She just can’t see!

Considering we don’t know how bad little cuz’ eyesight will get or the availability or opportunity to get her into a ‘special needs’ school. We need to look at athe possibility of getting equipment that she might be able to use at a mainstream school to make things a little easier.

Apparently there is something called an ONYX Deskset system- it sort of magnifies stuff from the board etc. onto a computer screen. Now the only problem is the power cut issue in Zimbabwe. Fine she may be able to get a laptop with an extra battery whatever but what do we do about a power source for the Onyx thing? There must be something the size of a small backpack that might work.

If we do get one of these types of machines it would probably be best to do it ASAP so that once we get a mainstream high school place then we can maybe make an argument for it as a working system as opposed to having to implement it when she starts high school.

Now the only problem is that we are sort of being discouraged from purchasing a really expensive machine (+$3000) that might not be so easy to use or compatible with little cuz. But what do we do instead?

Hell no we won’t go…overseas for a special needs school!

So in discussions about our situation, my aunt said she had been advised that there is a shit-hot school in California that would be perfect for wee cuz. She would probably get a scholarship and it would be a brilliant education. OMG I thought- so far away??? She’s only 11! Who knows her there, who cares about her there? We can’t get on a plane and just go see/fetch her should anything happen. Even the UK is better but I am still not comfortable with that idea. Apparently she had been encouraged to send the kids to boarding school in grade 1 OMG seriously???? That sounds horrendous. Now I didn’t exactly hate living at home but I don’t think I would be the person I am now if I had been in boarding school from such an early age. Independence is good but is it necessary to do it THAT way? I don’t think so.

Anyway so off we went to look at another few schools. We decided that Harare International School would probably be good despite the eye-wateringly high fees (we still don’t have an exact amount). We arrive just before lunch to be told we need an appointment (they don’t do chibhoyi of just turning up!). So the security guard gave us a nice letter telling us to call up the office for an appointment.

Aunty had been told of a school called St. Christopher’s somewhere in Alex Park near Hellenic so we decided to try there. It was like finding a secret entrance to a secret cave! We had been told it’s off Harry Pichanick. We asked passers-by, gardeners, maids and just about anyone else we saw and no-one had a clue. (I have heard that Varungu keep ‘their’ places quite secret for obvious reasons). We finally found a guard outside Hellenic who told us to go round. Which we did and Ta-Da! There it was, no signposts or directions, at the end of a dusty, dry cul-de-sac. We went in to the school office where we were told they don’t really have visual impairment type students, but it is a school that caters for children with Dyslexia, ADD, ADHD and other concentration difficulties. It was a very white school- as in I saw not one person of colour except the security guy at the gate. The lady did however give us the name and number of a lady at Silver Linings (at Hellenic) who might be able to help us.

So we went back round to Hellenic and eventually found the brown ‘marata’ gate at the Grade 7 block. We met Kirsty as she was going out but she took some time to speak to us and show us some things. Silver Linings has some school lessons with Hellenic mainstream classes and has about 8 children per class. There are children with various impairments and they us a direct instruction method of teaching. She even gave us the details of a psychologist who did IQ tests for the school enrolment process (obviously for a rigoddam-diculous fee) but necessary since we did not have our own results.

Looks like Kirsty is a front runner so far…but only for a special school

The beginning

Apparently you need to start going to open days and start planning for Form 1 High school waaay in advance or you get stuck. It’s not as simple as just applying, writing, accepting and paying through the nose anymore. You need to beg, grovel, bribe, supplicate and pray to all the gods for a good school place.

So my 11 year old wee cousin is in Grade six in Zimbabwe. She is visually impaired and we know not whether it’ll get better or worse. She wears glasses but needs to be pretty much 2 inches away from the paper with pretty big font to read. So we need to take this into consideration when we are choosing a school for her.

So last Monday we went to the Arundel open day. Yeah, I though it was a done deal, my aunt, her mother went there, I went there, it’s still a great school so how hard can it be. We know the deal…or so we thought.

Don’t get me wrong- I was a boarder there in the 90’s and I thoroughly enjoyed it. On the first day as others were crying into their pillows I was ecstatic- freeeedom I thought. Bye Mom and Dad! I had lived in weird sort of extended family set up for years and the school was round the corner from my grandparents’ and uncles’ house so it was hardly a huge move.

I loved Arundel, I made good friends, I was naughty, I grew up, I was well educated and exposed- all you need for later on in life. But really, when I think about it- most of us are a weird kind of breed. The really clever ones are not very fit for public consumption, the not so clever ones are somewhat better but the school is a shark tank. It’s all about big fishes and little fishes. I keep saying about how they never stop telling you in Form 1 that ‘you were a big fish in a little pond, but now you’re a small fish in a big pond’. But I think they forget to tell you that when you leave you’re a guppy in a big old ocean. You may be an Arundel girl but there are hundreds of people out there, better educated, more polished, cleverer, hungrier and generally better than you. Little bitches get finessed into even bigger bitches. You get a superiority complex, and then immediately get an inferiority one battling with the superiority pretty much for the rest of your life. Even my Aunt who went there in the 70’s feels like she’s kind of not right, anti-social and not keen on the real world.

So to cut a long story short, Arundel will probably not be the way forward. Aside from the social integration issues that may ensue, do you really think they would make the effort to cater for my darling cousin’s impairment- I think not. Thank goodness she wants Convent as her other option. But as you know we have to consider the visual impairment thing so……