My woes with a lost eye

Jun 13, 2014

In this 21st century it is amazing how much discrimination society inflicts on people with disabilities. I lost one of my eyes at school; a boy who had bent a wire lost grip and it snapped into my eye when I was 10 years in primary six.

trueBy Denis Sebuwufu

In this 21st century it is amazing how much discrimination society inflicts on people with disabilities. I lost one of my eyes at school; a boy who had bent a wire lost grip and it snapped into my eye when I was 10 years in primary six.

I was able to acquire a prosthetic eye but that cannot conceal the truth that I have monocular vision.
 

I realised my only hope to succeed in life was in education and managed to be the best in all my classes throughout my education until I got my bachelors.

However if you have one eye, no one takes you seriously they think you cannot match up to the two eyed folks. In order to succeed you need to have double the ability of the normal bodied people to get recognition.
 

I was amazed when a friend praised me for having contributed to his success; he is now a doctor. During A-Levels, I helped friends who eventually scored 25 points and are now lawyers because they were in A class schools but me who was in a Third class school scored 19 points and missed out on government sponsorship.
 

My troubles over my lost eye are endless. UNEB failed to register me during A-Levels when I submitted passport photos with an eye patch over my eye socket, I had to get new passport photos with my eye socket exposed to prove that I was not bluffing.

During briefing an invigilator had to ask me why I was covering my eye to prove that I was not one of those stubborn kids!
 

After A-level, I became shortsighted as I used to read my Literature texts in poor lighting conditions at my school, so I went to a famous optical shop in Kampala to acquire lenses.

I realized later on that I had been given spectacles with one lens and the other normal glass in the frame. I felt cheated because though I did not need the second lens I had been charged for two lenses, they thought I was dumb enough not to notice!
 

With my degree in tow, I felt I had made a big step in making my life better only to be proved wrong. Despite the degree costing me an arm and a leg, with the large number of job seekers and my monocular sight I had few chances of landing on that dream job.

I have passed every aptitude test I have been invited to but during face to face interviews I guess the interviewers cannot imagine a person with one eye working in a bank; it will kill company reputation.
 

I just had to put the degree aside and venture into self-employment as a blogger, graphics designer and printer. In business as long as you are good at what you do, no one minds about your body appearance.
 

I have also had a fair share of troubles in relationships with the fairer sex. My mother in law had to threaten to stop paying tuition for her daughter, forcefully abort my first baby and later plan to marry off her to another man when my twin babies had not even made a month.

All this because she was going out with a person who has no future and worse of all has a bad eye.
 

This keeps me wondering whether I have a place in society. I realised I have to use my precious eye to fend for myself and my family regardless of what others think or take me to be.

0791196883
dsebuufu2002@yahoo.com
 

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