If you are reading this, please note, this blog is being phased out, and we're transitioning to a new blog found at: www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/blog/ you can subscribe there. It's much better for me to work with.

Sick

I'm on the other side of the worst food borne illness I've ever experienced in what is becoming a pretty large amount of travel in developing countries. This one is still paining me 3 days later. The worst day, the first day, involved all the usual one would suspect with this kind of illness without painting too much of a humiliating picture, couple this with chills, and fever, and a near 24 hour period of not leaving my bed, mostly unconscious. I have no idea what I ate to cause it, but thankfully I've got some antibiotics with me that I never ended up using last year. I started them when the chills and fever started, knowing this wasn't a typical relationship with some spicy food in India. I'll finish what is the prescribed last pill this morning, and I'm still not feeling right, so whatever this bug was, it was hopped up on steroids and did not like Americans. If I hadn't taken the meds, who knows. All is better now, and I think I may stay on hard boiled eggs, coconut water, and bottled water for the rest of the trip. Seems pretty safe to me, and its something my Indian mother/warden/servant Padma seems to understand how to make, and she can't seem to make it spicy. The night before the great Mickey Quake of 2012 she served me food that she was very proud of saying, "See, its no spicy!". It was at best, medium spicy by American standards. We eat a pretty bland diet at home. They asked me what I eat at home, and I said, "meat and vegetables." She said, "Every day!?" Theirs is a diet mostly made of rice, with other carby type breads, and peppers, occasional meat, the kids eat it here I think twice a week, and its chicken, and some vegetables thrown in here and there more often than meat, but far less often than soupy spicy rice.

Observations and Musings

Onto the more interesting part of this post. At least to me. You know, a common thing being put on Facebook lately whenever someone complains about something like their cell phone breaking, or their manicure being imperfect is #firstworldproblems I find this a little heartening because at least these people using the tag have some inclination that their "problems" are really sort of silly in the scheme of things. Even though, at the time they seem large.

Each time I've visited a country like India, a "developing country" it really does bring home to me how little we in the "developed world" need worry about. This trip, it seems to be coming home even more clearly, because this time, I'm really living in it. Or closer to "it" than I've ever lived before. Even still, there are people within feet of me that are living in "it" more. The people here wouldn't let me sleep in the courtyard on a cot, or a table, like most of them do, my son curled in my arms, with flies sleeping on my face and shoulders. Flies, numbering in the thousands, just within visible distance who recently were born in the nastiness that is the "sewer/river" running behind the school. No, I live in my own room, with my own bathroom, and running water. I also just realized that someone else must have lived here before I did, and is probably sleeping on a table until I leave. I'm going to find out who I booted out of a room today, if they'll tell me.

I literally have my own personal servant, I'll phonetically write his name, I have no idea how to spell it, Sigh-T-Bob-oooh, as well as pretty much anyone else at the school as a servant, if I show any inclination for anything they trip over themselves to make sure I have it. So I'm always guarded in my actions, because I hate that, it frankly embarrasses me.

The irony of this, is that I in many respects also feel a servant to their need to serve, and my inability to clearly communicate, or their inability to want to understand. These people will not allow me independence, even though I fight for it every day, like a toddler demanding to feed himself. Just this morning, Sigh-T-Bob-oooh, woke me with tea in hand, in my own special tea cup, with a handle, everyone else drinks from a steel cup *this annoys me*. This involved a banging on my door like the school is on fire, and even when I yell, he just keeps banging. I literally YELL back, multiple times as I'm trying to get a shirt on, this is a door that's no more than 5 feet from my bed, with a window that is not closed. I don't understand it. He must hear me, and even though he understands no English, and me, no Telagu, he must certainly hear the tone... He then, for the first time this morning had his own tea, while he sat and watched me drink mine. So perhaps he's getting more comfortable. Next, after tea, me rubbing my eyes, he starts sweeping my floor, he does this each day, and each day with gestures and ineffectual English, I ask him not to. I was able to convince him to let me clean my own toilet, so I know he "hears" me when he wants to.

He then, starts insisting on washing my clothes. I again, with gestures, tried to tell him that my clothes were fine *he just washed them two days ago, and I pack enough clothes for a week, so I'm good for a while* he nods like he understands, and then still starts gathering them up, even the clean ones. Its nuts.

I tried to help with clean up here yesterday, they cut down a tree, so I started to help move logs, they freaked out. SIR! SIR!! PLEASE!!! then they usher me carefully to a chair as if I'm a toddler who has a tendency to just get in the way of grown up work. I'm not saying that I'd like to sleep on a cot with flies on me in the courtyard, but I really resent the idea that they have that I'm somehow just better than they are. Indians by their culture really revere guests, so I know that's part of it. When you are a guest, literally they believe you should be treated like a "god". In America, we'll get you your first drink, after that, you know where the fridge is. *Maybe we treat our guests like we treat our gods too??* So I know that's part of it, but they also have innately built into their operating system that there are levels of people in the world. They are totally ok with this, or appear to be. When the founder of the school causes Padma to stop cooking the lunch she has been cooking for me for the past 40 minutes because he brought me something else, she just stops, and throws it out. Not even a sour look. I look on in horror at her hard work wasted, and he doesn't even notice. Its fascinating. In the US that would have at least warranted a snarky facebook post by Padma, "OMG can you guess what my boss just did??"

