In the land of the blind....

I am seven years old. We are now living in a place in called Morenu /Close (??) in Suru-Lere just off the back of Adeniran Ogunsanya. It is a nice house, in a nice close. We have a huge garden, which was unusual, and I used to ride my bike around the garden. Like most kids, having conquered riding on flat ground, I began to set myself tougher challenges. So I would lay planks on tree stumps to use as ramps, create sharp bends and turns out of gorodoms (oil drums) and dig up holes to make my riding more exciting. So it was this day that I set off on one of my obstacle courses, hit my latest ramp (which was elevated a few degrees everytime I had mastered the previous one) and flew straight into a tree. A branch penetrated my eye, drama kicked off in the house. I was initially rushed to Randle Hospital but was then transferred to the Specialist Eye Hospital in Lagos due to the severity of the injury.

It was very scary being away from home at seven. This was my first time without my parents and they without me. Although the nurses were brilliant it was still a scary time. What made it even more scary was the fact that this was during the war and my ward was filled with other children who had not had the luxury of being injured in their back gardens but had been struck by shrapnel, debris etc. Now imagine a room full of children, there were about 20 of us in this ward, most of them totally blind, and me with my one good eye.

It did not take long for the order to be established. I became the leader and would have to explain what was happening to them, in detail, tell them what was on telly, what the nurses were up to, who had visitors, what they were wearing etc. Sometimes when it was dark, either through NEPA or through the need to turn all the lights off for security I would lead them all out, in conga fashion, one clinging to the other, on to the verandah and discuss in detail what I could see through the gloom. We were too scared to sit in the dark doing nothing. It is quite "amusing" thinking about it now. Blind, but scared to be in the dark.

We would sometimes hear the military planes roar past overhead and we would make up stories as to where they were going and what they were going to do. It was never anything evil ( in our own little innocent world). We made up all sorts of stories which we would take turns telling to keep ourselves amused and our spirits up (especially if one of the group was released to go home). We were Pirates, we were Cowboys, we were Soldiers, we were Princes. All in all it was a wonderful month with me and my merry band of blind boys (and girls who sometimes joined us from their ward) and I was very sorry to leave them behind when I was finally released.

I sometimes wonder what ever happened to all those children, some for whom the regaining of their sights was not, and would never be, an option.