Haben Read online

  “I live in Akin.” I point to the short building in front of us.

  “Isn’t that the international dorm?” Gordon asks.

  “Multicultural. If you’re curious, I can give you a tour.”

  “Sure. Justin?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He tosses something on the ground and stomps on it with his shoe.

  My cane taps the street. “Okay, follow me.”

  I show them the Akin living room with its comfy couches, panoramic windows, and a piano. Adjacent to the living room is a small kitchen where every week someone burns food, setting off the fire alarm. I show them the hallways with their world flags. “Now for the basement!” I guide them down a staircase, down a dark hallway, and into a dark room. My hand finds the light switch and flicks it on.

  “Cool!” Justin steps into the game room. “Let’s play pool. I’m not very good at it, but it’s fun.” He hops around the table clearing it of cue sticks and removing balls from pockets.

  “How does the game work exactly?” My mind tugs at faint memories of hitting pool balls with my sister.

  Gordon steps up to the table. “I think you try to hit the white ball so it pushes other balls into pockets.”

  Justin holds up a cue stick. “Yeah, something like that. Whoever sinks the most balls wins. I’ll go first.” He adjusts his aim, then fires off a shot.

  Pow! Balls clatter around the table.

  I approach the table. “Did any go in?”

  “Two went in. Here,” Justin hands me a cue stick. It feels familiar, like a cousin of the white cane. “Want to go next?”

  After weeks of exclusion, a simple gesture of inclusion leaves me dizzy. “Sure…Where’s the white ball?”

  He points to the left side of the table. I walk over, peering down at the green table. Three balls shimmer in my field of vision. My eyes can’t pinpoint their exact location, just their general area on the left side of the table. I extend a hand to determine their exact positions.

  “Haben’s cheating!” Gordon points at my hand.

  “I’m not moving them, just feeling their location.” I continue touching the balls.

  “I know. I’m just messing with you.”

  I straighten up and face him, bouncing the cue stick on my palm. “That’s not your smartest move, messing with someone holding a stick.”

  “Watch out, Gordon!” Justin howls with laughter.

  “I’m watching you.” Gordon backs away from the table.

  I verify the position of the balls one last time, then take aim at the white ball. Pow! Balls careen around the table. I start examining the pockets. “Did any go in?”

  “You got one,” Justin says.

  “Wow.” The small victory fuels my competitive side. I continue using my tactile techniques through the rest of the game. At the end, I’m in first, then Justin, then Gordon.

  Delighted, I raise my cane in the air. “Blind girl wins!”

  “Did you say, ‘Black girl wins?’” Justin asks.

  “That works, too!” I laugh. “I actually said, ‘Blind girl wins.’ Justin, how do you identify?”

  “Sighted, although I wear glasses.”

  I make a face. “Actually—”

  “I know what you meant. I’m white. My mom is from Connecticut and my dad is from Georgia.”

  “So you’re half southerner and half Yankee.”

  Justin laughs. “Exactly, though I’m mostly a northerner. I grew up in Connecticut.”

  “And you, Gordon?”

  “White. I grew up in Southeast Alaska.”

  “Really?” I adopt a teasing tone. “Did you live in an igloo?”

  “No! My parents have a house, a modern house. No one lives in igloos.”

  I stifle a laugh. “All right, no igloos. Did you have huskies driving you around on sleds?”

  “Good God, no. We don’t do dog sledding. My parents do have a Samoyed, a big fluffy dog with pointy ears, kind of like a husky. Why? What is this?”

  I grin. “It’s payback for fussing every time I touched the pool balls.”

  “Fine, I’ll pretend I don’t know you were cheating.”

  “That was not cheating!” I sigh. “You know, I could keep making the Alaskan jokes.”

  “I need to go get some homework done.” Justin drops his cue stick on the table. “But I’ll also think of some Alaskan jokes.”

