The Paralympics begin today in Vancouver. These will be the 10th winter Paralympics. Five events will be featured. And even though you’d think the good citizens of Vancouver would be Olympicked-to-death by this time, the news says that some of the events are already sold out. Could it really be that, after thousands of years of isolation, people with disabilities are truly coming into the mainstream? There’s certainly some amazing evidence for that. And then...
I went to a professional workshop. It was a workshop about disabilities, about amazing professional approaches in highly complex situations. It was all positive except that...
Well, it started out to be marvellously accessible. I read about it on the Internet using the screen reader that reads out loud, thus making my computer very accessible for a blind user. I registered on-line, using a website that met accessibility standards. It was offered in a building I had never been to before, and I might have taken a taxi for that reason, but I didn’t have to. David simply looked up the streetscape photos on the Internet and then described the street to me. He could tell me exactly what my white cane would find in searching for the door. Everything was just as he’d said it would be. The door was easy to find. I felt competent and independent, almost like a sighted person until...
I got off the elevator and somebody asked me if I needed help finding anything. I was greatly relieved because I really didn’t know if there’d be any way for me to find the room. Finding specific rooms is not easy for a blind person. I thanked the volunteer helper and headed right through the door he said was mine. I asked if I was in the place where the workshop was being offered and somebody said I was. I felt awfully pleased with the whole thing until...
Well, nothing happened after that. I stood there with my cane for the few seconds it generally takes for somebody to offer assistance in finding a seat, but nobody did. So I made my best guess at what the room layout might be and took a step forward. A woman coming through the door behind me must have seen my cane from the back. She asked if I would like some assistance finding a seat. I thanked her and she helped me find a seat. She told the other people in the room that she had made the coffee and done all the other things they had asked her to do, and then she left and said they could call her if they needed anything else. I was happy until...
Somebody announced that the coffee was ready. From the noises I could hear, I gathered that the coffee was on the far side of the room from where I was sitting. I waited for somebody to ask if I’d like a coffee. Nobody did, so, seized by a terrible longing for caffeine, I got up, unfolded my cane and started to make my way across the room.
It’s not easy to navigate in an unfamiliar conference room. Nonetheless, I didn’t knock over any machines. I found the counter and the thermos and felt around for cups. It took a while for me to find the cups. They were quite far away. The people in the room had kept talking amongst themselves while I navigated the maze, but when I started searching for cups the room grew silent. There were about five people there, all of them sighted as far as I know, all of them silent, all of them workshop organizers as far as I know. I had arrived about 20 minutes before workshop time. After I’d poured my coffee and started back across the room they started talking to each other again. I sat in my chair, far away from anybody else, and felt more or less happy sipping my coffee until...
The speaker started speaking. Turns out that the helper who had seated me and then left the room forever had seated me behind the speaker. I presume this was because she hadn’t known where the speaker would be located. So far as I know, everyone else was in front of the speaker. That helped to explain why all the people who arrived after me sat far away from me. Even so, I didn’t feel too badly because...
The workshop was a great workshop, the speaker gave a lot of excellent information about how to treat the people with these complicated disabilities. I could tell the presenter really knew what he was talking about. At the end we were instructed that, if any of us had failed to sign in when we arrived, we should do so before we left. They wanted us to sign in so they could send us evaluation forms.
I headed for the door. I didn’t sign in. I just couldn’t bring myself to do whatever it would have taken to find out where the form was and get somebody to write on it for me.
That was yesterday. I’ll admit, after that experience I was more or less hopeless about the prospect of people with disabilities ever being treated with basic respect. If it couldn’t be done by a group of professional trainers at that workshop, how could it be done anywhere?
That was yesterday, a lousy day really, despite a great workshop. But today I feel a little better. The Paralympics are starting. People with disabilities have come a long way. Rick Mercer will be featured on television. He will don a pair of goggles, follow a guide and ski down a mountain like a blind Paralympian. Because of his educational efforts, CBC watchers will soon now understand what it’s like to ski down a hill as a blind person. And that will be a good thing. We’ll all have a great laugh at Rick’s antics, and laughter is good for all of us, maybe as good as an education.
Perhaps I was supposed to learn something from yesterday’s experience. Maybe I was supposed to learn that if I want a seat, if I want a coffee, if I want to sign I just have to interrupt other people’s conversations about nothing important and ask for it. But this is not a lesson I want to have to learn. So I’m looking for another way.
And now I’ve started wondering, in the spirit of education, if Rick Mercer would be available to pick up a white cane and attend one of those workshops. Even though I’m feeling better today, I could really use a laugh.
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