Film: "Blindsight"

[Guest]

"BLINDSIGHT"

The Film - Synopsis
Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas, Blindsight
follows the gripping adventure of six Tibetan teenagers who set out to
climb the 23,000 foot Lhakpa Ri on the north side of Mount Everest.

A dangerous journey soon becomes a seemingly impossible challenge
made all the more remarkable by the fact that the teenagers are blind.
Believed by many Tibetans to be possessed by demons, the children are
shunned by their parents, scorned by their villages and rejected by
society. Rescued by Sabriye Tenberken - a blind educator and adventurer
who established the first school for the blind in Lhasa, the students
invite the famous blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer to visit their
school after learning about his conquest of Everest. Erik arrives in Lhasa
and inspires Sabriye and her students Kyila, Sonam Bhumtso, Tashi,
Gyenshen, Dachung and Tenzin to let him lead them higher than they
have ever been before.

The resulting 3-week journey is beyond anything any of them could have
predicted.

The Film - How the film came to be

The idea for the expedition came about after blind educator Sabriye
Tenberken, who founded Braille Without Borders, the first and only school
for the blind in Tibet, wrote the following email letter to the world
renowned blind mountaineer Erik Weihenmayer, upon hearing the news
that he had summitted Mt. Everest in 2001. Sabriye had read Erik’s book
TOUCH THE TOP OF THE WORLD to the students in the school, and was
inspired to get in touch following the incredible news of his summit.

http://www.blindsightthemovie.com/film.html

[Guest]

Dear Erik,

After you reached the top of the world our Tibetan neighbour rushed into
our center and told the kids about your success. Some of them first didn’t
believe it at first but then there was a mutual understanding: if you could
climb to the top of the world, we also can overcome our borders and
show to the world that the blind can equally participate in society and are
able to accomplish great things.

Since my boyfriend Paul and I had read your book with great pleasure, I
decided to tell the children about your life. Just one week ago I told the
children in our center all about your childhood, how you became blind,
how you dropped your canes from bridges, how you finally met other
blind people and then how you became confident in wrestling. All of them
were very impressed by all these experiences you had and they
compared your experiences with their own ones. Again they realized that
it does not matter much if you are a blind child in Germany, USA or Tibet,
the experience one has who becomes blind, the embarrassment at first,
the confidence which builds up slowly but steadily, the reaction of the
sighted surrounding is probably for every blind person the same.

After I had told your story to the children, the boys were walking
together with some of our sighted colleagues through the inner part of
Lhasa. Lhasa is not the blind-friendliest city in the world. There are lots of
holes in the street, which sometimes are a few meters deep. Construction
sites are never protected through wires. It can happen that you step in
huge puddles of dirty water or even excrements. Most of our children
know their way through this chaos. I teach them mobility and they are
quite confident in using their canes. They always think that if I could find
my way around they also have to try. The only problem is that they are
sometimes very embarrassed to show their canes since nomads and
pilgrims who never saw a cane before often make fun about them. They
call them “blind fools”, imitate them and laugh about them. One of the
boys however once turned around and said: “you can not talk to me like
that, I am blind but I am not a fool! And did you ever go to school, do
you know how to read and write? Can you find the toilet in the middle of
the night without a torch?”

Not all of these children have this pride and confidence to react in such a
strong way. I often tell them, that they should understand that these
people are just stupid. And if they can, they should say something back.
Most of them now like the idea to defend themselves in a verbal way.
First they try to reply in a rather friendly way and if this does not help,
they are starting to shout back, make fun of them and soon they have
the crowd on their side.

And still, if a sighted friend is around, they try to hide away their canes
to walk invisible and convenient on the arm of the sighted.

And at this day when I ended your story by saying: “this man, who is
blind like you climbed the top of the world, not by holding the arm of a
sighted friend, but with the help of some strings and two canes”, They all
proudly decided to walk on their own, Without the convenience of walking
with the sighted. Stories like yours change their lives. Most of them now
understand that there is nothing to be embarrassed about. They can be
very proud little people, and they say quite often: “we are blind, so what?
We can speak English and Chinese, we can find our way in the labyrinth
of Lhasa’s walkways, we are able to read and write in three different
Braille scripts and we read and write without using light.

Last week I told them already that I wanted to write to you to ask if you
would like to come to Tibet, maybe even to do a small climbing workshop
with our kids.

Two years ago, some of our students started with rock climbing, taught
by Tibetan Everest guides from the Tibetan mountain climbing institute.
After you have reached the Everest I talked to this climbing teacher
about the idea inviting you to Lhasa. He became very interested and
since then we were searching for your e-mail address.

In a way, we are something like colleagues, maybe in encouraging the
blind to stand up and to find and overcome their own borders.

As I read from your book we have the same philosophy, similar history
and a similar way of approaching ideas.

We all would be very excited if you could visit our project. Paul and I also
want to come to the states in the beginning of the next year and maybe
we have the chance to meet you somewhere there first.

Right now I am sitting in our computer room. Next to me is Gyenshen, a
brilliant young student who became blind with the age of 9. He together
with two other girls gets computer lessons and he also is writing a letter
to you.

Gyenshen comes from a very remote and poor farmer area. After he
became blind his family kept him away in a dark room for three years.
The family was embarrassed having a blind child. In Tibet people believe
that blindness is a punishment for something which the person has done
bad or wrong in his/her previous life. People also believe that blind
people are possessed by demons.

When he came to our project he was very shy. Now he is one of the best
students and is quite confident with handling the computer. He is
probably the only one of his village who knows that the world is round,
and that one can communicate through just a wire. He is able to tell the
other children of the village that “iron yaks” are Toyota Landcruisers
which drink gasoline instead of water.

The blind that grow up in Tibet have certainly a totally different life than
we in Germany or you in the US. But they feel a close solidarity with blind
people from other countries. This connection and solidarity gives them a
lot of strength and power to manage their lives.

Today is the international day of the white cane and you help us to fill
this day with proud.

Greetings from a sunny and cold Lhasa, greetings from all the children,
the staff and especially from Paul.

Say hello to your family.

With lots of good wishes, yours truly,

Sabriye Tenberken