  “Hey! I thought you were on my side.” Gordon hoists his backpack onto his shoulders.

  “You rock, Justin!” I lead the way upstairs. “Hey Gordon, what do Alaskans read?”

  Justin asks, “They can read?”

  “Yeah, they read brrrrraille!”

  Gordon lets out a dramatic sigh.

  When Justin or Gordon see me in the Bon, they walk right up to me and tell me where they’re sitting in the large room. Students never invited me to their tables in my K–12 cafeterias. Having people ask me to sit with them feels strange and wonderful, like a desert-dweller discovering a reliable source of water.

  The three of us try to arrive early for meals, when the noise level is at its lowest. Tables next to walls have superior acoustics. Capturing one of these, especially a corner table, feels like a little victory.

  The Bon doesn’t serve Eritrean or Ethiopian food, and Justin and Gordon have never tried it. Gordon and I are looking up restaurants from the campus center’s computer room. Gordon stares into a monitor as he looks up the route to the Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant in Portland.

  He disappears into the visual world of the computer while I sit by, waiting, seemingly forever. Time slows to an unbearable crawl as he silently interacts with the inaccessible screen—another glass wall. I debate going to the accessible computer in my room and just looking up the route myself.

  I drum my fingers on the table. “Are you looking up how to get to Mexico?”

  His eyes stay fixed on the screen. “This map only shows North America.”

  “Mexico is in North America.”

  “No, it’s in South America.”

  I burst out laughing. “Mexico is in North America. Look it up!”

  “What?” He starts furiously typing.

  My rib cage shakes with laughter. My whole body, even my chair, vibrates with the belly-laughs that roll over me like waves. They pause long enough for me to ask, “Where did you go to school, Alaska?”

  “Okay, you’re right. It’s North America.”

  “Told you!” I burst into another round of chair-shaking hysterics.

  “Oh, stop that! At least I don’t assume a professor’s a man or something dumb like that.”

  The memory of my sexist comment stifles my mirth.

  A woman starts shouting behind us. “Don’t call her that! Haben is not dumb! She’s intelligent, and you need to be nice to her!”

  My body stiffens as my mind tries to label the emotion coursing through my veins. Fear? Anger? Despair?

  Navigating ableist situations is like traversing the muckiest mud pit. Ableism runs so deep in our society that most ableists don’t recognize their actions as ableist. They coat ableism in sweetness, then expect applause for their “good” deeds. Attempts to explain the ableism behind the “good deeds” get brushed aside as sensitive, angry, and ungrateful.

  My nerves jangle as I clear my throat. “We’re just joking around. You don’t need to speak for me.”

  The woman storms out of the room.

  “Who was that?” I whisper.

  “That girl who hangs out with Carrie.”

  “Anika.”

  “Yeah. She and Carrie keep talking down to you and it’s super condescending.”

  “You noticed!” A warm, summery feeling sweeps over me. I feel weightless, like the sensation on the high point of a swing. “I thought no one else noticed. It always feels like they’re talking down to me, and everyone else calls it ‘being nice.’”

  A heady mix of astonishment and relief pulse through me. He gets it. He really, truly gets it. I no longer have
to face ableism alone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ableism and the Art of

  Blind PB&J

  Oakland, California. Fall 2006.

  Lewis & Clark closes for Thanksgiving weekend, so I fly down to Oakland to celebrate with my family. We feast on Eritrean food: spicy sautéed spinach, spicy chickpea curry, spicy potatoes and carrots, and all of it served with injera, the spongy flatbread that cradles the delicious flavors. We eat Eritrean food on Thanksgiving Day, on Black Friday, and now on Saturday we’re having another party at my parents’ house, with yet more Eritrean food.

  As much as I don’t want to, I need to start getting ready for my trip back to Portland. “I’m going to pack sandwiches for my flight tomorrow,” I tell Saba.

  “Okay. Don’t let Yafet see you,” she warns.