I guess the whole idea of "upward mobility" which is essentially what the "western world" is founded on, relies on one being unhappy and dissatisfied with one's place in life, and so you strive to do better, get better, have more. Here, many people are just fine with sleeping outside. Its their station, and that seems to be ok.

I have to go, Sigh has just shown up with my requested hard boiled eggs, but in classic fashion, instead of the asked for 2, he brought 3. He refuses to eat the third himself, and we just had a race to see who could peel eggs faster because I can do it myself. I won. There I go again, being an unruly American toddler. I hope you all sleep well, I'm just starting my day. Time zones are really neat.

~Mickey

ps. Dad, if you've read this far, I'm proud of you :-)

I’m here, wow what an experience!

If you are reading this, you are still getting the "old" blog. We've moved blog accounts and you can subscribe to the new blog at this page: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/2012/07/02/im-here-wow-what-an-experience/

Apologies that its taken me a while to get anything up. Internet has been fairly unreliable and I'm still working to sort that out. I was able to get up at 5 this morning thanks to jet lag, and the internet was working, the room was not yet heated by the sun in July, so I feel comfortable enough to actually write something. :-) 

So, I left Thursday on what was a very long trip here to Hyderabad. Leaving Tampa International was a very teary experience, its the longest I will have ever been away from Quin, and I realize I've gotten quite the addiction to my little guy. He makes me smile every single day, and I can't wait to see him again. If I've not flown my paramotor for a while I start having dreams of flying when I'm home. Well, the first dream I've had was of Quin, and not flying, so I guess I miss him more than flying, and that's saying a lot! Unfortunately he's 2, and I can't get him to talk to me on the phone for more than a couple minutes, it breaks my heart. I can't imagine what our service members go through when they leave their families for a year. That's insanity and makes their sacrifice that much more poignant to me. He and Melissa will be on a plane to Austria today, so they should have some good fun, and I'm a little jealous :-) I miss them both terribly.

The plane trip was pretty uneventful, the first leg was to Atlanta with a very brief layover, which is good because I wasn't ready to stop yet. Then onto Amsterdam for about 9 hours. I had a window seat next to a lady who spoke no English at all, so it was a quiet flight. She was very sweet though and had a nice smile, one of those ladies who you know bakes something really well, probably cookies, and her grand kids probably love her a lot. I would love to go to Amsterdam for  some more time, and I think my next trip to Europe will include it. It looked great from 3000 feet.

Next off to Mumbai, another 8 hour flight. This time I was on an aisle next to a boy flying with his family returning to India. They were going to leave the son in India so he could finish his high school, the dad works in the Caribbean somewhere and he wanted his son to have a good education. So they were just going to leave him with family. I couldn't imagine doing that with Quin, though he's not an irritating teen yet, so maybe I will change my mind in the future, though I doubt it.

Once landing in Mumbai, I was re-introduced to the ridiculousness of Indian bureaucracy. I had my passport checked no less than 20 times, there was some guard every few feet to look it over. Twice I was told I couldn't go that way, only to go to another guard who let me through so that I could get to the domestic side of the airport. My thought is that there are so many people that need jobs here, they don't pay them very well, and so they make up for their smaller income by being bossy and feeling like they have some power. Its nuts. Once in Mumbai domestic, I had to settle in for a long night and I was wide awake. I arrived at 11pm India time, and my next flight wasn't until 7:25am the next morning. It turns out that the Indian lady across the way from me was also traveling from the US. She's also a colo-rectal surgeon visiting family and was 34 years old with a 2.5 year old son. We had a great evening talking about our kids and sharing ideas for work. I gave her a card and hope she'll email me, I'd love to stay in touch with her. She tried to convince me to go to medical school, and wants herself to do some work in Africa with women. She says I would get in easy because medical schools today are looking for more than biology majors, and my background would really help. Interesting thought...

Finally in Hyderabad at 8:55am where I was picked up by the same guys that picked me up last year. Nice men, and it was like meeting old friends, even though we didn't say more than 10 words to each other. There is definitely a language barrier. Here at the school, its an interesting place. I'm living here, which gives me so much insight to how it is in the "real world" of Indian schools for the blind, and they are treating me like a king. I definitely have it better than anyone else at this school, even though by American standards, the "hotel" would probably be condemned. Its all relative though, and I'm grateful for the kindness they're showing me. What makes my accommodations so relatively wonderful? I have a refrigerator and my own toilet. A ceiling fan that works, and my own bed that I don't share with anyone else. The others? A few of the top employees get their own living space at the school, but during the day it may be a classroom, so they're sleeping on tables. The guard of the school sleeps on a table on the porch. The kids sleep in dorms all bunked together girls and guys separate, of course. Pretty much everyone uses a latrine style toilet behind the school that empties into the "sewer" that I think God intended to be a river once upon a time, but has been repurposed to one of the nastiest bodies of water I've ever lived next to and smelled. None of us have hot water.

