April 8, 2023

At the halfway point of our life, at a time we start to reflect on the years that have passed and look forward to a better and more fulfilling second half. When we try to understand what is of real importance in our life and start to steer away from everything that is trivial and shallow, and pull away from all the negativity that surrounds us. When we realize that our best memories are simple moments of sharing and appreciating the beauty around us, moments that could trigger our senses and warm our hearts.
By the time I realized the impact people have on my wellbeing and how important it is to carefully choose my friends;
By the time I became miserly in accepting or making compromises, strict in my choices, and appreciative and aware of how much these decisions are connected to my wellbeing;
By that time: I made a new friend. Her name is Noelle.

As a person who lost the ability to see at a very early age, what makes you different?

When you, who can see, are listening to someone, you might miss hearing part of the conversation because you are also focused on their looks, their gestures, or something else may visually distract you away from the conversation. Our lack of vision allows us to move beyond appearance, listen, and look deeper into the person. It also allows us to be more accepting of people regardless of their origin, culture, education, or religion. I am a person who has friends from all over, from all sects and religions, from different cultural backgrounds, and from different social classes.

Our sense of touch is quite developed. By mere touching, I can feel details that you might not see with your eyes. For example, I own two pairs of jeans that are quite similar. You won’t be able to notice a difference between them. How can I recognize one from the other? By touching them, I feel the smallest details, which you might never notice.

Attention to detail. I know how to locate my things, how to pay attention to every particularity about them – their size, place, and position… You, for example, can drop something because your attention is elsewhere. I am a perfectionist, and I am obsessed with order.

The ability to remember. To study, since we cannot rely on our vision, we learn to remember things – we develop a large memory. For calculations, we have a high capacity to retain numbers. This ability to remember makes us good candidates for certain types of jobs.

Tell me more about yourself. How do you relax?

I really like nature. Today, I sat in the sun and heard the song of birds. I love listening to birds chirping. I imagine the beauty of the greenery around me. I love feeling the wind, the sun. I have spent many days in nature with my sisters. It makes me happy to feel the spring air around us.

I adore smelling flowers and especially orange blossoms. Among my favorite flowers are also the gardenia and jasmine. Their scent fills me with intense joy. I am in love with wonderful scents.
I don’t leave home without wearing perfume, I feel bad if I don’t. I focus a lot on smell, sometimes more than I should. When I am feeling down and I need a positive push, I take a bath at night, and then I rub my body with lotion, and I smell amazing.

Listening to music. I love listening to songs in English, French, and Arabic, and I especially like listening to piano music. It relaxes me to the point of daydreaming. Music has accompanied me all through my life. Many blind persons learn to play music by listening. They have a musical ear. I learn the melodies just by listening to them.

I like to read books. I have a talking program (Jaws) on my computer for that. I sometimes listen to movies on Netflix, but above all I audio-read a lot of books. I have become used to focusing on sound. When I was younger, I used to read through Braille, but recently, with the Apple and Android systems, everything is available in audible versions through applications (Audiobooks) that one can download on any device.

I have to mention that hardly any assistive accessories that blind people usually use to manage their life in private or public spaces are available in Lebanon, and braille material are only available in small quantities in dedicated schools. The Internet and its audio platforms have been of great help.

Tell me about your education and professional path.

I lost my eyesight at an early age; therefore, I don’t remember what it was like to see.
I was educated at the Lebanese School for the Blind and Deaf. I, like most students, interned during my elementary years. The school then sponsored us at an affiliated school for our secondary education.

After graduating from high-school, I was admitted to the Lebanese University, which at the time was not equipped to handle my disability. Back then, the computer was still a novelty and not available for students, who were still using manual typewriters. The university and the government did not help us in adapting to academic life and our surroundings. I had to manage on my own, with some help from my old school and certain related associations. At least today students have computers and audio programs.

I have been working at the Ministry of Finance since 1996. I am the secretary to the director of the Department of Revenue. Over the years, I have proven my ability to get the work done. It is important to project a positive image of the blind in work and life and for people to understand that we are capable beings.

I am also the president of the Lebanese Universities League for the Blind. Our purpose is to help blind people find work opportunities. We also help them with their academic studies.

You fit in so well and seem to be able to manage every step of the way?

