First, can I just say that nobody uses the word ‘blind’ to describe us anymore? Just the same way you don’t say ‘disabled person’ because surely, the person has to come before their disability. So you say ‘person with disability.’ So don’t say ‘blind’ say, ‘person with visual impairment.’ When you call us ‘blind’ you are magnifying the blindness, making ‘blind’ the subject and ‘person’ the object.
I believe that when God takes away something from you, he always replaces it with something else. Sometimes it might not even be God who took it away, but for sure he will be the one who replaces it. The problem with people is that we focus so much on what was taken away, what we don’t have, and completely miss the beauty of what he replaced it with, what we do have. What God replaces will always work better than what he took away. My journey without sight has been about me finding out all these beautiful qualities that God replaced my sight with.
For example, I have excellent memory and extraordinary sense of smell and touch. Those are my eyes now. I’m extremely talented at telling good people from bad people by just hearing their voice and “feeling” their presence. The air they bring with them. The goodness or badness of a man is buried in what their words sound like. That is, if you listen. Yes, words have sounds, and I am able to tell which part of your body your words came from depending on how they sound. I have never been wrong about people using these skills. Non-genuine people have words that come from their mouth, words that come with no meaning, no emotional attachments. Words with a flat tone. Genuine people let their words out from their hearts, somewhere deeper, words that come with a distinct sound.
I can tell how big, how tall, how fat, how slim a person is in the first minute of meeting them. How? First, their footsteps; big people have heavier footsteps, lighter people step on the ground more lightly, short people generally walk faster than tall people. I could be standing by the lift and I hear someone approach and I can estimate how tall or short they are. If you speak from across the room, I will be able to tell your height from the projection of your voice. If we shake hands, I will tell your size from the texture and shape of your hands. I don’t think I could do that if I had sight.
Oh, my name is Loice Bunei. That’s Loice with a “c”. I’m 31 years old. I work as a Customer Retention Agent in the Client Care Center of Standard Chartered Bank. I sit here at the main branch. By the way I forgot to ask you, Biko, can we get you some tea? [No tea for me, Loice…with a “c”].
I was born sighted. I remember my village in Kuresoi, a cold but beautiful place. My parents didn’t have money; we had a few cows in a small boma. We lived in a small stone house. Tall trees framed our boma. I had tons of friends growing up, we would run into the forest to eat wild berries and go down to the river to catch frogs. It rained a lot in Kuresoi, well, it seemed that it was always raining and the air was so fresh. My neighbours grew tea on their farm. I remember the texture of tea leaves, when we used to run through the bushes.
I have a condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa, which in short is the degeneration of the retina. It’s genetic. You can’t do anything about it, can’t treat it, so you simply have to wait for the darkness to engulf you. In primary school my eyesight was at 70%., by form two I was at 30%. Fellow students wondered why I didn’t just go to Thika School for the Blind. Simple answer, I refused to. By form four I was at 100%. What you call total blindness. Darkness had come. I started learning braille. I joined Kenyatta University, studied Bachelor of Arts, Education. For teaching practice I refused to go to a special school to teach, instead I went to a normal school. Who says I have to teach kids with special needs? I think I was fighting this “handicap”, rebelling, I wanted to prove that I can do what sighted people do.
Looking for a job after Uni was the hardest thing. Most companies don’t employ people with visual impairment. Some companies told me that they “don’t employ blind people because we don’t have the facilities for that.” And I would ask them, “What facilities do you think I need?”
And so coming here was a dream. Standard Chartered giving me a chance is really something I thank God for because I really didn’t want to end up as “that blind teacher.” There are three of us here, visually impaired staff, but we do tasks that people with normal vision do. If you are a client and you speak to me on the phone you won’t be able to tell I’m visually impaired, will you?
There are no blind people, only people who can’t see. The latter is worse than the former. I bet people always feel sorry for me because I can’t see things like sunset. [Chuckles]. I bet I “see” the sunset better than most sighted people. You know when I go back to the village, I always stand facing the sunset, because I remember how the sun would set in the village. I can stand there and feel the soft glow of the sun on my face, and “feel” it. Most people just look at sunset, they don’t see it or feel it. What use is your eyesight if you don’t use it? The sunset in my head is much clearer and warmer than when I had sight. I can look up at the sky at night and feel the calmness of the stars, I don’t have to see them physically. I can always see the moon and the stars in my heart.
I live alone. I know every inch of my house. When arranging my furniture, I did it purposefully to aid my movement. If you come to my house and move a chair an inch, you will have disoriented me completely. I can walk into my house and tell if someone moved something.
[Most ladies stand at the closet for 20hrs thinking “Hmmm, can this yellow top go with these beige pants?” How do you choose your clothes Loice, certainly not by colour I suppose?]
