Sherina Nakiyemba with her grandmother, Miriam Nakijjoba, who raised her.. PHOTO BY HENRY LUBEGA.
She was born a normal child, and remained so until she lost her hearing when she was nine.
“When I developed mumps, I was given local herbs. I was not taken to hospital.
After about two weeks, I woke up one day and I could not hear anything,” narrates the 26-year-old. Nakiyemba had left her grandmother’s place in Nakaseke for her mother’s in Kazo, a Kampala suburb, for the holidays. Among the many chores she did at her mother’s that holiday was fetching water.
Nakiyemba was ferrying 20 jerry cans of water a day for long distances. When word of her hearing problem and general living condition reached her grandmother, the latter immediately came for her grandchild, demanding to know why she could not hear anymore.
Before taking her back to the village, Nakiyemba was taken to a clinic in Kazo but the treatment she was given did not change anything.
“In the village, my grandmother did everything she could for me to regain my hearing but in vain. Compassion International was paying for my education and health cover because my grandmother was too poor to afford it. They took me to Nsambya and Mulago hospitals but no one could help me hear again.”
Problems with speech set in
With the hearing sense gone Nakyimba’s speech ability was also hanging in balance, but her grandmother was not going to see her totally become dumb as well. “I could hardly lift my tongue with time so I started mumbling instead of talking, but my grandmother was determined to see that I don’t lose my speech totally.”
With the hearing gone and the speech partially gone, Nakiyemba’s school performance was affected as well. “When I went back to school, my performance detoriated because I could not hear what the teacher was saying.
I was left with copying notes from classmates. The next year, I was transferred to a school where there were deaf students as well normal children.”
However, interacting with other deaf children in the new school became another challenge since Nakiyemba did not know sign language. Also, while she joined the school in Primary Five, the teachers for the deaf were only available up to Primary Three.
“The only thing I could do was copy class notes and revise those. When it came to exams, I would just refer to my books. The teachers knew my problem.”
Nakiyemba’s breakthrough in 2004 came when a delegation of disabled people met at her school to elect the district’s leadership for the deaf.
A breakthrough
At 13, she was elected chairperson of the District’s Deaf Association, where she served for three years. “I was mesmerised with the way they were communicating using sign language.
One of the people who came was Sentongo who told me about a school in Kampala which teaches only the deaf and I could learn sign language there.”
Nakiyemba approached Compassion International in her capacity as the new district chairperson, with a request to be taken to a deaf-only school. Compassion secured her an admission at the Uganda School for the Deaf in Ntinda where she completed her primary school education.
After primary she was admitted in Ngora School for the deaf for O’Level. “The four years in Ngora were hard. Sometimes, the only way I could make it home for holidays was by taking a ride with one of the teachers.”
Spreading her wings
After high school, Nakiyemba did not return to her mother’s or grandmother’s. She instead decided to start life on her own, first by seeking accommodation from friends.
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