I however am treated like a king. Annoyingly so sometimes :-) I'm very appreciative of the respect they are showing me, but this American is not used to having servants. I can't "unsee" them like people who grow up with servants can. I can't help but notice their humanity, and feel like I have no right to impose myself on them when my legs work just as well. Dr. Goud the school's founder and a local ophthalmologist just yesterday offered me a bell. With this bell I could ring it whenever I wanted, and someone would be by to tend to my needs. Seriously. I couldn't do it, I wish I could say I was tempted, because maybe that would indicate I'm "moving up in the world" from my roots as a real person, but I see how hard the people already work here. Padma, the school mom, who takes care of all the children, is school nurse, cafeteria lady, and pretty much everything else around, here works her tail off. I couldn't imagine asking her to do something else for me like come to the ringing of a bell.

We had class yesterday for the first time. It went pretty well for a first day. We'll see how today unfolds now that we've all met each other. They got their canes and have a real willingness to learn. There are some changes that will have to come into effect here at the school though before what I'm teaching in mobility will become valuable to the children. They gave away the canes I brought last year, real high quality ones for a white cane event to generate income for the school. The children never touched them after my leaving last year, I asked them. That makes me pretty sad. I've already said I wouldn't be very happy if this happened again this year. I don't intend to waste my time and the time of others by not having at least something implemented.

The students in the class are very interested in changing toward a more holistic student approach, rather than purely academics. We discussed individual education plans, having the children become more responsible for chores around the school, and teaching more life skills. The students were excited, I think largely because many of them have children who attend Devnar. They want the best for their kids and see the value of having their children grow up to be fully participatory members of society and not "poor blind people". Now, I need to convince Ms. Lilly the school principal, and Dr. Goud the school's chairman that this is valuable.  In my opinion, more valuable for the long term success of their students than their ability to do math. If you don't know how to take care of your daily care needs, and travel independently, it doesn't matter how much Algebra you know, you won't get a job.

Well, before the electricity cuts out for its daily interval at 8am, I'm going to wrap this up. At least its better than Vietnam where they cut the electricity in the heat of the day to save energy. I love you all very much. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments or by email. I'll update again soon.

~Mickey

Hyderabad, just around the corner and fundraiser report!

Adventure Beyond the Horizon!

Our first fundraiser organized by Ability Beyond the Horizon was a success! It is however, important to define success correctly in this case :-) I definitely made some logistical errors, but it all turned out in the end. The event was so much fun, and I was lucky to have a lot of volunteers making it happen.

Woohoo!

To bring you quickly up to speed, the fundraiser was a field day event. The catch was, everyone had to be working with someone that was blindfolded through the activities or be blindfolded themselves. As you can imagine, people traded back and forth on the blindfolds, but both parts of the experience, I think, were equally as fun as you can see below.

Awesome structure built by Guardian Home Inspections and Repair

Limbo, so fun when you can't see the pole!

Dizzy Bat! I'm not sure I've laughed this hard in a while.

Our shirts came out great! Thanks to Full Press Apparel for the quick turn around on these. They made us shirts in less than a week's time! We received so many compliments about them. I had no idea the importance of a shirt for making an event "legit". We have some shirts left over as well if you are interested in purchasing one, they're $15, just get in touch and we'll get you clothed in our first ABH gear.

The shirt!

We made approximately $700 on the event after all of our expenses are accounted for. That's not bad at all! The attendance to the event was not great, but this is my fault for putting it on a Sunday. I totally neglected to factor the impact people going to church on Sunday morning would have on the event attendance. We also had it a little far out of town. I was warned about this, but the administration at Montford Middle School is so wonderful to work with, and they have such a nice space, I was hoping we could overcome it. It definitely played a role though. Other than that, the mistakes were close to none, and to be honest, it made for a really nice run without being overwhelmed with people. We plan to put this back on again in the fall, so if you missed it, you can make that one! If you want to see more photos of the event, head on over to our photos page! There are some really good ones taken by Michael Copeland of Copeland Productions, he's also the guy that did our great video on the front page. We love him a lot! There should be some video coming from him as well. I'll post it here when that happens!

India!

Ok, Hyderabad. We're so close, today marks exactly a month from when I expect to be getting off a plane in India. The plan is to begin work on July 2nd. It'll be me and Lauren Barr from last year. We had another volunteer all lined up and ready, but she wasn't able to make it unfortunately. This had a somewhat rippling effect in that people aren't able to get up the funding so quickly to make a trip to India. I've had awful luck with volunteers this year, I had another lined up very early, but again, couldn't make it due to finances. They've been great volunteers, but the economy and all that makes it difficult for people to pull this kind of money together. In the future, I hope that we as an organization can fully fund our volunteers, but its just not possible where we are now.

The plan is to work 3 weeks in Hyderabad, doing whatever we can in addition to giving some orientation and mobility training to teachers that work there so that they can teach their students greater independence. There's a group of parents that waits each day at Devnar School, and I'd like to work with them as well, teaching them concepts of the Expanded Core Curriculum and so forth. What would be great would be to tie them in with the parent group that is now functioning in Bangalore. Maybe Lauren can tackle that project.

