Blind see the world differently

Editor’s note: As part of his story on blind Pitt student Russell Kuba, Michael Mastroianni… Editor’s note: As part of his story on blind Pitt student Russell Kuba, Michael Mastroianni spent a day blindfolded. His observations as a “blind” person are recounted in the italicized sections.

The first light of day does not wake Russell Kuba up. The shine of the sun will not glow under his eyelids.

“I can only see shadows,” he said.

Born with a condition known as optic nerve hypoplagia, Kuba has been blind since birth. The 27-year-old Pitt student has been slowly working toward his degree in communication since 1996. Living in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh, he still makes his way to Oakland, by bus and by foot, for classes on campus.

Without my sight, my own room seems as foreign as a dream. I blunder around with my hands outstretched, desperately trying to determine the boundaries of my world. Even though I know where my table, my bed and everything else is in my room, I now find myself trying to count the steps between my door and my window and failing, crashing into a table.

I walk down my stairs, counting the steps as I go, and go out into the street. The sunlight does not force my eyes to constrict, and the only clue to its presence is its warmth on my skin. Noise from cars, buses and people surrounds me, washing around me like the ocean on an island. I cannot tell where a sound is coming from until it passes me.

The only reassuring noise is the chirp the street lights make when the intersection is safe to cross. I take a few cautious steps into the street, trying to shy away from every sound. I bump into a stopped car, and the driver yells at me. I wave an apology, probably in the wrong direction.

During his first term at Pitt, Kuba moved into a new environment in Litchfield Towers.

“I got a little help getting around, but it was still awkward,” Kuba admitted

Now, he has no trouble navigating the buildings on campus, especially the Cathedral of Learning and David Lawrence Hall, which he has frequented the most during his education.

“Once I get used to a new environment, I don’t have many problems,” Kuba said.

New construction projects on campus have made his travels difficult. Barricades at Forbes Avenue and Bigelow have interrupted his path across Oakland, and a bridge over a broken sidewalk near Trees Hall caused problems earlier.

“It just takes me more time to get around,” Kuba said.

I know I am in the shadow of the Cathedral of Learning, but I cannot see it. I explore my way to the entrance with a cane and my bare hands. By the time I reach the revolving door, my hands have been scratched by bushes and stone.

I can hear the footsteps of people moving around me, taking a detour to avoid getting in my way. I find the elevator and ask someone to press the button for the 12th floor. On the way up, I catch more of people’s conversations than I usually would. Most of the time, I would stare at a spot on the wall to distract myself from others in the elevator, but I cannot do that today.

Kuba has finished 83 credits at Pitt, and hopes to graduate in a few years. His pace is a drawback of his condition.

He is assisted by computer speech programs to read course texts and get news from the Internet, especially Pittsburgh sports coverage.

Pitt’s Disability Resource Center in the William Pitt Union has recordings of textbooks and exams for Kuba to use on a computer, and some of his professors have given him assignments on disk.

Kara DeFelice, Kuba’s girlfriend, goes with him to the movies, where she narrates visual material to him.

“People at the theater say ‘we know you love him if you tell him what’s going on in the movie’,” DeFelice said.

I muddle through class, with the person next to me explaining the diagrams on the chalkboard. I can feel others in the class looking at me, pretending to stare at something past me. As bored students shuffle restlessly and someone drops a pencil, every sound takes over my head for a second, more of a distraction than ever.

After class, I brave the halls, the stairs and the sidewalks on my slow journey to Schenley Cafe for lunch. Crossing Bigelow Boulevard is the greatest horror of the day as I march into the crosswalk with nothing but faith and the hope that drivers can see better than I can. A cacophony of car horns and shouting students comes at me from every direction, and the smell of hot asphalt rises up from the street. In a moment of panic, I dash to the curb and almost trip on it.

After traveling in the United States and Europe, Kuba considers Pittsburgh one of the easiest cities for him to get around.

“It’s the only city I know,” he said.

When walking down the sidewalk, he stays in a straight line with his cane before him, relying on his own memory to guide him and the people around him to cooperate. In the halls of the William Pitt Union, he rests his hand on Kara’s shoulder and follows her right of way.

At the end of the day, the streets of Oakland become nothing but shadow, and Kuba is just as at home as he was in the morning.

I step off the bus when I hear the driver say my street name. I wait for the chirp of the street lights to cross the avenue and feel my way along the wall to my door. I count off the steps I had added up in the morning and find my doorknob. I notice the cracked paint on my door for the first time as my hand brushes over it.

People say that when one sense is absent, the other four become stronger in compensation. This is not literally true; a person simply becomes more aware of their presence. To me, the true compensation came from the disappearance of the clutter in my brain that came from seeing all the colors and shapes of the world, and the space it occupied is filled with the perceptions of other senses. My nose could always pick up the scent of flowers, but I never noticed it before. I could always hear the call of a starling, but this was the first time it was the first voice in my head.

A blind person is never truly blind. He only sees the world in a way that the rest of us can only borrow.