RIGHT ON TIME

12

"You see, that sound is called a screen reader. There are several screen readers for both computers and phones. The ones we use on our computers are called JAWS, which means Job Access With Speech. There are other screen readers for computers like narrator, VLC, etc." 

After a pause, the proprietor called out to some of the students, asking for their phones. Mrs. Righteous was surprised upon seeing the students handing him their Android, blackberry and iPhones. 

Before she could ask the pressing question about how the students were able to operate the sophisticated mobile phones, the proprietor resumed talking. 

"Just like the computer, phones like Symbian, Android, BlackBerry and Apple phones also have their screen reader and voice commands." 

"In Symbian phones, the talking software is called Talks, for Android phones, it's called either TalkBack or Android accessibility suite, and finally for the Apple phones, it is called Voiceover." 

Another "wonderful" emanated from Mrs. Green while Ayanate continued listening in silence, drinking in the new information. 

"With these screen readers," Mr David continued, "any blind person can literally do anything that's possible for people who can see to do on their devices." 

Mrs. Green almost mumbled another "wonderful", but the proprietor beat her to the punch. 

"Before you say how wonderful it is again, let me finish what I was telling you." 

"With the use of the screen readers, either in their phones or laptops, they can browse the internet, make receive calls, send SMS and read messages sent to them. They also have social media accounts and they can type as fast as you when they want to reply to your messages." 

Then he added with a wink, "You could even be chatting freely with some of your social media friends, not knowing that they are blind or visually impaired." At this, the proprietor couldn't hold back himself from laughing out loud and hard. 

Mrs Righteous shot him a 'why are you making fun of people's predicament' look. 

He replied to her with the wave of his hands. "Oh, come on, Madam. Life is not always hard and serious. You need to cheer up. These people also make light of their situations everyday. You need to hear them joking and laughing sometimes about it. A lot of them are happy people and fun to be with, and they don't get angry over trivial things like this.

"You could also spend some time with them, joke and laugh with them about it. I'm sure you understand that there's a difference between when you are playing with someone and when you're insulting them because of their predicament. 

"These people are normal human beings like us and thus, they are not all saints because there are both the good and bad eggs among them, thus it would be wrong to stereotype them because of their physical challenge.

"Oh, Mrs. Green, did I tell you that there are wonderful blind comedians and MC's both in this country and all over the world?" 

The proprietor cackled again, this time holding his belly. "You need to hear these people cracking jokes. I assure you that you can't hold yourself back from laughing. 

"Besides all these professions I have mentioned so far,  there are physically challenged politicians, government workers and on-air personalities that are beautifully doing their work in several organizations." 

"A lot of them also work as international translators. I know a handful of blind lawyers and I'm sure you're going to come across them one day in your career. There are also blind lecturers, blind business men and women and some of them are even the CEO of their companies. Most of these people developed themselves from scratch.