Blind People Aren’t Supposed to Get Lost

Assalamu alaikum, well, I had an experience today (and I just got home so I’m still kinda processing it, complete from cooling off from the, what turned out to be, hot and humid morning), that left me quite embarrassed/irritated/frustrated.

I walked my step-daughter to the masjid for Islamic school, I took Chloe with me because I thought I could find my way back. I mean, I was told that the masjid was “just past the park, right there on the street, just keep going straight and you’ll run right into it”.

I’m telling you, sometimes sighted people can give the worst directions. It turned out to be one small turn, the what seemed to be another little turn, and then a short walk through the grass, and through the gate leading toward the masjid building (which is actually a converted house). So after the park, which I knew about, you had to cross a street (a pretty significant detail which was left out), then continue down the street you were walking along in the first place, then make the two small turns, and then end up walking through the grass, to the gate at the masjid.

So anyway, my step-daughter said bye to me, and walked in the door, someone said hi to her, and I started back down the grass, and a car was pulling up, I think a little boy was getting out (and if they were Muslims, they didn’t give me salams, perhaps seeing me with the dog threw them off). And I walked won what I thought was the right street I was on before. Only … it wasn’t.

Not only did I end up on the wrong street, I ended up, I think, the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. So much so that the streets where I ended up actually had sidewalks, and here I was telling Chloe to walk on the shoulder of the road. I started to realize that something was wrong when I started hearing cars going around me. Then, a lady pulled up and said “Do you know you’re in the middle of the road?” She then proceeded to explain to me that there was a sidewalk and that I needed to go to my left to get on it. Then she said “where are you going?” I then asked her where I was, because if I knew where I was, I’d probably be able to find my way home.

She told me to go back the way I’d come, because I was coming to a busy intersection, which I already knew because I could hear the cars in front of me, and go back through the neighborhoods. And that was what I did, however, the lady followed me in her car down the street, was stopping to talk to someone, I told her I wanted to go to Avenue Y (my street), and I heard a lady say, “Why does she want to go to Avenue Y”? Uh, because I live there. I said outloud. Because I was pretty angry at this point. Not so much because I was being followed, not so much because the whole block was seemingly watching me, but mainly because by this point, the lady in the car has contacted the Winter Haven Police Department. At this point, I was angry and upset. I explained to her that I was not stupid, not crazy, not incapable of traveling by myself, I’d been doing it since I was a teenager. It’s just that I wasn’t given good directions, and if someone would have just told me where I was, that I could probably find my way back home. And she said “I know, I know”, in that patronizing tone that sighted people like to use when they want you to think they believe you, but in actuality, they don’t.

So the policeman came, he got out and talked to me, and after I explained to him how I’d gotten lost, where I was going, what I was doing, he offered to take me home because “people don’t know you around here, and if I don’t, they’ll keep calling us anyway”. So I reluctantly took him up on his offer.

I don’t know whether to laugh about the situation, or burst into tears. I’m kind of vascillating between the two extremes. I’m going from laughing at the situation, to feeling angry, embarrassed, feeling like I’ve lost my dignity, that no matter if I have a house, a job, my own money, that at the end of the day, I’m just a helpless blind person. And you know, I live in a predominantly minority neighborhood, one of probably a few white people, so that probably played into it, as well as being in hijab. I’m sure some people thought I was a mental case, walking around in circles, even accidentally ending up in the road because I didn’t know there was a sidewalk, wearing “those hot clothes”. Which makes me even the more angrier.

All I kept thinking to myself was, if I were sighted, I could have gotten lost and no one would have batted an eye, and I guess to some, I should feel lucky that people “cared” enough to make sure I got home OK. But there is a difference between caring, and treating someone like they’re a complete imbicile, which I’m quite sure I’m not. I guess blind people aren’t supposed to get lost, if we want to avoid drawing attention to ourselves.

One final thing, though, Chloe did a wonderful job, she was a little excited, but she really did her best, I think she was just as confused about the whole situation as I was. I mean, if you don’t know where you’re going, the dog sure won’t, unless they somehow know the route, which Chloe didn’t. And in the end, the officer said “you weren’t too far from your home, if you’d have just kept going straight you’d have found your street.” To which I said, “I tried to tell that lady that.” Which is where he again reiterated that it was probably better that he took me home
because people would have kept calling anyway.

I’m just feeling completely embarrassed right now, and I can’t tell you how, uh, “de-dignified” I feel. I wish I could explain my feelings better, but perhaps only another blind person would understand.