toledoblade.com --

A month after Sakui Malakpa went blind, he says he was given the greatest gift he's ever received: a typewriter.

Today, Mr. Malakpa, 48, and his beat-up Olympia manual typewriter reside in Toledo, not far from the University of Toledo, where Mr. Malakpa teaches vision and special education to students. He was just named chairman of the Toledo-based Sight Center, which provides education and services to the visually impaired in 23 counties in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.

Thirty-two years ago, Mr. Malakpa was a teenager in a small village in Liberia, Africa. While in school, he took a typing class and was thrilled at the chance to type stories. But within a month, his vision was gone because of a parasite that causes "river blindness."

It was a blow to a budding novelist who dreamed of writing stories and books. But a missionary couple gave him an Olympia typewriter. And he began to write.

He wrote letters to friends and family. He wrote short stories. And one day he typed out a letter to the president of Liberia, asking the leader if he'd help send him to Israel for surgery to restore his vision.

The president got the letter, but physicians said it was too late; Mr. Malakpa's vision was gone for good. The president decided if he couldn't help Mr. Malakpa restore his vision, he'd give him an education. So he decided to pay for Mr. Malakpa to attend any university in the world.

In 1977, he traveled to Florida State University where he received his undergraduate and masters degrees. After college, he went on to Harvard University and got his doctorate. By this time, a military coup in Liberia had devastated his home - his benefactor president was killed - so he began applying for teaching jobs and landed one at UT in 1986.

His typewriter's last hurrah was helping him punch out his doctoral dissertation at Harvard. But he's still telling stories; from stories to his students to his just-published novel The Village Boy, a fictionalized account of a boy growing up in Africa.

While he has published many academic papers, Mr. Malakpa said creative writing is his first love, something he probably picked up from listening to stories told in his village.

"We didn't have TV or radio; we heard stories," he said.

"He's such a good storyteller," said his friend and colleague Lee Ellis, a professor at UT. "He makes up stories for his own [three] children, and that knack for story-telling is something I've seen him use in his relationships with adults and students."

Some of the stories are quite amusing.

John Davies, executive director of the Sight Center, recalls an embarrassing story - for Mr. Davies - that Mr. Malakpa still enjoys telling. Shortly after taking the Sight Center job, Mr. Davies drove Mr. Malakpa back from a meeting to Mr. Malakpa's house. Or at least what he thought was Mr. Malakpa's house. It turns out he was dropping a blind man off in front of someone else's house, but he didn't realize it and drove away.

"Here I was, dropping a blind guy off at the wrong house. I felt like the dumbest guy in the world, but he was wonderful about it," he said. "Although he keeps reminding me when I drop him off – `Now, you're sure this is my house?'"

Emily Otto, a former student, calls Mr. Malakpa "an amazing asset" to the university.

"He takes his classes and does things above and beyond what's required," Ms. Otto said. "He even holds classes in his house. We did a lesson where we learned to cook using blindfolds because it helps us learn what it's like to be blind.''

Mr. Malakpa said it's important for his students to understand what it's like to be blind, but even more important, he said, is that he pushes them to look beyond blindness. Too often, the "sighted" assume blindness makes all blind people the same, he said.

"The most difficult thing about being blind is the blindness of people who can see," he said. "If I meet a sighted person who is very rude, I don't expect the next person to be rude."

Ms. Otto, who teaches the visually impaired in the Dayton area, said she frequently uses the lessons Mr. Malakpa taught her, as well as telling her students about her favorite teacher.

"I use his example a lot of times when my students tell me that they can't do something," she said. "They're like, `Wow, really?'"

Permanent Link