My Name Is Bridget(A story that opens up the world and challenges of a brave handicapped person in a cruel world)

My name is Bridget, I am 25 years old. My mother’s name is Salomay Serwaa. Her father, my grandpa, was called Kwame Tabiri. 

I am an African and I live with my mother in a small village near Wenchi in Ghana. When I am not with my mother I live at the PCC sheltered workshop community in Nkoranza, where I work as a weaver.  

I am going to tell you the story of my life. Please hear me, especially if you are from Ghana and you accept things the way they are without thinking twice. I have learned to think twice and many more times about our culture and the way we behave in Ghana. I have had to since I was born differently. 

I will begin my story with my very first memory, when I was four or five years old. I was a twin but my brother died three days after we were born while I continued to live. Every Friday my mother bathed me and then dressed me in white, as is the custom with twins in our village. One day my auntie walked into the house and saw me sitting on my small chair, nicely washed, rubbed with Vaseline and dressed in white. “What are you doing, sister? Is this a human being that you have dressed in white?” she sneered at my mother. Every time I see this aunt I remember her remark and laugh inside. But I survived and do not hate anyone.

If I am not a human being, then what am I? This is what they do in my country when you are born with a handicap. Life is very cruel and you can easily be killed so that you don’t cost money, or because they fear you as a witch. 

When my mother was forty years old she lost her husband, the father of my half-brothers and -sisters, and at once she became poor. She had to find work to support her children because from a small farm alone you can maybe eat but not pay school fees and other expenses. That is why she went away from her village to the Krobo area near Dormaa, where she sold second-hand clothes. 

My father saw her there and they loved each other for some time. That is how I was born. My father was a farmer, my mother a trader. I was born in a town called Bondoukou, just over the border from Ghana on the Ivory Coast. Yaw Donkor was the name of my father. He was 68 years old, 28 years older than my mother.   

I was born in April 1987, since that is written on my weight card from Subinso, my village near Wenchi. The date is not certain but I was born on a Sunday. My mother told me that since my twin brother died almost immediately he had no name. I am Atta Bridget. 

My father was happy to have a child, so my mother told me. But the day after my twin brother died a sickness attacked me which they called “polio,” since they did not know what else to call the disease that paralyzed me from birth onward. It is actually called cerebral palsy. 

I could not suck from my mother’s breast. I made small sounds, “éh, éh, éh,” as if I was afraid of something, except when I was wrapped in a piece of cloth and tied to my mother's back, and then I was quiet. They said I could neither drink not close my mouth. When my mother saw the way I suffered she asked my father to look for medicine to help me. But he answered that if a strong person got that illness he would not stay alive, so why would he try to help a small baby? He refused to give my mother money but my mother continued to nag him to find help for me and he kept replying that they should not waste money on a lost cause. They should leave me to die or throw me away. But my mother objected, begging: “Please go for medicine” and finally he got some and it helped me survive. The Story continues.........(Original Story By Dr Bosman Ineke founder of PCC a community in Ghana that caters for disabled persons )

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