After 3 weeks, Lauren and I are headed back to Bangalore to spend a week with our old friends from last year and finish up our trip. Part of the plan in Bangalore is to work with some other teachers in a 2-3 day workshop teaching some orientation and mobility skills as well as other areas of the expanded core curriculum. Going back to Bangalore is really critical because we'll be able to see what worked from last year, and what might need adjusting in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, I really enjoyed the folks at Enable India, what a great group of people.

Financials

Many people have asked how we're doing financially for the trip. As most of you following the blog know, this is an all volunteer organization. There are no salaries paid out anywhere. The money we raise currently goes entirely to supporting the trips we're making to help with visual impairment education globally. Right now, we can make the trip possible, but not entirely where I'd like to be. I have enough money to get the plane ticket and the visa, Devnar School has agreed to host Lauren and I, so that our lodging should be covered. Enough money means that we can make the trip happen, but I'll have to take the bank account back down to nearly nothing. For any of you in business, you realize this is not a good idea. So, I'm asking, if you are still interested in supporting our efforts, please lend some support. You can send a check to:

Ability Beyond the Horizon

5789 St. Joe Rd.

Tallahassee, FL 32311

 

Additionally, you can donate through the website and all that information is found here: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/get-involved/

Regardless, we are going to India again! I'm so happy that we're able to do this 2 years in a row. My hope is to get this project funded with larger resources like grants in the future, and would welcome any ideas you have in that area.

Thank you so much for making this possible. You may never meet these kids, but I promise, they'll know of your kindness.

~Mickey

ps. if you are reading this blog, then that means you probably haven't signed up at the new website. It would help a lot if you could. Just go to: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/blog/ and put in your email address. Super simple. Thanks!

Our first fundraiser, our new site, and upcoming trip to Hyderabad!

The New Website

Ever get to that point where there's literally just so much happening you don't know how to express it all? I'm there. Which is why this blog is kind of a long time coming, there's just a lot going on at one time. First things first. We have a new website, same address, TOTALLY different look. You can see the video on the front page that Michael Copeland put together of last year's trip. Thank you so much to Michael for the video and James Sowers for the help getting the new look up and running. It made my life much easier.

With the new site also comes a new blog. I'll continue to update the blogspot blog, but I would appreciate it if you'd go to the new site and subscribe to the blog again. Its much improved over the old method. You can get to the new blog subscription area by clicking: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/blog/ on the right hand side you'll see a subscription box. Put your email in there, you'll get an email confirming, and that's it! Let me know what you think of the new look. Extra points if you find typos on the website, being my "inner circle" of readers, I'd appreciate the help with that!

Adventure Beyond the Horizon

On May 20th at 9am we'll be having our first fundraiser at Montford Middle School. Its called Adventure Beyond the Horizon. We'll have various activities that teams of two or more can do together. Here's the catch. Half of your team must be wearing a blindfold. There will be obstacles to navigate, fun field day activities to perform, and general fun and happiness to be had, all to support our upcoming trip to Hyderabad, India. Click here to register and learn more: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/get-involved/adventure-beyond-the-horizon/

Need Business Sponsorship

We are also looking for business sponsorship for the event. $250 will get your logo on the T-shirt, and we'd love for your company to volunteer at a sponsored activity and of course run through the activities. The business can even create the activity, or we can work together to make one. You all can REALLY help us a lot by getting this word out to businesses that you do business with and let them know this is a cause you believe in. If you'd like me to talk with someone, call me at (850) 778-2110 or email mickey@abilitybeyondthehorizon and I'd love to tell them more.

Hyderabad!

In the month of July myself and Lauren Barr will be heading to Hyderabad. I'd love to have at least one more person to come with me, so if you have experience as an O&M instructor and as a Vision Teacher with an interest in international work, please get in touch and lets talk about possibilities. Like last year, we'll train new orientation and mobility instructors, as well as teach about the Expanded Core Curriculum, the overarching curriculum we use here in the US to prepare students with visual impairment to be successful in the world as adults. Also like in Bangalore, we'll be open to opportunities for further support and education. I can't wait to find out what those will be. So much of this work requires us to stay on our toes and open to possibility.

Its Time For Your Support

Get in touch if you'd like to help. We're about $3,000 shy of our goal to make this trip happen. We've already got a trip planned for next summer as well, Sierra Leone, so all money will be used. I'm not worried though, I know you all will come through in helping us to help others. We are a 501c3 charitable organization through the United States. This means that 100% of your donation is completely tax deductible, and literally 20 dollars make a big difference. You can donate through paypal and find out more by going to our Get Involved Page, checks can be made to Ability Beyond the Horizon and mailed to our treasurer at this address:

Ability Beyond the Horizon

c/o Eileen Bischof

2329 Limerick Dr

Tallahassee, FL 32309-3508

Checks are preferred because all the support goes to Ability Beyond the Horizon, rather than a small fee to Paypal first. Both ways are greatly appreciated!

Thanks for everything, even mentioning our work to others is an unbelievable help, please pass this post around to your friends and contacts. Lets make our first annual Adventure event a huge success. I look forward to hearing from you all.

