A Most Wonderful Visitor

A Most Wonderful Visitor

Yesterday (Friday) Teacher Bosman brought a friend of hers to school
to visit. Leandra is a very beautiful, gracious woman who is blind.
I'm sure that the children will always remember this visit. She
explained why she is blind. She was born with congenital glaucoma and
was blind by the age of 7.

She read something to them from a Braille book. She had brought her
Braille machine and wrote a message to us in Braille.

She brought a harness from a seeing eye dog. Over the years she had
had 3 dogs. She explained how it works and what the dog does to help
her walk. She even showed how she holds on to the elbow of another
person and is able to follow what they do – going up and down,
stopping, turning, etc. She put on her makeup in front of everyone.

When Leandra was 21 the pain of the disease in her eye was so great
that they had to remove her eyeballs. She now has 2 plastic eyes that
respond to the eye muscles so that her eyes actually move and look
pretty real. You might not know that she is blind from how she looks.
She took out one eye for the children to see!! (And it isn't just a
round ball but contoured in the back to fit her eye muscle.)

In the afternoon, she spent time with the older class girls teaching
them some new crochet patterns to make. By feeling she could tell
where they had skipped or dropped stitches. She had brought some of
the beautiful things she has crocheted and knit for all of us to see.

To finish things up, Erna had asked Leandra to cut her/Erna's hair.
Leandra cuts her husband's, and since Erna's hair is short, Erna
thought Leandra could do hers.

One interesting observation, when she showed them her talking phone,
there was very little interest. Since technology isn't a big thing
around here in Zambia, they didn't have any comments. If it had been
in the states, I think kids would have had all kinds of questions
about the phone and would have found that the most interesting.

Leandra was moved by the children's singing and recorded some of it on
her phone so that she "would always have it." I'm sure that we will
invite her to come back again, and I believe that she will be happy to
come. I will also invite her to come to Chimwemwe Ladies Club.