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  I call after her, “‘Haben, no,’ what?”

  Someone else comes to my side. “Hey, it’s Abby.”

  “Abby!” I pretend to scold her. “Are you drinking your water?”

  She laughs. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Great. What’s Fatima talking about?”

  “We’re digging a hole to build a latrine for the school. Fatima is trying to get more people to help. So far it’s just been men from the village and Dennis.”

  “I can help!”

  “You want to help dig the latrine?”

  I grin. “Yes!”

  “Fatima!” Abby waves, and Fatima walks over. “Haben says she wants to help.”

  “Good! I’ll let them know.” Fatima walks away, calling out in Bambara as she goes.

  I turn to Abby. “What exactly are they doing?”

  “You mean you offered to help without knowing exactly what’s involved?”

  I laugh. “You know me. I always want to try everything.”

  “I love it. So, Dennis is down there right now. He has a pickax and he’s breaking ground. Every so often they’re shoveling out all the dirt.”

  Abby guides me to the edge of a rectangular hole that’s about ten feet long and five feet wide.

  “How deep is it?”

  “It’s about six feet down. Dennis, can you help her down?”

  I don’t need a guy to help me jump. My legs work just fine. I sit down at the edge, my legs dangling in the air. Peering in, I spot Dennis digging on the other side. Perfect, the coast is clear. I push off the ledge, launching myself into the pit.

  Dennis catches me. Tilting me in his arms, he lowers me to my feet. The discovery that there are people with this kind of strength, speed, and coordination boggles my mind. It almost makes up for interrupting my jump.

  My knees feel weak as I take a shaky step away from him. “Are you drinking your water?”

  “I’ll drink while you work,” he says.

  “Okay. Show me what to do.”

  Dennis bounces over to the other side of the hole, lifts the pickax, and hands it to me. The shaft of the pick has a coating of grime that now covers my palms. I continue exploring, following the long shaft to its head. After rotating the pick so that the sharp, pointy end faces down, I reposition my hands around its center.

  Dennis steps behind me, reaches over, and places his hands on the pick next to mine. He slowly raises the pick over my right shoulder, then stretches forward as he brings the pick down on the ground in front of us. My salsa skills prove useful as I lift, step, and stretch along with the pick and Dennis. He lifts and pounds the ground again. And again.

  The bubbly feeling under my skin continues spreading, tampering with my ability to breathe. I clear my throat. “Okay, I got it.”

  Dennis steps away, leaving the pick to me.

  I raise the pick over my shoulder and bring it down in front of me. The swing feels easier now that I have the pick to myself. I lift it and smash it down again. Up, down. Up, down. The brutal sun beats down on us. Six feet beneath the surface of the earth, with no breeze, the pit becomes an oven. Beads of sweat slide down my face as I work. Up, down. Up, down. The ground crumbles with every blow, the pick digging deeper and deeper into the hard earth.

  I shoot a quick glance over at Dennis. The tall figure with the large hat stands three feet away. I wish I could see his facial expressions. Is he watching me, or gazing at the crowd above the pit? Does he appreciate the chance to rest while someone else toils away? Does he mind sharing the work with a girl? Or maybe he sees me as just a disabled person.

  I smash the pick against the defiant earth. The pick swings with the force of my whole body. My arms, my shoulders, my knees, my core, all work together as I lift and slam it down. My muscles ache with fatigue, but I push myself to keep breaking ground.

  My arms reach their limit, and I pass the pick back to Dennis. He takes it and moves to the other side.

  I scan the wall for a ladder. “How do I get out?”

  An arm wraps around my back and another beneath my knees. My cheeks burn as Dennis raises me into the air, higher and higher, until I’m over his head. Reaching my hands out to the ledge, I roll onto solid ground.

  Laughter ripples through the crowd as Abby kneels beside me. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I crawl away from the edge and stand up. “I wanted to get out by myself.”

  “It’s pretty deep. Everyone’s been getting a lift out.”

  “Oh.” The news surprises me.

  “You were great down there,” Abby says. “You guys make a good team.”

  My pulse quickens. “We all make a great team.”

  “Hey, what’s that look?”

  I try to change my expression, then give up with a laugh. “You tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Untangling Love and Control

  Oakland, California. Summer 2005.

  One August afternoon before the start of my senior year of high school, my parents corner me in my room. My mother, Saba, positions herself on the bed next to me while Girma, my father, takes the chair between me and the door.

  “Haben, you should stay in the Bay Area for college.” Saba holds my hand. “We know you’re smart, but you can’t go to college in another state.”

  “I’ll be fine—I went to Mali.”

  “Listen to Saba,” Girma pleads. “We don’t have any family in Minnesota, or Massachusetts, or any of those other places. They’re too far away.”

  I give him my best don’t-worry-about-it smile. “I went to Mali.”

  “Stop saying that!” Saba jiggles my hand as if trying to shake some sense into me. “This has nothing to do with Mali. Okay? We’re talking about college. You’re a straight-A student; you could go to Berkeley. Or Stanford. Why don’t you apply to Stanford? We’ll bring you food every weekend. Home-cooked Eritrean food.”