From Devnar School for the Blind Website

~Mickey

 

Things afoot...

To follow up on the last post, we didn't exactly get a sponsor for our web costs, but we did get a few donations. So thank you very much, it helps a lot! With that in mind, I've been working with a new supporter of Ability Beyond the Horizon, James Sowers, who is helping me design a new website for the organization. This new site will allow me to update the content MUCH easier, and it looks pretty snazzy too. The downside to this, is that I will be moving the blog most likely, which means that you'll have to subscribe to a new blog. It shouldn't be too painful, and if you are reading this, you probably already did it once. I'm just worried we'll lose a lot of readers, but I hope, and feel that if you like reading our updates you'll take the couple minutes to resubscribe. That's not yet though, but soon.

I wanted to post the content of an email I received recently:

Hello Mickey, I would like to thank for all the books that we have received. I was out of station and when  returned I was really surprised to see the number of books in our library. It helps us to give the books to the hostel for the children to read at any time when they wish. Thank you very much. We pray for you and all the people who assist you. May God Bless you. With regards Sr.Clare Picture from Jyothi Seva's homepage                                                             This is just one of many emails I've received from India now thanking us for the braille books. Sister Clare is with Jyothi Seva  http://www.jyothiseva.ovh.org  a school I've spoken about before in the blog in Bangalore. They do really nice work with kids with visual impairments, but like many other schools and organizations in India they didn't have enough books to go around for the children to take to their rooms to enjoy. Due to the small number of available books, they were only able to allow a certain amount of time each day for each kid to have a chance to read them, and reading them in their room was not possible. This school was the original reason I imagined this idea, and it warms my heart to see that they arrived.  We've sent by our estimates over 1,000 books to India now. I'm not certain they've all arrived yet, but what an impact! Ability Beyond the Horizon really looks forward to continuing this program. Next stop for the books is Hyderabad, India. Please write me mickey@abilitybeyondthehorizon.org if you have some to send and I will send you the address. We're sending directly to India now through Free Matter for the Blind, rather than to me first as that just adds an unnecessary step to the process that eats up time. Speaking of Hyderabad, that is our intended destination this summer. Susan and Lauren have not been able to commit to doing their own location unfortunately, they're both trying to get their careers off the ground. So, one location again for ABH, which is kind of upsetting. I've found some volunteers to go with me, though I may look for one additional one once our plans for Hyderabad are more concrete. These new volunteers will have to commit to at least 2 summers of service, so that we can expand our operations and help more people with visual impairment. So, Hyderabad it is, the hottest food in India, my poor tummy... There are 480 kids with visual impairment in just this one school though,

http://www.devnarfoundationfortheblind.org/ so that is a lot of children that we can help. I will also be working with other teachers from other agencies and schools in Hyderabad while we are there. If the successes in Bangalore are any indication, Hyderabad should be really great.

Also, there are tentative plans for working in Sierra Leone in West Africa in 2013. I'm REALLY excited about this. They are on the recovering side a long civil war. The country is in shambles from what I understand from people that have been there. There are many many blind people because of the war. Our work is desperately needed. I would be trying to get there this summer, but because of the war, infrastructure is awful and finding a coordinator like the lovely Shanthala in Bangalore is difficult. There is a person that is volunteering this summer who is looking for a coordinator for us though, and we'll get there in 2013! As anyone that really knows me will tell you, I judge a lot of the value of a country by whether it has monkeys or not. If I am in a country that has resident primates of the non-human variety, I almost won't leave until I've seen one. Well friends, Sierra Leonne has 15 different types of primate, including the world famous Chimpanzee. As a bonus, they have African Elephants and hippos too, not to mention a huge diversity of bird life. We've got to go.

Well friends, that's all for now, the next time I post it will most likely be to tell you about our new web site, and give instructions for the new blog as well as final plans for Hyderabad. As always, I love hearing from you, please write me if you have any questions or ideas. We love your support!

~Mickey

Need sponsor for our web costs

Hello friends, it's time our site got a redesign. To do this properly so that I can maintain it myself without having to ask others to do the techy stuff, I'd like to change to a different host. I'll be moving the blog and everything over to a different set up. The cost to host the site with https://www.bluehost.com is $3.95 a month if you agree to 24 months, or $4.95 for 12 months. If you know anything about this stuff, that's a pretty good deal, and they work really well with Wordpress, which is good because the new site will be managed by wordpress.org, and will be built around our videos and pictures, with of course the blog.

So, my sales pitch is one cup of coffee a month worth of dollars donated to Ability Beyond the Horizon so we can continue to keep our presence out there in the world and get to kids with visual impairment.

Boys at the school for the blind we'll be working with this summer

We have the funds to make this happen, but I'd rather keep those funds for our summer work. With that in mind, it occurred to me that I could see if anyone in our family of support was interested in sponsoring us. Thanks for the consideration, please get in touch or donate at the site if you like http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/involvement.php your support, as always, is incredibly appreciated.

~Mickey

Look at all those books!!!

