Blind Somalis learn to live with anarchy !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Daanyeer's comment: The HAIR-Checking part REMINDS me a STORY about BLIND, former manager during the MILITARY goverment of FORMER Somali.
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Source: Reuters
November 8, 2006 Author: Guled Mohamed




.............."Some of the blind children fight in school, accusing each other of having hard or soft hair," she says, referring to a physical characteristic that distinguishes fairer-skinned Somalis from darker skinned Bantus."



...........He claps and whistles loudly to produce the different noises made by the warring parties' weapons.

MARKA, Somalia (Reuters) - Ali Hussein says Somalia is the worst place in the world to be blind. To survive, he has learned to distinguish between the sounds of mortars, missiles and machineguns the better to avoid street battles.

People harass him and discriminate against him, and everywhere he turns there is violence and danger.

"Our lives are in jeopardy. We are mistreated by those who can see. Sometimes they even snatch our white canes. They have no mercy," said Hussein, who wears dark glasses.

"The blind easily walk into heavy fighting," said the 19-year-old, who lost his sight aged one. "That has forced us to master the sounds of missiles, heavy machineguns and other heavy weapons. Once they are fired, we run for cover."

Somalia is torn between Islamic forces based in the capital, Mogadishu, and a weak, Western-backed interim government. Many fear the Horn of Africa country is on the verge of all-out war.

Clashes are common between militias riding "technicals", or pickups converted into battlewagons bristling with guns, grenades and anti-aircraft rockets.

Hussein, who is learning to read and write Braille at the Rainbow School for the Blind in Marka, a port 125 km (80 miles) south of the capital, demonstrates his survival skills.

He claps and whistles loudly to produce the different noises made by the warring parties' weapons.

Ali Sahal, a former militiaman resting nearby at the school in Marka, is intrigued.

"He must be a genius," Sahal says with a laugh. "That is exactly the sound of an AK-47 rifle, machineguns, anti-aircraft missiles and mortars."

ONLY TWO DOCTORS

The Rainbow school was set up in Mogadishu -- a lawless city littered with ruins after years of anarchy -- in late 2004 by a Californian charity, the Handicap Initiative Supporting Network

(HISAN).

But it moved to Marka early this year when heavy gun battles erupted between the emerging Islamist forces and United States-backed warlords who had carved the sprawling city in rival fiefdoms. Hundreds of residents were killed.

The services of the school's trained staff are particularly valuable in Somalia, experts say, where children are more likely to lose their sight than in the developed world, mostly because of a lack of specialized care or early treatment.

Some 75 percent of the world's cases of blindness are preventable or curable and about 90 percent of visually impaired people live in the developing world.

Sung Duck Cho, the South Korean head of HISAN in Somalia who has lived there for nearly 20 years, says ignorance and a lack of qualified ophthalmologists means children go blind each year.

"There are only two eye doctors for the 5 million people in the south of Somalia," she said, dressed in a flowing Somali dress and headscarf. She said she had never thought about giving up her work, despite the danger.

"Insecurity has never stopped me from working," she says. "We need more Somalis to volunteer and to contribute generously in order to continue with our operations."

MORE UNDERSTANDING

Despite the relative tranquillity of the school's new location in Marka, Sung Duck Cho says Somalia's clan-based rivalries have infected some of the youths.

"Some of the blind children fight in school, accusing each other of having hard or soft hair," she says, referring to a physical characteristic that distinguishes fairer-skinned Somalis from darker skinned Bantus.

"The children are really worried about the tensions. Somalis should end tribalism. It is affecting the future generations."

Sitting at the school, which is based in a refurbished building on the run-down campus of a technical school overlooking the Indian Ocean, Hussein agrees, saying Somalis should show more compassion toward blind people as well.

The blind should be helped with education, he says, so they can get jobs and support themselves. But while the violence continues, he concedes, just staying alive will be a priority.

"I don't know what a gun looks like. I can't tell whether it is white or black, but I have mastered the sounds produced by most weapons. That has helped me escape from serious battles."