Thanks, but I can manage
life in a wheelchair isn’t half as challenging as other peoples’ misconceptions. Here, two boundary breaking women who refuse to be defined by disability set the record straight.
Why disability doesn’t define us
NadiNe mcKeNzie, 30 fouNder of tHe uNmute daNce compaNy
As childhoods go, Nadine McKenzie describes hers as ordinary. She lived in a small street and had lots of friends. Most people would consider a wheelchair an obstacle, but for her, it was an icebreaker and a plaything. It was all she’d ever known; still, she knew she was different from her friends and wanted to know why.
Her parents told her the accident happened when she was two years old. She was playing outside when a drunk driver came speeding down the road. His car veered off onto the pavement and hit her, leaving her paralysed from the waist down.
“The fact I had a disability only started to sink in when I went to a mainstream high school, where there were almost no other kids like me,” she says. “People were always friendly and tried to help, but they’d end up overdoing it because they didn’t know how to respond or were afraid of me. People wanting to help without asking is an issue I, and most people living with a disability I’ve met, struggle with, as well as talking about us rather than directly to us.”
Nadine discovered dance in Grade 12. “I found the freedom to be in a space and express myself in a different way. It stripped me naked, and taught me how to be myself and take up my own space. And in many ways, it helped me to deal with my issues because it covers different topics and emotions.”
In that same year, she watched a performance by artists living with and without a disability. Their bodies were moving together, regardless of their limitations. Inspired, she later became one of four founding members to launch the Unmute Dance Company in
2013. Based at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town, Unmute has performed at festivals and theatres, at home and abroad. It also offers workshops to school children, and gives them the opportunity to perform in their communities, and at the Arts Ability Festival, the only inclusive festival in South Africa to bring together artists from a variety of backgrounds.
“People who’ve seen our work have said they were surprised to see bodies that are differently abled moving in this way,” she says. “They want to know more about the individuals within the company because of what we do.”
For more info, visit unmute.co.za
maureeN bvuma, 34 autHor
Maureen Bvuma was with her sister Thandi at a mall waiting to watch a movie. A homeless man asked her if she believed in God. You see, the sisters were born with brittle bone disease, which means they could break a bone at any moment, often without even realising it. Maureen has broken her leg so many times she can predict the time of year it’ll happen, and it’s usually caused by something as seemingly insignificant as an uneven pavement. Both sisters are wheelchair-bound.
“Yes, I do,” she replied.
“Then why aren’t you walking?” At the time, Maureen was a 10-year-old girl, who still had to figure out who she was and how she fitted into the world; and yet, here was a grown man who made her question if God existed. And if He did exist, she wondered, why would he have made her this way?
“There were adults there who stood back and let it happen,” she recalls. “I remember thinking, ‘You can’t let a child be attacked by someone else. You’re supposed to help me!’”
Although the encounter, the first of many, knocked Maureen’s confidence, it made her want to prove to other people that her disability doesn’t limit her. “My family have never hidden the fact I’m different, and have helped me to understand I’m limited in ways my siblings aren’t. But that didn’t stop me from experimenting,” she says. “I’d climb onto my wheelchair, then onto the worktop, to reach for a glass in our kitchen cupboards.”
She excelled at school and began to show up unexpectedly in spaces a person living with a disability might usually shy away from. “I was the only person using a wheelchair on a public-speaking course last year,” she says. “You don’t want to believe that body language is a thing, but it is. I could see the look on my classmates’ faces. But I think feeling uncomfortable pushed them to want to know more. After a few classes, some of them were brave enough to start a conversation about what was wrong.”
As an adult, Maureen still faces prejudice. “People question whether you can fulfil the role of a mother,” she says. “You could also struggle to get employment, even though you’re qualified, based on other peoples’ beliefs.”
Hoping to challenge some of these perceptions, Maureen has written a book, Queen on Wheels, about how her life lessons have helped her to grow. She’s partnered with the recruitment agency Modern Centric, to get corporate SA to employ more people living with a disability, and she’s working with its founder,
Zakhele Mgobhozi, on a campaign called #UnotheringTheOther, which educates society on the issues faced by those who’re deemed different by society .
“The moment you believe disability will stop you from doing something, it will. There’ll be people who’ll try to stop you, or won’t believe in you, but that should only push you to prove you can do it.”
“you don’t want to believe that body language is a thing, but it is”