Yes, I am an Exchange Student

A couple of entries ago, I told you guys about my application to be an exchange student. We heard at the beginning of the year that I got accepted. So, I'm the first disabled person in this district zone to apply and be accepted. How awesome?

It is quite the process, I must tell you. Especially, as a disabled person. The crucial thing is finding a host family. You need to understand that, in my case, it's not just a home for me. It's a home for a disabled person (which means it would have to be an accessible home), and it's also a home for another person (my caregiver, Olwethu, who works as a community worker at The Chaeli Campaign). In my opinion, it's Olwethu who would be the one people should be worried about.

But that's not the point.

When I got accepted we decided that London would be a good place to go. This is purely because of my being disabled, and the transport system is really good in terms of accessibility in London. It would suck if I go to a country for six weeks and I can't get around anywhere.

We have been trying to find a home for us for months now, and it's just not happening. We started getting a little despondent about the whole situation. Then, I got an email from Jana - from Newlands Rotary Club - saying that London wasn't really coming together, but how do we feel about Scotland?

We were super excited, but also a little confused. We had just got the idea of "London" into our brains and now we had to change our brains to "Scotland". If you look at it, they are both in the same general geographical area, so it's not such a big deal.

Yesterday I went to Home Affairs - watched a guy get angry (I swear, I thought he was going to jump over the counter and smack someone - and I got my Passport, after waiting for about an hour.

Note to all: If you're planning to go to Home Affairs, don't plan anything else for that day. All that will accomplish is you getting frustrated and you'll end up cancelling or postponing your meeting anyway.

So, now we just have to get a departure date and visas and then we are good to go...

Under the knife

I have been having problems with my knees for almost two years now. I can't believe it has been that long.

It happened because of my disability - five years ago, I had surgery that would make walking easier, but now I am not walking and I have grown since then. So the desired outcome of that surgery worked for a while, but now it's having the opposite effect and it was pulling my kneecaps in all sorts of directions.

Just so you understand what I mean, my kneecaps were about four centimetres above where they're supposed to be. That's a problem.

About five months ago, my knees started complaining, as they should. We wanted to have them sorted out so they wouldn't be a misery for the rest of my life.

But here comes the problem... the orthopeadic surgoen who had done every one of my surgeries retired last year. Now we had to find a new person. It's quite a long story, but we found a good one. Dr Craig Hastings.

We went to him just over a month ago. He decided that a good plan of action would be to do one knee at a time and release the hamstring transfer (the surgery I had five years ago) and release the quads. In theory, this should reduce pressure on my kneecap and they should go back into its rightful home. Now, we just have to wait to see if theory becomes reality. It looks like it is.

I have to go back to him in about ten days to take off the bandages and see if it has worked. If it has, then we need to fix the other knee. Fun times.

I'll write more news when I get more news.

xxx

Patience is a virtue.

I know that I haven't written an entry in a while...things have been so busy since my last blog entry.

I'm now in Grade 11. People tell you about how much more work it is. I didn't believe them. Listen, people, you should listen to those people when they tell you stuff like that so you can prepare properly.

Anyway, to get you up to speed on what's happening in my life.

A lot of interesting things are in the pipeline. I'll tell you guys about a couple of them.

Firstly, last year I applied for a service dog - quite the mission to find the right people, but once you find those people it's all good. So, I applied in September 2010 and in February this year, I had an interview with one of the trainers to see if my having a service dog is a good thing. I got accepted for the programme.

And now, we wait. They say it can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years for them to find the right dog for me.

Exciting...

The second thing happening is that I applied to go on Rotary Exchange. The committee has to discuss it and then decide if I'm right for the programme.

If I get accepted, I'll be one of the few disabled people from South Africa to go on exchange. I guess it's a trend with disabled people: very few people have experiences well-worth having when there are so many disabled people out there. Quite ironic, I think.

And again, we wait...

I think that's one of the things that come with the territory of being differently abled. Playing the waiting game. We have to wait for everything. Opportunities, failures, other people, even ourselves.

But I think the best thing I've gained from my disability is most probably...patience. I have to have patience with myself because, let's face it, stuff takes a little longer. I have to have patience with other people, because they take time to get on your side.

I hope that you all have patience with yourselves and each other. And as the saying goes, "patience is a virtue", so make it one of your own.

Tattoo time

It was my sixteenth birthday last Monday (30th August). My birthday present from my parents was a tattoo.

I have been thinking about what tattoo I would get - if I ever got one - and I decided that I would get the chinese symbol for resilience. I thought it would be a good one considering the things I have had to overcome in my life.

On Monday morning, I was woken by the singing of 'happy birthday to you'. Now, you must know that for two weeks before my birthday, people were being very sneaky and told me my birthday present was awesome. When I was given a box filled with underwear...I was a little disappointed. Then, they gave me a card that said I had a voucher for one tattoo at MOB Inc. I didn't believe them at first.

I had an appointment for today at 2. Being true to family tradition, we were late. I was stressing.

I was a little nervous but more excited about getting my tattoo. Daniel, the tattoo artist, was still busy working on his previous client. I was fine, nerve wise, until I heard the noise of the needles.

My sister had to hold me in my wheelchair. To stop spasms from changing the wanted outcome.

