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more so in a minor society, especially in a country like mine,
lacking of adequate human resource management skills, it is no dumb
luck to be able to work for your living.
People in a vast section of the Nigerian society today are so
desperately invested in the assumption that these with a little
difference are a burden to be taken care of that they won't even for
a moment give them a chance to prove themselves otherwise to know
whether or not they can make it themselves
The only incident that gives them recognition was if they were
fortunate enough to be educated or lucky to have been born into a
family of wealth and honors,
The majority of us never receive as much recognition as they do in
most European countries, because we still live in a society were the
people still sees by the old way of doing things and believing
I have tried looking for means to feed myself, trying to make it out
myself alone, with the gift of my talent, with the certificates I got
from the university, I have tried really tried and if I were
fortunate enough to secure a little paying job the effort rendered in
any area has never justified the means necessary to function or act
as a normal citizen in my country
I am hearing impaired, ever since I was at age six, I have passed
through the national education system and have gotten certificates and
honors to prove my talent, but yet---
When a person to whom you are convinced has everything more than the
requirements needed to secure a job did not meet up with the
expectation of the management
What will you ask yourself was the cause?
The true reason may shock you, when you question yourself and
discover how far removed from any personal fault it is
In my society being hearing impaired to most folks mean BRAIN IMPAIRED-
When I go in search of job they look at me like a man with only half
a brain, and they expect me to act like wise, to accept every excuse
they brought up to cover the real fact hanging in the air
Today as a writer, am withdrawn from the growing pain suffered by the
majority of these people, but when I look in the mirror I can tell
that the reflection is happy to be withdrawn, but when I look deeper
to the real me, the "I am" of the mind, through these fancy clothes I
put on to mask my frailty, the mind of the artist can sense the fear
that lies within,
Moving along in the street, I'd see these people, the less fortunate
in the society, begging for arms, they look like mannequins to me,
mouth jerking as if worked by wires, people just like me, people who
found themselves in the street, because they have the ill luck of
being born like me, "impaired" into a society that does not care
My granny was right when she says "It always take one to know one" is
quite true, these who have shared the struggle are these who are best
at this, their experience helps them to sense the inner struggle of
others and feel them as their own
that is what i do best when i write my poems and try to educate
people in the net about myself
Why am I writing this article? I am afraid because of the realization
that the little voice screaming in my head in some remote and yet
conscious part of my mind lay the picture showing me that what
happened to these unfortunate people would if given the circumstance
will also happen to me.
Why do they reject us ?
In a way it is true that those with minor problems are more often than
not a burden to be taken care of, but what makes us what we are
depends on our relationship with our space,
The environment one lives in engulfs one, I do not mean as a whole
but by a particular set of local interest, especially in the
government sector and by being accustomed by a particular way of
life,
When one is defined from outside he find it hard to believe in
himself, when the society define the impaired as inferior they feel
that way too and with it there is a feeling of growing isolation and
detachment they forget and reject own selves, they realize only about
half the potential given to them by nature and becomes a burden to
those who think they are.
I ask myself more time than I can remember, why does the government
try to get ride of beggars in the street when he could not help them,
why did they like making the network new or the from page when ever
they wanted to offer wheel chair to the disabled, is it wheel chair
they need or just a word of love? Why does most families send their
ward to special schools, is there a reason to fear the special
people? Why? why? why? why?
Yet the proof that we knew what we are doing is before us in the way
we hid it, to the governing body these people remind us of our
failure to carry out our function to the masses their disability
shows us what will happen in a violent society liken ours, they
remind us that there exist certain crisis in this life, which neither
medicine, science or dancing in the moonlight can solve
Consider a part in a garden, the same soil, the same properties, but
the part is a separate part, separate because rain rarely fall within
it folds, due to one reason or other
As time goes by the crops on that part of the garden grew and
continue to grow constantly with the special attention on the
gardener part
The rainfall is not always constant, it seasons vary, that we knew
Everyday the gardener will carry a watering can as he moves along the
familiar tracks to water the land that has no rain on it
Imagine that part always being treated with all the special attention
needed for it own growth, always in a constant state never vary,
growing day in or day out with rain or no rain, growing, growing,
growing, against all odds
I consider a person like myself as that part of the garden on which
the rain (sound) rarely falls, our lord Jesus Christ is the gardener,
who through people helped us to balance our deficiencies and cope
with the limited choices, which God never created us to have in the
first place
There are people in my life who challenged me to be who I am today
without realizing that they are challenging me to, there are some who
thought I couldn't make it including myself as the worst culprit and
there are a few among a hundreds who believe I can, and gave me hope
to cope within the world of silence.
Urdeen
