Ability Beyond the Horizon: The first week isn't over, but its been awesome!

Its been a great week so far, it's Thursday now my time, and most everyone I know in the world is snuggled into their beds, but here in India, the birds are tweet tweeting, the cows are waking up wandering the streets looking for fruit scraps to gobble up, while the random vendor is walking down the street yelling at the top of his very well equipped lungs offering some ware or another. You have to be very tired to sleep in here.

The three of us, Lauren, Susan and I have been quite busy. We start our day anywhere between 9 and 2 depending on the activities. Yesterday we worked with a little guy who's name is not spelled correctly here but sounds like Abbeyshake. He's 8 years old, is blind from being born too prematurely and has never in his life that I can tell been allowed much independence. That changed for him yesterday and you could see him blossoming like a flower from it. He's such a funny guy, his language is positively hilarious. At one point yesterday I had him on the street listening for the different sounds, he identified the cars, the auto's (version of a taxi cab here) and the motorcycles, but couldn't figure out what the soft pat pat of people's feet was. I gave him some clues, saying it walks on two feet, etc, I'm not kidding here, he says "Shall I brandish my cane and scare it away sir?" Seriously, those were his exact words. This is what makes working with children so FUN! We discovered that it was people walking on the street, and then joined them.

In addition to having his first piggy-back ride, see below, its blurry because we are running:

He also got to climb a wall and probably for the first time in his life, touch a roof:

One of the aspects of working with children with visual impairments that I'm trying to drive home to the people here, as well as many folks in the US, is that just like sighted children have all these crazy adventures growing up, its critical to proper development that blind children also have them. Climbing this wall was a way for him to use his body in new and creative ways, solving problems, and better learning to drive the "machine" he'll have with him the rest of his life.

At the end of the lesson he kept talking about needing get these "Facts published" and wanting to write his adventures down. We are meeting again on Monday and Wednesday next week to have more adventures, where Abbeyshake for the first time in his life will buy something with money, probably a mango, and cut it up by himself after walking down the street to get it.

The training is going well, the teachers are eager to learn and very interested in all that we do. I'm already seeing a change in their expectations, and its a real thrill to see them critically observe the blind people as they walk by them at the center now. They're O&M's already :-)

This Saturday I'm meeting with the parents of many kids around here, I'm hoping to change a few opinions of the ability of blind people. Abbeyshake's family, for example, doesn't think he should walk independently, he works on his cane once a week at the center, and then in "2-3 years time, perhaps he can use it during the day when he's completely independent." This will never happen that way, and this guy is too able to be stifled like that, hopefully we can make a change while we're here.

I'm really loving the time here, the city, and the people. Quin is a celebrity, everywhere we go people want to pinch his cheeks and look at him. A blonde haired, blue eyed, baby is not something people have seen, and they can't get enough of him.