Daniel was amazing. I was stressed - I think you can understand why. He was so chilled and made the whole experience a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting.

How can someone pinch the marmalade?

We are all now safely back home. It was a very interesting four days at the festival.

As always, there was drama. There is always going to be drama when you go away with more than one person. We were a group of thirty eight. So, you can imagine the drama.

We performed for two days with two shows per day. Our first show was not so good. We had a little bit of backstage tension. But every production has one bad show. That was our's. The rest were awesome.

Our last performance was a charity show at the correctional services. We were a bit tense about it. We were nervous because we had never been in an environment like that. We did our show outside in the exercise quad. It was our best performance.

We went to Sundowners. This is where shows have the opportunity to give the people a preview. Each show has six minutes to persuade the crowd. We had a good six minutes. We stayed to watch a few other previews - some were quite strange.

Everyone stayed in the university residences that were turned into hotels. Each res/hotel has a few wardens who are there to help the guests. We were friends with all of them.

Some funny things happened in those four days. At breakfast on the first day there was no marmalade. The people swore that they had put it out before the guests arrived. hmmm...

We had to rearrange our room a little bit so I could get in easier. The first time, though, we had to take my footrests off my wheelchair to get around the door and the bed. We then had a rehearsal, so off we went. without the footrests. Now, Jesse usually uses it as well. That day was no different. He quickly realised the error of his ways when he nearly landed on his face.

Jed, a cast member, slipped in the bathroom and dislocated his shoulder. He was rushed to hospital so they could relocate it.

I have decided to become a Grahamstown Festival regular. You will see me there until it is no more.

On the road again.

For the last six months, our dance school has been rehearsing for a play called 'Soar Like An Eagle'. The play is about how dancing can change a person's life and the journey towards that point of change.

We've performed at various venues, namely Rocklands Civic Centre in Mitchell's Plain and Milnerton Playhouse.

Our next stop. Grahamstown Festival. We're all very excited because we have never performed at a festival before. Our group is leaving at different times to make it easier and cheaper. We have to drive there because it's a mission to fly to Port Elizabeth and then drive to Grahamstown anyway. Ten hours of car here we come.

I think everybody can understand that there is only so much a person can do for ten hours in a car. Eat, sleep, read for a little bit, listen to music, and eat again. For us, that would cover about two hours. What about the other eight?

Things I have learned from previous trips:
1. Always have a good amount of food - mostly sweet stuff. For empty moments when you have nothing else to do.
2. It's all about layering. Wear multiple layers of clothing with varying degrees of warmth. This is to avoid being caught unawares at a robot next to a group of bikers. True story.
3. Most importantly, MOVE AROUND. You don't want to get out of the car, not be able to use your limbs, fall on your face, and die of embarrassment. In spite of your humiliation, this is very funny for others around you.

I hope these are helpful for your trips to come. I hope they come in handy to avoid future catastrophes.

Freedom from the tarmac

I've been doing wheelchair dancing for almost four years now. It's really rad to be able to do things that people don't expect me to be capable of.

Every year, on Freedom Day, we do a demonstration at a disability awareness walk. It is always really early in the morning because we have to dance before the people start their walk for awareness. My partner, Jesse, and I are not what you would call 'a morning person'. We have perfected the art of faking being awake.

You must know, when we are dancing, there is bound to be some sort of catastrophe.

Just so you understand the circumstances that we were dancing under, the walk starts outside Vangate Mall. That means that we had to dance outside on the tarmac. Don't worry, that's certainly not the worst thing we've been required to dance on. The worst by far, was dancing outside the parliament buildings on, wait for it, cobblestones. I promise you, that was a unique experience if I ever had one.

But to get back to the story, last year, at the walk, Jesse forgot to check the back wheel (that's the one that keeps the chair stable) and well, I went over backwards. very close to hitting the floor. Luckily, Jesse had fast reflexes that day.

So, this year, to keep up the tradition, we had yet another extravagant failure that nobody noticed because they thought it was all part of the show.

It started off with a power failure. Lucky for us, the police band was there and we made a plan. I have to say, I've never done that before. Then, half-way through the demonstration, power was restored. The first song that actually played was an awesome tango. Then....Quickstep.

Now, quickstep in general is a pretty fast dance to begin with. But now, Jesse is a bit of a showoff. I knew when he looked at Danielle (she's another dancer who dances with Mukkie, he's in a wheelchair as well) that it was not going to end well.

Off we went. When we had gone around the floor once, Jesse tripped. Hold the gasp. He tripped over a rock, smaller than a pea. When going at speed, the smallest thing can create the most disastrous situation.

Jesse fell to his knees, with very little grace, I have to say. What made things worse was that he was holding my arms, which meant that I was on two wheels once again. He realised that he would be in big trouble if I had landed on my head.

He kind of did a sort of mooncrawl, stumbled a little, stood up and pretended that nothing had happened. Amidst all of this hysteria, there were a couple of choice words in there. I'm forever hopeful that people didn't hear us. When we walked off the floor, we saw the damage. Jesse's pants are now holy....so is his knee.

I don't think Jesse understands how much I trust him. He thinks I don't trust him because I won't let him kick over my head. I trust him completely, his hamstrings not so much.

It's nice to have someone who you know will destroy himself in order to save you. I hope everyone has a person like that in their lives who they trust entirely.