My family background is relatively broad minded, yet my sisters went to schools that were chosen by my parents based on our background and community. The blind does not have those options. I especially learnt to be more accepting and open to everything at school, where the students were from all religions and social classes, and where appearance did not matter. Additionally, I work in the public domain, which is, in itself, a gathering of different cultures.

You have made a lot of friends it seems.

Effort is always a two-way street. When I first went to university, I didn’t know where to go or what to do during my breaks. My fellow students didn’t know how to deal with a blind person, so I had to make the effort and reach out to them. Only then did they make the necessary effort to listen to my needs and adapt to my disability. It is all about being willing to make the effort.
It was a positive time in my life. Some of the people I met are among my best friends today.

The best is when people forget you have a disability. At times, when my friends drive me home, they forget that they have to help me out of the car. This shows how comfortable I am with myself and how much they have adapted to my blindness. I am happy I give a positive idea about what it is to be blind.

I would like to mention another experience I had related to effort and adaptability. I often travel for work and leisure. One of my trips was to the United States with Mobility International USA (MIUSA), a disability-led non-profit organization. Their objective was to bring together people from different countries with different disabilities. I shared a bedroom with a person in a wheelchair. Throughout the journey, I helped my roommate with her mobility and she helped by being my sighted guide.

What would you like to say to our readers?

I would like to mention a few issues that need greater awareness or improvement.

As a child, my parents were overprotective of me, which could have turned me into a dependent person. However, I didn’t like to have to count on anyone to get things done or ask for help, even from family. It is important that people with disabilities learn to rely on themselves as much as possible, so family should guide them toward being independent. Today I live alone, I learned to cook…and be independent.

I was married to a blind man, and now I am divorced. It is really uncommon for a blind woman to marry a seeing man. Our community is not accepting enough, and in general tends to not realize that we too, like all women, want and can build a family. We can move around alone, take care of the house, cook, get dressed, and make ourselves look pretty.

I would also like to mention work opportunities. Do we find jobs easily? The answer is a definite no. Businesses are highly apprehensive about hiring someone who is completely blind. There is still too much avoidance and not enough awareness about our capabilities and our abilities. There are slightly more opportunities for the visually impaired.

Your message:

It is time to give us the chance to live in an equal society: equal education, equal job opportunities, and equal rights in everything that allows us to lead a deserving life. We are not, and do not want to be thought of as charity cases.

When I go out with friends to a restaurant, the waiter tends to address them rather than me. It is horrible. I am blind, but I can hear and I can speak. I know how to make my own choice. Speak to me. Ask me! We have to reach a time where society understands that a blind person is still a whole person with a life, a person who can make decisions, a person who should be addressed and treated as such.

Throughout our conversation, Noelle kept repeating “effort is a two-way street”. I did not realize how important these few words were until I began to transcribe our conversation and try to understand the depth of their meaning. It is, as Noelle said, just a question of two sides willing to put forth the effort to learn how to adapt to the other’s needs. It is at that point that we realize how capable and talented blind people are, and how important it is to have them fully integrated in our lives. Their lack of sight has led them to develop astonishing skills by using their heightened sense of touch, strong attention to detail, hearing beyond mere listening, and exceptional memorizing ability.

Studying, working, or simply living with a person with special needs requires a minimum of effort of adaptation on both sides. The effort involves observing, learning, and listening to their needs, while showing and teaching them our needs as well.

Isn’t mutual effort something we should always be striving for regardless of who we are and who we have to study with, work with, or simply be with? We each have our background, our culture, our education, our beliefs, and our character: all of these things shape us into different individuals. Isn’t effort necessary to achieve a sense of acceptance and cohesion in any situation or setting? Isn’t that the very basis of a wellbeing environment: a place where we are accepted, tolerated, and valued for who we are; a place where we feel in harmony and thrive?

In a world that is rapidly growing, where technology is continuously adapting to our needs and making our lives easier, it is absolutely necessary to embrace these special needs and disabled people among us. They are the ones able to remind us that, even with this tremendous and amazing technology that is ahead of us, there is a constant effort that each and every one of us must be aware of and keep making. This effort is what makes us and will continue to make us unique as humans – the capacity to use our minds, hearts, and imagination in order to be able to understand, communicate, and share life with one another.