The Mat Salleh

Last week (or was it the week before?), as I was walking back from Leverett House at Harvard, I saw nearly 15 pairs of students, all male, carrying out some kind of activity. Bear in mind that this was around midnight. They were all dressed up fancily, in their nice dark blue blazers with their iconic crimson Harvard neckties. In each pair, one guy was leading another who was blindfolded, walking slowly around the streets of Harvard University. Yeah, it was one of those games we played in high school, the “Do You Trust Me?” games. They were doing all sorts of silly things, like turning them around 20 times and stopping them and then asking them to walk 10 steps forward, something like that. Silly, but I am sure it was done with a perfectly good purpose. After all, it is Harvard. Try sense my tone if you want.

Instantly I thought of “The Blind Leading The Blind.” Then I started wondering which guy was actually the blind one. The guy blindfolded, or the one helping out the blindfolded guy? Both seemed equally blind to me. Again, sense my tone if you want.

I started thinking about how friends give advice to each other. When one friend goes through some rough times, the other friend would usually be there, giving advice and comfort. Yet I sometimes wonder if we really should listen to the advice our friends give us. Most of the time they are just there to comfort you in your time of misery. Are they actually in a position to give sound advice? Blind leading the blind, again. I usually take advice from my own inner voice. Say what you want.

Then I thought back to my trip to Pattaya in 2007. I was there for half a month, where I volunteered to spend time with many wonderful children. Some of them were homeless, most of them without a family. Some were deaf, some were blind, and some were too old to be in school but could not even write their own names. What touched me tremendously was my time spent with the blind children. We took them out to the seaside. I thought the day would just be me and the children playing on the sand having fun. But they wanted to play in the sea. Blind kids playing in the sea? Instant panic alert for me. What should I do? And how?

But they had so much fun being in the water, feeling the fierce waves crushing into them. They enjoyed it because they couldn’t tell when the waves were coming. I could see the waves coming, and yet I was scared. They were smiling and laughing the whole time. I felt so stupid.

Then we brought them back to the school for blind children. What I saw there was totally unexpected.

You want to talk about the blind leading the blind?

Literally, yes, the blind were leading the blind. All over the school, the blind kids would lead the other newer blind students around the compound. All happy faces, and only one bewildered face. That was my face. I kept saying “wow” over and over again.

Seriously, who would have thought!

Blindly walking through life,