  Yafet, my little cousin, expresses his love by demanding to have whatever my sister TT and I have. If he sees TT eating cake, he insists on having more cake—even if he’s already had four slices. If he sees me eating a banana, he orders me to get him another banana, even when he is completely full. He makes himself sick trying to have what we have. If I tell him he’s had enough, he throws a tantrum that leaves our parents begging us to give him what he wants. The clever kid always gets his way.

  I slip into the kitchen. It’s empty, thank goodness. I bring down a jar of peanut butter from the cabinet and retrieve strawberry jam from the refrigerator. Next, I place a plate on the counter, along with a knife. After tossing two slices of bread on the plate, I open the jar of peanut butter.

  Yafet pops up beside me. My heart starts pounding. His head doesn’t reach the counter, but his voice reverberates around the room. “What are you doing?”

  “Making a PB&J,” I mumble. “It’s for my lunch tomorrow.”

  “Oh.” He stands there watching. “Make me one,” he orders. He pauses for a beat, then continues. “You know, if you don’t make me one I’m just gonna tell Auntie Saba on you. She’s gonna tell you to make me one, so you better just make me one.”

  He’s right. The adults always take his side. If I want to escape being blackmailed by my little cousin, I need to get creative, and fast.

  I keep a straight face as I ask, “Can a blind person make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

  He thinks for a second. “No.”

  I continue in a calm, neutral voice. “Am I blind?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, if a blind person can’t make a PB&J, then I can’t make you one, right?”

  Yafet just stands there. He watches me make the sandwiches. I start closing the jars.

  “Ugh!” He runs out of the kitchen screaming, “Auntie Saba! Haben said…Haben won’t…” A minute later he dashes back. “Haben,” he commands, “Auntie Saba says you have to make me a PB&J.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “You said a blind person can’t make a PB&J. So how can I make you a PB&J?”

  “But I saw you!” he wails.

  His personal observations contradict the “truth” he learned from society that all blind people are incompetent. Contradictory beliefs create stress, so people drop one to create harmony. This is Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Most people choose to accept ableism, because rejecting it—going against the dominant narrative—would take more conscious effort. I want Yafet to reject ableism. If he says that a blind person can make a PB&J, then I’ll make him one.

  “So you saw me make a PB&J? That’s interesting. Now let’s consider that for a second—does that mean that a blind person can make a PB&J?”

  He thinks for a bit. “No.”

  “I can’t make you a sandwich, then. Sorry.”

  He stomps his feet and stalks out of the kitchen.

  Yafet came very close to accepting that blind people can in fact make PB&Js. I’m confident that one day, when he’s older, he’ll have the courage to reject ableism in favor of what he actually observes.

  Yes, I can make a PB&J, but come on—at least say please.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Never, Ever, Run from a Bear

  Portland, Oregon. Fall 2006.

  I hold out a Tupperware container to Justin and Gordon. “My mom made this over Thanksgiving. Kitcha fitfit is shredded flat bread sautéed in butter and berbere, a fiery Eritrean spice.”

  They reach in and take a piece. The savory scents of Eritrean spiced butter and berbere waft through the small room. The Akin study room has a blue couch along one wall, two blue armchairs, and a tall shelf full of books and games. Here, we can have conversations without interfering background noise.

  “It’s really spicy,” Justin says, coughing a little. “I can handle spice better than most people, but this is really spicy.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Most people? You mean most Americans. This hardly counts as spicy to Eritreans.”

  “That’s true.” Justin reaches in for more. “In a way, it’s kind of like the fry bread at the Bon today, except with this berbere spice.”

  My stomach sinks. “They had fry bread today?”

  “Yeah, at lunch. Isn’t there a way for you to get the menus?” Gordon asks.

  “It’s not in braille or anything, so I’ve just been trying to guess where the interesting stuff is based on the lines.”

  Justin takes some more kitcha. “Why don’t you get a plate from every station, taste a bite from each plate, then eat the good stuff?”

