Helen Bwembya: Blind but leading productive life

By SITEMBILE SIWAWA

Hellen Bwembya writing her examinations in braille

SEATED in her usual spot in class and trying to read her novel in braille excites Helen Bwembya, who has now grasped the technique behind it.

Helen, 34, now realises that it is not difficult to learn the much-needed skill for every visually-impaired person.

Apart from the reading on braille, she also boasts of being able to walk on her own without any help or escort.

"I never realised I would be able to fend for myself in my blind state, as the visually-impaired are always considered burdensome," she shares.

Helen is one lady who has embraced her state of being blind and used it to help herself and her mother.

The only child she had died years back. She gives credit to the Zambia Library Cultural and Skills Centre (ZLCS) for the visually-impaired for enrolling her to learn all the stuff she now boasts of.

Helen dropped out of school in Grade seven due to financial constraints her family encountered.

The soft-spoken Helen narrates that she woke up one morning and discovered she could no longer see after a dental procedure where three of her teeth were forcibly removed.

"I used to experience constant toothaches which would result in migraine and I resolved to go to the clinic where I was told one of the teeth was rotten and needed to be removed."

"I had second thoughts over having it extracted but after further consultations I decided to go ahead," said Helen.

Little did Helen know that her consenting to the removal of her tooth would lead to blindness. In March 2005, Helen went to Chilenje Clinic in Lusaka to have her tooth removed but unfortunately the wrong tooth was forcibly removed, which led to intensive bleeding.

"The bleeding continued for days and in another attempt to remove the damaged tooth, the same dentist yet again pulled out other two teeth but the medical record indicated that he only removed one," Helen laments.

The repeated removal of the 'wrong' teeth obviously worried Helen; forcing her to seek further medical help from a dentist at Lusaka's University Teaching Hospital during the same month. Sadly, Helen was informed that in the next few months she would get blind because the sensory nerves which connect the teeth to the eyes were tampered with.

"When I was told I was going to go blind, I thought the dentist was joking but little did I know that the warning was serious," she chuckled. "It was tough going being blind and worse still in my youthful years."

"And what really hurt me was that I was now blind due to someone's carelessness," Helen narrated.

But before her sad predicament, Helen, who lives in Lusaka's Libala,' township, was a business lady dealing in the sale of bed sheets. "I used to travel to Nakonde to buy bed sheets which I would re-sell here in Lusaka.

That was the only business which kept me going," she said. Unfortunately, all this came to an abrupt end as she could no longer do the things she used to do.

Everything was being done for her by her mother and nieces because she had no strength and capacity to do anything.

"It was tough to have everything done for me ranging from the small things like warming bathing water and cooking for me," said Helen.

Helen and her mother have been unable to seek legal redress from the clinic due to lack of financial resources to hire a legal practitioner.

"We could not seek for justice because court cases take long to be disposed of and, besides, we do not have enough money to battle it out," Helen alleged.

A day in her life is torturous as every morning she has to fumble around trying to find her way around the house.

With the chirping birds and the sunlight that accompanies the morning, Helen sadly sits on her bed with nothing but memories of how she would be up and about carrying out her daily errands.

There was a point in time where she thought dying was far much better than living. It took close to four years for Helen to accept her condition.

And belonging to the Catholic faith, church members have encouraged her to remain strong and advised her to enrol at the ZLCS for the visually-impaired.

Initially she resisted but after further persuasion she gave in and enrolled at the centre where she has been since 2010.

"I'm really grateful to my tutors at the ZLCS, at least I am now able to fend for myself through vegetable-growing," she exclaimed excitedly.

After all she has been through; Helen has since advised fellow blind women not to wallow in self-pity but to realise that they can still lead a productive and exciting life.

"They should also come to the centre where I am at and learn what I have learnt," she advised.