distant voices negotiated arrangements or yelled about missing dog food.
I was about to cover my ears too, when Bongani found one of hands heading towards my head. I kneeled into the gravel and he led my fingertips towards the raggedy rocks lining the edge of the vegetable patch. These rocks became my reference point. Bongani used his trowel and a piece of string to compensate for measuring a distance he couldn’t visually estimate. Each end of the string was wrapped around a sturdy stick. A trowel-length away from the rocks on either side of the patch, I plunged each one into the earth, making sure the line between them was taught. This line was my new guide; I no longer sought direction in Zuki or Bongani’s hands.
I shovelled the dirt next to my line, loosening the soil and filtering out the rocks with my fingertips. Bongani didn’t want rocks interfering with his carrot shoots, so I tossed them aside. “It’s okay, no problem,” said Bongani. I had no idea what he was talking about. Then suddenly it struck me like the handful of rocks that had just struck him. A mortified apology escaped from my mouth. I was relieved he couldn’t see the flush in my cheeks.
The rest of my task failed to include airborne odds and ends, but I was relieved. I scattered a minute cluster of carrot seeds along the line and covered them with shovelled dirt. The space felt so much more sizeable in the dark. I was convinced I was nearing the end of the string at least five times before I was right. Zuki kept beaming, “She’s got it!” But I’m sure, once I had an egg box and six ping pong balls in my hand, Bongani had already redone my row.
The ping pong balls represented the six dots in the braille system. I was to learn that different numbers and combinations of these dots form the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. But before we began my first lesson in the dark, Richard, the blind beginner’s braille instructor, introduced me to the other learners, who had no faces to accompany their voices. I nodded as they shared bits of themselves with me, until I realised that they couldn’t see my gesture.
“Your two fingertips are your new eyes,” said Richard. He placed his hands over mine and with our index fingers merged, we created the letters ‘a’ through to ‘j’, rearranging ping pong balls in the six compartments of the egg box. What does a ‘j’ look like?” he asked. “Dot two, dot four and five,” I said. “Shine!” said Richard. “See? You can learn anything when you’re blind.”