  I frown. “That would waste a lot of food. Plus, that would mean spending my whole lunch period in long lines being bored, tired, and hungry.”

  “Next you’re going to ask her if she can just sniff the stations,” Gordon says.

  I pull the container away from them. “Are you going to ask me that, Justin? Or you?” I give Gordon a warning look.

  “Your sense of smell is actually better than mine,” Justin says. “Not because you’re blind, but because I smoke like a chimney.”

  “Mhm.” I pointedly stare at Gordon.

  “Can I have more kitcha fitfit?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “I was joking. I don’t think being blind automatically gives someone a superior sense of smell,” Gordon says. “Besides, the cafeteria is constantly cooking multiple things at the same time, and all the stations are right next to one another. It all blends together.”

  I push the container back toward them. “Good answer. I was worried you couldn’t tell the difference between humans and huskies.”

  Justin leans in. “He was chasing me the other day and I had to explain to him that I’m not a moose.”

  I hold up a hand to Justin and we high five.

  Gordon crosses his arms. “You people from the Lower 48 are all the same. You think Alaska is just moose and igloos. You probably think it’s moose in igloos.”

  I collapse into a fit of giggles. “By the way, it’s forty-nine! You forgot Hawaii.”

  “She’s right,” Justin says. “Hawaii is also geographically lower than Alaska. Why don’t Alaskans say Lower 49 when referring to the rest of the United States?”

  “I’m not sure…” Gordon munches kitcha fitfit. “I think it just refers to the mainland United States. My grandmother actually has a flag with forty-nine stars. It’s one of the very few made after Alaska became a state and before Hawaii became a state.”

  “Cool! I’d love to see that flag,” Justin says.

  I reach for some kitcha. “I think I’ll talk to the Bon about the menus.”

  The next day, Gordon and I head to the Bon Appetit office, located in the Templeton Campus Center.

  I see someone standing by the door. “Hi, I’m looking for Claude,” I tell them. Claude is the Bon manager, whom Dale introduced me to during orientation.

  “He’s at his desk,” the guy says. I follow him to a desk in the corner.

  “Can I help you?” the man behind the desk asks.

  “Are you Claude?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Haben. We met a while ago when Dale was giving me a tour. I kno
w you have a print menu up on the wall in the cafeteria, but I can’t read it because I’m blind. Would you make the menu available in braille so blind people can also access it?”

  “I’d be happy to read the menu to you. Or one of my colleagues could read it.”

  “I’m Deaf, too. Most of the time I can’t hear what people are saying in the cafeteria because it’s so loud. The noise won’t matter if I have the menu in braille, though. Student Support Services has a braille embosser. If you send the menu in advance, they can braille it for me.”

  “Umm, I’m not sure if that would work. We sometimes have to change the menu at the last minute.”

  “Oh.” I consider the alternatives. “You print out the menu for everyone, so you have it on computers, right? You could just copy and paste that menu into an email to me. I can access emails. My computer has a screenreader that converts text to digital braille.”

  “So just email the menu? We wouldn’t need to do anything special to it?”

  “Exactly. Just copy and paste the text into an email and I’ll be able to read it.”

  “That seems pretty simple.”

  “Very simple. I’ll give you my email address. Do you have a pen?”

  Over the next few months, the Bon occasionally emails me the menus as Claude and I discussed. When the emails arrive, they’re life-changing: I can go straight to the station serving a nice vegetarian meal and save myself both time and effort. More often, though, the emails don’t come. On those days, I’m stuck choosing stations at random. I’ve stopped counting the number of times I’ve carried a plate of food, found a table, tried the food, and discovered an unpleasant surprise.

  Once again, Gordon generously joins me as I raise the issue with the Bon Appetit office.

  “The menus are not accessible,” I tell Claude. “It’s frustrating and stressful when I don’t know what the stations are serving.”