So, yesterday I got a call from the postal center here at FSU telling me that they had about 60-70 boxes of braille materials for me and wanted to know what I wanted to do with them. Wow! I had put a new address out there for shipping, but I guess it didn't actually get out there like I thought. So this morning Alison Bailey, and Brittany Stanley two students in the FSU visual disabilities program met me at the shipping center. I brought tape, Alison brought labels. Alison is actually the magic behind all the shipping so far. She's diligently gone in and relabeled boxes to head to Shanthala. Since Shanthala might be getting at capacity, please email me if you plan to ship boxes, and I might give you another address to send them to somewhere else in the world. Clearly there is a need, and a surplus of material here in the US to give. So please keep it up. Just get in touch at mickey@abilitybeyondthehorizon.org so that our efforts are the most effective.

There are about 60 boxes there, we estimate at least 500 books

~Mickey

The link to the video

Apparently many of the email programs wouldn't support embedded video. Note to self for next time. So, here's the link to the video http://vimeo.com/34098578 hopefully that'll work better for you all. Thanks for letting me know.

~Mickey

A short video of this Summer's work

Hello everyone, welcome to the New Year! We've recently had a video completed of our work this summer in India. I'd love for you to check it out, we'll be posting it to the website as soon as I can get all that worked out. A special thank you to Michael Copeland of www.copelandproductions.com for his tremendous work on this video, and the next video he's doing for us, as well as to Susan Yarbrough, Lauren Barr, and the team in India, especially Shanthala Somayaji. I hear from India at least once a week or so, and they are doing really awesome things there. I also would be remiss without thanking all of you for the support that made this happen. It wouldn't have, had you not believed in us, and given of yourselves in both time and money. I know both of those are very valuable resources.

We're also continuing to ship braille and large print books to India, and they are going over really well. If you've got any materials you'd like to send, please get in touch with me. We can ship them free of charge.

Here's that great video!





We're working hard to get placements arranged for this summer. Hyderabad is almost certain, and I'm looking into possibilities for another location as well. I'll keep you updated as we move forward. Thank you for your support, and I wish you all a wonderful 2012.

~Mickey

Wow, the trip is almost over, can you believe it??

I haven't posted in a little while, we've been going at warp speed here. I'm excited to report some really awesome things happening, I don't even know where to start, and I don't want to write a novel since that may turn away "readership" here's looking at you Dad. So, bullets perhaps.

• We are in the process of helping to facilitate a network among the organizations working for visual impairments with children here in Bangalore. There are 4 already committed, now we're going to formalize it with an email list. 
• Making strides at convincing the above organizations to pool resources, so that they aren't all individually constantly reinventing the wheel. I believe they are slowly coming to think they aren't in competition with each other.
• I've already promised two schools boxes of braille story books. I was at a school run by some wonderful nuns, at the Jyothi Seva School for the Blind http://www.jyothiseva.ovh.org/Main.html, they have their roots in Poland, but there are over 20 sisters there from India, and 2 from Poland. Unfortunately, they have so few braille books that they are unable to let the kids really read them. The books looked brand new! They are afraid the kids will destroy them, and they won't get others. The kids get 30 minutes a day to read, they can't take them from the library though. I had them promise that if I sent them books, they'd let the kids take them to their rooms, read them before bed, and "love" them lots. I said if the kids "destroy" them, to let me know and we'll replace them with others. This is how literacy happens. Unfortunately the way braille is, with raised bumps on paper, there is a life span on books, the braille gets pressed down and so forth, so they'll keep needing more, and they're one of hundreds of schools just here in India. We'll start in Bangalore though with creating better braille libraries, then the world. You know, baby steps.
• The students in the class are doing so awesome. This is our last week, today is our last day. They've come an incredible distance in only a month's time. You'd never guess to look at them teach that they've only been doing it for a month. I KNOW they'll take this teaching into the world of their schools. This class has been about so much more than orientation and mobility. They've gotten a complete "crash course" in visual disabilities. Already, on Saturday one of the schools represented is having their first cooking class with their students. They're now working to teach them true independence rather than just getting them job placements, and then having them still live at home with their parents.
• A parents network is also being formed here in Bangalore, so that the parents can support each other. Remember, when we pulled the parents together for the class? It was the first time ANY of them had ever been around another parent who had a kid with a visual impairment. That's changed now, and they'll have a network of support to draw from, and share resources with. Many of the parents here in India do the modifications for the school work, not the vision teachers, they're spread too thin. So they need support too. Susan and Lauren hosted a tactile graphics workshop with many of the parents as well as teachers in this area. So that's twice now they've all come together, and it looks like this is just the beginning.
• I really feel like the people we have worked with feel more empowered to think for themselves now. Its a common practice in our world to teach people not to think on their own. We are taught to ask for instructions, to rely on someone else to lead. We teach people that their opinions are likely not correct, that they'll probably screw something up. So, we get people with great ideas that don't feel empowered to act upon them, meanwhile kids are growing up without appropriate supports. I think this is changing, already I've heard of innovative ideas for teaching their students. Sure, they'll screw up, but they won't break anything. Even the effort is doing more than what is being done currently in many cases. Each screw up, and each success, teaches us how to do it better, whatever "it" is. Could be teaching, could be riding a bike, it all works the same. This is how every great teacher I know has gotten to be great.

