Munene Mutwiri was five years old when he first started school. And like any other child, he had to read the alphabet, form words and sentences and count basic numbers.
However, his case was different. He had a lot of mispronunciations, performed poorly in Mathematics, and read some words backwards.
Once, in a Literature class, he read ‘flashback’ as ‘back flash,’ to the amusement of his classmates.
Most of the time, he would see the second name before the first, and mathematical formulae appeared as diagrams since numbers did not make a lot of sense to him, a problem he still encounters to date.
As a child, he preferred and loved when his teachers narrated stories rather than have him read them.
Now in his mid-20s, he still prefers listening to audiobooks to reading a text novel.
At home, his family took him to numerous eye clinics thinking he had an eye problem but deep inside, he knew his eyes were okay, and his reading problems had something to do with his brain.
“I would try to express myself through writing, but my ideas could not be directly translated into my words. Due to this contradiction with myself, I fell into depression. My family said it was teenagehood and I was taken to counselling.”
It was while undergoing counselling that he was diagnosed with mild dyslexia.
SISTER TAKES CHARGE
Mutwiri, for example, realised that he needed to see a diagram to easily translate information.
“I remember one day my sister had to send me at a specific shop on Luthuli Avenue. She explained for almost an hour how I walk there and identify the place, but the more she explained the more I got confused. Eventually, she took a pencil, drew a rough map and pointed out what I would see."
Even today, he is comfortable in doing household chores where he has a clear physical guideline on what he is doing and what will come next.
“I was 15 when he was born,” says his first born sister Purity Munene. “I postponed joining high school that year to be able to take care of him. Our parents were not always around, and as I was also a child, I thought he seemed like a normal baby.
I think if anyone was to notice his difficulties it would be our parents. But most of the time they were not around. And unfortunately, our mum could not read or write. So all this was new to everyone.”
While raising him alongside their mother, she never once thought of it as a learning disability.
“It’s difficult to see a challenge in your younger sibling,” she says. “I just thought that he was having difficulties in school, just as other children who really never get to score those high grades.”
EXTRA PRODUCTIVE
When he became a teenager and before he got diagnosed with dyslexia, Purity observes that Mutwiri was going through a rough patch in life, but the family thought it was the drama that comes with teenagehood.
It was after the diagnosis that they were able to understand him and tend better to his needs.
She points out how Mutwiri’s love for words was evident, even as a child.
“He was very talkative but he struggled in making out clear, understandable words. We always said he had a heavy tongue, and that's why he was struggling with his speech. He was afraid of water, and every time we would bathe him he would cry till the neighbours came to see [what was going on]. I think his mind always saw something that none of us was seeing.”
Even with such a history, his behaviour at the workplace has him labelled as a workaholic and a perfectionist, yet in real sense he has to work five times more to be at par with the rest.
“In campus, I had to write four, five rough copies before publishing an article on my blog. Before a presentation, I had to re-read a few times for my brain to get a clear understanding,” he says.
He also never had it easy while in primary school. "I remember this time in Class Two when my mathematics teacher shamed me in front of the class because my book looked messy. I really had difficulties drawing the parallel lines separating the squared mathematics book."
However, in Class Five, and at St Nicholas Boarding Primary School in Meru, his class teacher, Ms Mwirigi, started taking notice of him, devoting herself to giving him extra coaching and encouragement.
LONELINESS
With a smile, he recalls how a rug under his desk got him very uncomfortable as he revised for his KCPE examinations.
"I kept on checking on how the rug seemed so out of place and l felt so vulnerable as l could not move it away. Ms Mwirigi noticed my uneasiness and she requested someone to get rid of it. After the class, she called me and advised me that I should never be disturbed by physical misplacements, which at times might not be my fault."
His life, however, did not get better. A few years later, while attending Nkubu High School, he describes loneliness as his best friend.
He recalls how his Agriculture teacher, Mrs Muthamia, one day found him alone and hungry sitting below a tree.
Thinking he was sad that no one had visited him, she approached him to offer some consolation.
However, according to Munene, he was extremely happy that he had had a day to be alone and away from human contact.
With time, she came to understand his condition, teaching him Agriculture by use of symbols and illustrations.
“Even though I loved drawing and literature, I hated Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics and Biology because I never really understood anything.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Yet I had no choice because Chemistry and Biology were a must-read. When other students were busy discussing, analysing and finding simple methods to find a solution, I was busy cramming as much as I could. I remember one time when I was asked to solve a chemistry equation. Though I manage to solve it, I could not explain what had happened."
Fast forward to campus and he found himself spending most of his time pretending to write when all he was actually doing was trying to repeat what the lecturer just said.
Studying public relations, and with his poor handwriting, he looks back amused at how one of his lecturers once called his parents and asked them to buy him( a laptop for his assignments.
"Over the years, I have been able to manage my mild dyslexia. Some days are difficult than others. Most of all I thank my girlfriend, Faith, who understood me and has helped me in this journey."
Written
By MERCY CHELANGAT,
By MERCY CHELANGAT,
for nation media group.
My classmate at nkubu high school....
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