I also stand outside my closet, but for me I run my hand over my clothes. I can tell all my clothes by their colour and texture. For example, I have five black trousers, and I can tell all of them apart by the tone of the black and their texture. I know all my blouses by their designs and colour, and the same with my shoes. When I go to buy my clothes I usually ask what colour a garment is and then I feel it with my hands and try it and that remains in my memory. Thankfully, I trust the guy who sells me clothes, otherwise I would be walking around with luminous trousers thinking they were brown. [Laughs]. So yes, I also pick my clothes depending on my moods.
My bed faces the window. When I wake up and open my curtains, I can tell without opening my window if it’s a sunny or a gloomy morning. Naturally, there is the warmth of the sun in your face, but also I will listen to kids playing. If there are more kids playing it’s a beautiful day, but if the estate is silent, most likely it’s a gloomy day.
How do I get to town every morning? I jav. My sister – who doesn’t live too far from my house – picks me up and we come to town together. I know most streets in the CBD. I think my memory is twice as good as your memory, Biko, because that’s all I have. I mark streets using sounds and the texture of the pavement. All pavements may look the same for you but they certainly don’t feel the same under my feet. So Wabera street feels much different from Harambee avenue. Even the noise levels are different. Downtown is much louder than uptown. I can sometimes tell a street by how far the cars are from the pavement. When I walk I absorb sound and store them. Then there are certain unique markers; for example there is always some blind beggar who blows some musical instrument near Old Mutual. I can hear that sound from the next street and tell which direction that street is. If one day someone moves him to a different street, I might walk into a different building thinking it’s Old Mutual. [Laughs]. I’d love to buy a car and hire a driver, because the one thing I struggle with is movement, I have to depend on someone else to move.
Am I seeing anyone? Are you going to write that, Biko?! [Laughs] I was seeing someone but we broke up. Well, he…OK, I can’t talk about him here, it wouldn’t be OK, sindio? But I like men like any other girl, of course. [Laughs]
[What’s the first thing that attracts you to a man?]
His voice. I can tell what kind of a man he is by his voice. I can tell the aggressive ones, the dishonest ones, the tender ones, the confident ones, the weak ones, the bullies and the crazies. I like my men’s voice deep. I find it comforting, gives me assurance and security. I can tell the size of a man within moments of meeting him by touching him and he won’t even know I touched him. Normally to tell their exact size I touch their arms. Then later I can touch his face to know if he’s good looking or not, but some men offer up their faces to be touched before I get to it. Can I touch your face? [She does].
The most beautiful sound for me? [Long pause] I love the sound of birds. I love birds, they are so free. When I go to a place with trees, I like to go near them and listen to the sound of birds and the sound of the breeze through the trees, and how the leaves rustle and move. I love it.
[So if someone wants to steal your heart all they have to do is take you to a forest?]
Yes , Biko. [Laughs out loud].
My condition is genetic, like I mentioned. Two of my siblings are visually impaired. All the same, I want kids of my own even if there is a good chance they might be visually impaired. Is it selfish? Maybe. But I will offer them love and look at me, I don’t have sight but aren’t I happy? The best gift you can give a visually impaired child is education. And love. Education is a sight.
Am I visually impaired in my dreams? That’s such an odd question! [Laughs] You know, sometimes I dream I’m fully sighted in my dreams, other times I’m not. [Pause] Wow, that is indeed an interesting question. Next time I dream I will see. [Pun!]
[Do people send you memes in your whatsapp group and does that frustrate you?]
Haha! Aki the things you ask! [Laughs loudly] I have special program on my phone that reads my messages not pictures or memes. I’m on whatsapp and yes sometimes someone will send a meme but I will always ask someone to tell me what it is. And that can never be the same, can it?
Blue is my favorite colour. People say I look good in blue.
There are countless of kids out there who will lose their sight because their parents are poor or ignorant and don’t know any better to seek medical assistance to correct them. Their lives change in the darkness that ensues. And for children, you can imagine the agony of not being able to open your eyes, to see your family. You feel locked inside this dark lonely place. Those kids need help, they need not lose their sight. The gift of sight shouldn’t be underestimated; for some of these kids it means the difference between success and poverty. Also not all of us who lose sight go through proper rehabilitation, and it can be so hard when you grow up thinking you are abnormal, thinking that you don’t deserve what every other child deserves.
I have run in two Standard Chartered marathons; ten kilometers. I do it because I know the struggles of losing your sight. I run so that some child child can be able to see the things I can’t see, the things they want to see. Changing someone’s life, someone like a child about to lose their eyesight, doesn’t take a whole lot. It takes us blocking a whole morning and wearing our shoes and running this marathon. Most of you will come out and run and have fun doing it, get a medal and go home and not know how much impact they have had in someone’s life. Every time you run the marathon and you get medal, that medal represents your compassion for someone else. It means you cared, you gave someone sight to see. And that is powerful. So Biko, please ask them to register here and help us give these kids the gift of sight.