After this trip, I'm convinced we have a viable model for making change in the world of visual impairments in developing countries. I can't wait to get this braille book program off the ground. The sisters told me that Free Matter for the Blind is a world wide program, and that the shipping is free. I'll have to explore this more, if this is true, that removes a significant barrier to having this program be successful. I really doubt that the sisters lied about the Free Matter thing, I mean, they are nuns... Susan, Lauren, and I were starting to feel a bit intimidated at international shipping rates. 

We've not fleshed out the details on the magnifier/monocular program yet, I'll let you know as I work it out. I'd love for your thoughts if you know of a way to make this possible. I know what the goal looks like, its this: Appropriate magnifiers and monoculars given to people with low vision along with proper training in their use, for free, or at a reduced cost, so that these folks have access to another literacy medium than just braille. Print is the sighted world's literacy, the ability to offer access to this is priceless. 

I'm also still looking for someone to work with me in getting kids with visual impairment in the US or other "developed" countries in connection with kids with visual impairment in the developing world. Fundraising would be awesome, our kids at home can help to support a cause that is meaningful to them, and help to help kids around the world. A pen pal program would also be just as awesome. So to all the teachers out there of kids with visual impairments reading this, get those ideas flowing, and feel free to email, mickey@abilitybeyondthehorizon.org I will get back with you, though I'm super swamped at the moment so it may be a little slower than normal.

Enough for now, here are some photos! In this collection will be pics from a trip to the jungle we took last weekend. I can't tell you how wonderful it was for this nature kid to actually get out into it. It was incredibly rejuvenating. Also there are other pics from a school we went to yesterday that is an extension of the one that we went to and gave canes out here in Bangalore. Its a farm on 20 acres, they have kids who are deaf, have cognitive impairments, and blind. Not all together though, they are either blind, or deaf, or have a cognitive impairment. There are a couple with multiple disabilities as well. Anyway, they completely work this farm, and most of the adults have a disability as well. Its awesome, really.

A wild elephant. This was a much more powerful way to see these beautiful creatures, rather than a zoo or circus.

A mother and baby, also wild.

Lets continue this cute baby animal series:

Seriously, so cute.

Breakfast!

These are Langurs, they may be my favorite monkey to date.

My little monkey

A leopard, we were incredibly lucky to catch this guy, unfortunately this is the best photo :-( Its pretty cool though!

Closest we got to a tiger, seems like we just missed him :-(

This is filled with cow dung that they are mixing into a "slurry" they will then drain it down under that drum on the left, it will produce methane which will raise that barrel up as it fills with gas. The gas will then be sent through that pipe to cook with in the kitchen, like propane. Very gross process, but really cool for what it does. Why waste the cow manure? Those guys are both blind.

These are silk worms that they are harvesting. The smiling man is deaf, the man I'm talking with is blind.

Lunch on a banana leaf, was awesome!

Wish I could take him home with me, such a cool kid, also deaf.

Climbing a coconut tree. They teach blind people to do this to earn a wage for coconut harvesting.

Doing some obligatory coconut juggling

Teaching a couple of the kids with hearing impairments to juggle

This man went and climbed a tree to get us these coconuts to drink from. He's fast!

Lauren and Susan drinking from their "tender coconuts"

Kids in the classroom studying, these are the kids with hearing impairments.

Quickly "downing" a coconut so we could head back to the center to teach the last O&M class.

If you'd like to see other India pics, you can go here, and here to my picasa album. For the non techy, click on the two blue "here"s that is underlined in that last sentence :-)

So that's all for now, this afternoon Lauren and Susan are teaching a class on daily living skills. These are the skills necessary to do things like cook when you can't see. We're going to make some fun Indian food, pass around some hugs and smiles, and promise to stay in touch. Tomorrow I'm speaking to some teachers at a head start school, further extolling the benefits of the "expanded core curriculum", I'm really beginning to feel like a missionary for this. I'll then have Sunday off, and will meet Abbyshake for one last lesson for a couple hours on Monday. We'll get on a plane at 2:30am Tuesday morning and head back to our regularly scheduled programming. So this is probably my last update before heading home. Love you all, and so glad you accompanied us on this adventure. We really did, and are changing lives. I can't wait to start the planning for the next couple of trips. 

~Mickey

Hyderabad, Bangkok, and a hopeful new ABH program

This past weekend I went to Hyderabad to visit Devnar School for the Blind, the largest school in India, and probably in the world, according to the founder. They have 480 students according to the founder Dr. Goud, an ophthalmologist who founded the school 20 years ago starting with just 4 students. Now its quite the place with literally hundreds of students with visual impairments everywhere you look. Santhosh Kumar a teacher I've mentioned before who met me in the US while I was speaking at a conference set the trip up.