  “Actually, I was just reading about an amazing school in New Zealand.”

  “Haben! Oof.” Girma stands up. “You’re not listening!” He lets out a deep sigh of exasperation. “We’ll talk to you later.” With that, my parents walk out of the room, taking their fear with them.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. If I stay here, all my energy will go toward managing their never-ending worries. I can’t go dancing because they are too tired to drive me after a long day at work, and they don’t want me taking public transit by myself because, “It’s not safe.” Their plan to chauffeur me conflicts with the exhaustion of their jobs—Girma is a lab technician and Saba is a nurse aide. An orientation and mobility teacher explained to them that I have the skills to take buses and subways on my own. They shook their heads and continued chanting, “It’s not safe.” Pursuing salsa lessons remains just a dream, alongside all the other dreams thwarted by my parents’ fears.

  They’re right about one thing: college won’t be like Mali. I won’t have Abby brainstorming solutions with me. The way they see it, I won’t have anyone with me. They personally experienced the pain of living in a new place without a community, and they don’t want me to suffer through that.

  How would I manage in college? How would I make it work?

  Then, I realize the perfect solution: a guide dog! I’ll get a guide dog the summer before I start college. Brilliant!

  My computer pings with a message. It’s from my friend Bruce, a college student and a leader in the National Federation of the Blind. I tell him about my plans to get a guide dog.

  Bruce: You want to depend on a dog for confidence?

  Haben: It sounds funny when you put it that way.

  Bruce: Guide dog schools actually require applicants to have strong cane travel skills before they can get a dog. If a blind person doesn’t have confidence, then the dog and person both end up lost. Don’t depend on a dog for confidence. Build up your own confidence. Develop your skills at a National Federation of the Blind training center. I went t
o the one in Louisiana.

  Haben: Why did you go to the one in Louisiana?

  Bruce: It’s the toughest. It’s like blindness boot camp. The staff there have really high expectations. Many organizations that claim to help blind people have low expectations. One test to determine whether a center sets high expectations is to ask if the instructors themselves can do the lessons without sight. There are a lot of teachers for the blind who don’t have blindness skills. I’ve heard of braille teachers who only read braille with their eyes. They can’t read braille with their fingers.

  Haben: Wow.

  Bruce: It’s frustrating for the students. There are also sighted cane travel instructors who could never navigate Times Square with their eyes closed, so they tell blind travelers it’s not safe.

  Haben: I bet I could walk through Times Square.

  Bruce: You could apply to NYU and Columbia.

  Haben: Well…Maybe.

  Bruce: Scared?

  Haben: No way! I went to Mali.

  Bruce: I know. Whatever you decide, just remember that a guide dog won’t teach you blindness skills.

  Haben: Point taken.

  Bruce: A blindness training center will help you develop more blindness skills. Depend on yourself for confidence. Confidence comes from within.

  Haben: I love that! Confidence comes from within. Not from a dog. Not from a cane. Not from a boat. Not from a plane. Confidence comes from within.

  After researching training centers, I decide to attend the Louisiana Center for the Blind. Spending one summer at an intensive blindness program will give me a whole lifetime of not having to wonder how blind people complete various tasks.

  My parents won’t like this plan. Increasing my independence skills will decrease their control over me. The thought of losing their ability to keep me in their comfort zone scares them. To their credit, they do give me more freedom than most parents of kids with disabilities. Many parents would never permit a disabled daughter to travel to Mali. I’m blessed to have parents who love me and work hard to provide a home for us. My gratitude exists alongside the persistent pounding of my heart to go, go, go.

  Go, because dancing fills me with joy unlike sitting safely on the sidelines. Go, even though it means nights of crying myself to sleep. Go, because the stories of my family compel me to reach for the grand unknown, in all its hope-filled glory.

  My parents will understand in the end. We can disentangle control from love. I’ll convince them to let me attend this training center in Louisiana. At least I’m not going to New Zealand. Not yet, anyway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Chapter My Parents Shouldn’t Read

  Ruston, Louisiana. Summer 2006.

  The Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB) is located in this small town called Ruston. I flew here right after my high school graduation. LCB has about fifteen adults from all over the country with a variety of different life experiences. We all aim to sharpen our blindness skills. Students with some usable vision, like me, wear sleepshades—eye masks that block out light. Wearing sleepshades during class encourages us to learn nonvisual techniques rather than relying on our residual vision. Students need to know that they can meet their goals even in situations with poor lighting, or when that residual vision fades away.

  The woodshop class has become my favorite. Every time I take command of the power tools, I feel like I’m redefining what it means to be a blind woman. The tools terrify some students. Not me. Hello, radial arm saw!

  A firm flick of the switch and the roaring beast comes to life. The thunderous spinning of the blade blocks out all other noise. The table trembles from the force, a force with the power to chop off a finger. Or more.

  One hand holds a block of wood in place while the other grips the handle of the saw. I pull the saw handle, dragging the spinning blade through the block. My hand monitors the changing intensity of the vibrations coursing through the wood. Dust shoots up in all directions, engulfing my nose in the woodsy notes of independence.

