Last summer I had the opportunity to go on my first international trip to the great United States of America. I would be spending two months there, attending the very prestigious Mandela Washington Fellowship, which is run annually by the US government to support young African leaders to scale up their businesses/projects and ultimately have a more positive impact in their communities.
At the time I was travelling, I had been in a wheelchair for a little over nine years. My disability was acquired after I was involved in a road accident that injured my spinal cord. It was going to be my first time on a plane so you can probably imagine the nerves and the anxiety.
I was scheduled to fly for a total of nineteen hours and would be having my layover at the CDG airport in France. In total, I spent a total of twenty-two hours just flying. But if you are counting the time it took for me to get from home to my destination, that came close to forty hours. It is probably not a tall task for most people, but you have to realize that a wheelchair user, are in a sitting position the entire time! The fatigue was unlike anything else I had experienced. But quickly forgot about being tired the moment I “set foot” in the US.
I landed at Detroit airport and took a two-hour drive to Michigan State University in East Lansing. The first thing that grabbed my attention was how fast people drive there. On the highway, people were easily doing speeds of over 120km/hr with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a big Pepsi drink. It was so foreign to me just how fast everything was moving and I realized very fast that time is the most important part of their lives. We were told that it was only acceptable for us to be late for only one minute. If it extended to two or three minutes then it was disrespectful and rude. Being a Kenyan timer, I had struggled to adjust to that.
After my injury, a friend of mine who is also a wheelchair user and had moved to the States, had been telling me about the advantages of living there as someone with a disability. She constantly asked me to keep on trying to find ways of moving there and seeing for myself but I just couldn’t wrap my head around how a guy from a small village like me would end up across the world. But somehow I did and I confirmed all she said to be true!
The first culture shock for me came in the form of how the environment had been designed to make life seamless for everyone. I remember driving my power chair down the winding pavement next to our living quarters and towards the intersection that led to the dining area. There was a pair of street lights and the roads were quite busy that day. Here in Kenya, crossing the road is an extreme spot for anybody, add a wheelchair into that mix and it becomes a “mission very complicated”.
The street lights were disability friendly because there was a button that was a few feet from the tarmac that I could easily reach from my chair. Pressing that button would set a timer thirty-second timer and once the thirty seconds were over, the lights would turn red, signalling the cars to stop and me/other pedestrians to cross the road easily. There was also a countdown as we crossed and it was being counted down by an automated voice, that way, even a blind person knew when to cross the road and what time they had left. This was mind-blowing for me.
On my first weekend there, I powered my chair and decided to attempt to go around the campus. It was so vast that it had its own bus routes, police station and power station. But I was so impressed by how easy it was for me to get around that I went out on a solo stroll to discover what else was on the campus.
I drove around for two hours, went down an overpass, drove over train tracks, crossed more than ten roads and I didn’t even break a sweat because everything was so well designed to make sure that I could navigate by myself. But I went too far and unfortunately ended up getting lost. I had let my excitement get the best of me. I had to take the bus back to my living quarters and I did that using an app that we had been told to download on our phones.
It was my first time being on a bus for almost ten years. They are called kneeling buses and they basically have hydraulic lifts that lower the bus down, and retract a ramp, allowing the wheelchair user to drive up and into the bus. Inside there is a designated area where you park your chair and get strapped down but the bus driver so that you are safe and secure. I almost had to pinch myself when all this was happening because I was on a bus! I didn’t have to be lifted out of my chair!
For the purpose of context, now that I am back home in Kenya, I move in and out of my wheelchair six times on an average busy day. It is mostly when I am getting into and out of the car. We don’t have a wheelchair-accessible vehicle so I exit the car and my chair is then placed in the boot of the car. Back in the States, I would have a busy day from 9 am to 8 pm and would not be required to leave my wheelchair even once! When I needed to go somewhere I just drove my chair into a bus or the accessible van. It was so easy and convenient.
Despite the campus being over a hundred years old, almost all the buildings in the university upheld the right to access which allows people with disabilities to move around freely. Even the elevators were designed with people like me in mind. Rather than the buttons being placed vertically which would make it impossible for me to press certain buttons, they were arranged horizontally. It was easy to reach and I don’t remember needing any assistance with that either. If I am being honest, I rarely needed any assistance during my time there (outside the basic caregiving needs). It is truly the little things that make the big difference.
There is so much to say about the differences between here and there, especially as a person who has a disability. Kenya remains my home, my pride and joy but it is tempting to trade all that for freedom and independence. I doubt Kenya will be as disability friendly as the US in my lifetime because they are light years ahead of us in that regard. The fact remains that life is very unfavourable for people living with disabilities here in Kenya. Whereas we have made good progress in the last few years and attempted to level a playing field that is built upon bias, we are far from where we ought to be.
Check out
From Stairs To Ramps: When You Don’t Know What To Say Or Do Around Persons With Disabilities
From Stairs To Ramps: Why It Is Important For Me To Advocate For Accessibility