I couldn't imagine being better taken care of, Dr. Goud put me up in this very exclusive club that he's a member of. I ate dinner with him and some very nice people, and had tea with a former commissioner of Hyderabad, so it'd be like having tea with the mayor of Atlanta or something. Everyone was very kind, tending to my every need, to the point of almost being smothering to this guy who is not used to anyone even getting drinks for him, let alone opening all the doors, carrying his bags, ordering his food, accompanying him to the zoo, wanting to sit with him at the airport... you get the idea. In the US we just aren't used to that kind of treatment :-)

During my time at Devnar I met with the teachers and parents, as well as many of the students. I introduced them to sighted guide, though I have my doubts as to whether they'll use it yet, and also basic cane techniques. There is only so much that can be accomplished in a day, and I feel that after next summer when we have someone training there for a month that we'll be able to make some more permanent changes in school culture.

One of the things I find frustrating about these schools, this also was the case in Vietnam, is that they have access to technology and some resources that someone donated, in this case a Mount Batten Braille Writer, an expensive tool, and they rarely let the students use it for fear that they'll break it. This saddens me, because I'm sure the intention of the donor was that the kids would actually make use of these technologies rather than just being used to show to visitors. This isn't just at Devnar, I've seen this at most of the centers I've visited. I got the same impression about the library, it just didn't seem to be set up in a way that the children would be using it on a regular basis.

This brings me to another aspect of the organization that is hopefully blossoming here in India. We need to find a way to get books to these kids, as well as magnifiers. They are teaching children to read braille with great fervor, and yet most of the braille the kids ever touch comes in the form of their textbooks. They don't have much to read simply for the joy of reading. Additionally, once they graduate, they'll not have much access to braille again, so it makes one wonder why the students spend so much time studying it. I'd like to start a program through ABH that provides recreational/supplementary reading material to these kids. I know there are many parents in the states who have a stack of braille books and magazines just sitting there that their child has outgrown, but they don't want to throw it away. So, I want to repurpose those books, and send them to these places in India, and other countries, with the understanding that the kids actually USE them. They MUST be read, and enjoyed, if I come to the school and find the braille still crisp, the pages unbent and clean, I won't be a happy camper :-) Perhaps if I lay it out in this way, they'll actually spread the books around.

The other thing is a magnifier/monocular program. I know that in the US we don't prescribe these until the child has been properly seen by at least an optometrist, but again this is something highly unrealistic in the developing world. I've met MANY children here that are visually impaired that are functionally illiterate with print, when in the states braille would not even be considered as a reading medium for them. The difference is, these children have no means to access the print, where in the US they would have a magnifier to keep in their pocket. These things are not expensive, we just need to get them here.

So two new initiatives, I'd love for someone to come forward and offer to head them up. Anyone amongst the readership feel so moved, and would like to take this project on? I'd love to somehow involve American schools for the blind in these things as well as my friends with itinerant teaching loads. I think it would be very educational for these kids to learn about children they can relate to in other parts of the world. We can start with just one school and see how it goes... Anyway, just me day dreaming, hopefully we can turn the dream into a reality.

In other news, I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from Bangkok this morning. They are asking for us to train in Thailand, and they even asked about the costs. This is very encouraging since it seems that our little endeavor is getting some real legs. They want me to teach in September, which definitely can't happen, but its showing that this initiative will have to become more than a summer project in years to come. Grants first though, I've got to feed the kid and keep the power on :-) Thanks Deb Gleason at Perkins International for passing along my information.

Ok, pics and video, for those of you reading this in your email, you'll have to go to the actual site to see the video, they don't often go through email. That link is: www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/blog.php My apologies on video quality, these were taken with my cell phone. Pictures after the videos.

This first video are kids fascinated with the power window of the car. You can get a sense of the sheer amount of students that are here, and how they were all over the place all of the time. I've included two, one is me teaching this guy to put the window up, you can see my hand move in at ten seconds in, and the second video is this guy defending his window button as the other kids want to explore. Also look at the other kids just exploring the car, they clearly don't have a lot of experience with cars. Both videos are very short.





In this video you can see the morning check in, this is just a short piece of it. The lighting comes and goes, but its very interesting to see how this is done.


In this video its clear that these students don't have enough canes, and that the whole idea is new to them. This was just a small number of the students who were allowed to play with them, I was crazily moving around trying to introduce some semblance of cane technique so that they could see the value. Every moment it seemed like I had a kid or a parent come to me and say, "Please sir, show me how to use the cane?" "My son, he's totally blind, can you teach him?". It was tough, and cements the need for training here next summer.


How many kids can we put on a merry-go-round? They were going SO much faster than this video shows. These types of activities are useful for kids to get the body/sensory input they are often craving which tends to result in rocking and other self-stimulatory movements in children with visual impairments. Incidentally, the rate of these inappropriate self-stim behaviors seems to be much less here in India, this is purely casual observation though.

Now, some pictures!

SO many kids!! This is morning check in.

Morning breakfast, this was half the kids, they eat in two shifts

This hand on shoulder technique is how most of the children move around the school. The one with the most vision leads the group.

Bangalore Cows getting in out of the rain. Just random India fun

I'm hoping this weekend that we'll be able to do something touristy. Melissa is trying to line something up where I might be able to see wildlife. Thanks for the comments on facebook and the emails, they're very kind.

~Mickey