  Suddenly, the vibrations in the wood drop. It’s cut!

  Turning off the saw, I set the machine back into place. The block is four inches long, two inches wide, and two inches deep. Once I’ve drilled six holes and cut six pegs, the pegs on the block will form braille letters.

  The woodshop instructor, JD, wants us to believe, really and truly internalize, that blind people can tackle “dangerous” tasks. We can develop safe, nonvisual techniques for just about anything.

  My father loves tools, and as protective as he is, he actually taught me how to use hammers and screwdrivers. Not the electric saws, though. “It’s not safe,” he said, and I agreed.

  JD wore sleepshades when he introduced me to the radial arm saw—he didn’t need sight to teach me to use it. After a few exciting lessons, we both agreed that I could handle the saw on my own.

  Holding my block in one hand and using my cane with my right, I walk back to the main worktable. The cane, about five feet long, extends from my hand to the ground in front of me. Gently tapping the cane left to right as I walk alerts me to objects. The cane soon taps against something solid, and from experience I know it’s the table. I walk around the table until I feel my seat.

  I hear the voices of JD and two students at the table, their words incoherent murmurs. Keisha, one of the students, shares an apartment with me. She grew up in Louisiana and just finished high school. The other student, Luke, is from Ohio. He’s also a recent high school graduate.

  I start using a tubular measuring device called a click rule. It emits a click every one sixteenth of an inch as its metal rod slides out of the tube. The rod has a knob at the top to lock it in place for a specific measurement. I count the tactile marks on the rod to calculate the exact placement of the six holes I need to drill on the block. The handy scratch awl, a pencil-like device for marking wood, leaves an indentation at each spot. Once I have all six spots marked, I proceed to the drill press.

  If I were staying for the whole program, I could advance to making jewelry boxes, cabinets, grandfather clocks—anything really. Most students stay at the center for six to nine months, giving them plenty of time to complete large projects. Keisha and Luke are doing the full program, postponing the start of college. But I’m only here for the summer, so no jewelry boxes for me.

  In cooking class, I make a meat loaf, then offer it to the other students. The cooking instructor promises to find a vegetarian recipe for our next lesson.

  Only about ten percent of blind people can read braille. Text-to-speech software helps blind people access information, but it’s not literacy. Some blind kids who only listen to books grow up thinking “once upon a time” is one word. Learning braille leads to reading and writing skills that boost future employment opportunities, so braille is a critical part of independence training at LCB. The instructor appreciates my braille reading skills. Every now and then he calls on me to read out loud to the other students, making the point that the blind can read to the blind.

  In computer class, we master using the internet with a screenreader, a software application that converts graphical information on the screen to speech and digital braille. We operate the computer through keyboard commands instead of a mouse.

  For the last class of the day, my travel instructor and I set off through the town of Ruston, navigating different kinds of street and railroad crossings. Trains rush through Ruston along a track right next to LCB. We’re all used to it. The center helps students develop the skills to travel in all kinds of environments.

  The long day of classes finally comes to an end. Outside, the humid, swampy, Southern heat hits me like a tall ocean wave.

  “Hey! Who’s this?” someone calls as their cane taps my shoes.

  I turn around. “It’s Haben.”

  “Haben! That meat loaf you made was so good.”

  “Thanks, Luke.”

  “You heading to the apartments, too?” LCB’s student apartments are about a twenty-minute walk from
the center’s main building.

  “Yeah.” I swing my cane out and begin walking.

  Luke walks beside me. He taps his cane to the left just as mine taps to the right. Crash! “Sorry!” Luke pulls his cane away. Stepping to his right, he creates more space between us.

  “It’s fine. It happens.” I continue walking.

  We stop at an intersection. Blind people cross streets safely by understanding traffic patterns. LCB’s travel instructors take students to unfamiliar intersections and ask them to analyze the traffic sounds until they can identify the type of intersection: a light-controlled T intersection, a four-way stop sign, or could it be a busy parking lot? Parallel moving traffic sounds different from perpendicular traffic. Cars surging forward when the light turns green have a distinct sound, too.

  Blind people with additional disabilities, like me, use other techniques. I often can’t identify the direction of sounds, and I miss many sounds. My limited sight only allows me to see cars from a distance of ten feet or so—just enough to study the intersection from the safety of the sidewalk. I use a combination of these visual and audio clues. When those fail, I ask another pedestrian for assistance or walk to another intersection.

  The intersection at the corner of LCB is a stop-sign-controlled T intersection. Our near parallel traffic rolls by, and I begin crossing the street, cane first. Luke walks beside me on my right. I maintain some distance to prevent our canes from crashing.

  Luke says something. On the other side of the intersection, I ask him to repeat the question.

  “What are you doing this evening?”

  Loud railroad crossing bells begin ringing.

  “Oh.” I stop. Luke stops, too.

  “Did you hear what I said?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” What are you doing this evening. What a loaded question! If I tell him “not much,” he might think I’m boring.