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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B>
K9Scoop@yahoogroups.com [mailto:K9Scoop@yahoogroups.com] <B>On Behalf Of
</B>Laurie Mehta<BR><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, September 19, 2007 8:46
AM<BR><B>To:</B> K9Scoop list<BR><B>Subject:</B> [K9Scoop] USA: Out of Africa
and Into Her Heart<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
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<P>The following article is taken from: <BR><BR>The Guideway<BR>Volume 61 No.
2<BR><BR>Out of Africa and Into Her Heart<BR><BR>There is a graphic of the map
of Africa next to the<BR>title of the story.<BR><BR>For most of us, what we know
about Africa is what<BR>we’ve learned from other sources. For Guide
Dog<BR>Foundation graduate Joni Owen, the Africa she knows is<BR>what she’s
observed first hand: Owen lived in Kenya<BR>for several months helping to
program satellites for<BR>cellular communications.<BR><BR>Owen was a culinary
arts and computer science major in<BR>school, planning to be a professional
chef, when, in<BR>2004, as a result of toxic optic neuritis, she<BR>suffered
sudden onset blindness. But this active<BR>26-year-old wasn’t about to let her
vision loss stop<BR>her from living her life. “I always knew I would<BR>get a
guide dog,” she says, “because I couldn’t go the<BR>speed I wanted to go with a
cane.” She got her guide,<BR>a Labrador/Poodle cross she calls Jelly,
in<BR>2005. “She keeps up with me,” Owen laughs. “She’s<BR>hyper.”<BR><BR>After
she lost her sight, Owen decided that it would<BR>be difficult working in a
professional kitchen, so she<BR>went back to back to school for her
master’s<BR>degree in computer science.<BR><BR>The urban training Guide Dog
Foundation guide dogs<BR>undergo was very important because she knew she
would<BR>be taking mass transit and working in a busy downtown<BR>area; she
never thought she’d make use of her guide’s<BR>rural training.<BR><BR>But
shortly after she received her master’s, she<BR>interviewed with AT&T and
was offered a job to work in<BR>Kenya programming satellites.<BR><BR>A Different
World<BR><BR>Although she was in “complete shock” when she got to<BR>the East
African nation, Owen enthuses, “Kenya was<BR>crazy and fantastic, everything
you’d think Kenya<BR>could be.”<BR><BR>Jelly loved it too. “There were only
three cars [in<BR>Kwakamba, the town she lived in] and no traffic,”
Owen<BR>recalls. But with goats and cows all around,<BR>“I had to call the
Foundation to learn how to deal<BR>with goat distractions,” she laughs. Jelly
eventually<BR>became friends with a neighborhood goat. <BR><BR>Owen and her
co-workers rented a house on a local<BR>farm, where they had electricity for
just eight hours<BR>a day and had to make do with only three liters<BR>of water
each for everything – drinking, washing,<BR>bathing. Luckily, because of Jelly,
Owen got<BR>additional water.<BR><BR>To get to their “office” – a shack with no
walls and a<BR>tin ceiling – the employees had to walk quite a<BR>distance, and
because of the heat, they could only<BR>put in five or six hours before heading
home. The heat<BR>didn’t bother Jelly, though, who learned shortcuts on<BR>paths
that were “just wide enough,” for the<BR>two of them.<BR><BR>Having the dog in
Kenya was a challenge. “People were<BR>terrified,” Owen says, “because in Kenya,
dogs are not<BR>pets.” There are no access laws similar to<BR>the Americans with
Disabilities Act, so there were<BR>many occasions when Owen could not bring her
guide<BR>when they went sightseeing or shopping.<BR><BR>Reaching Out to Blind
Students<BR><BR>Volunteer work was part of their responsibilities<BR>while in
Kenya, and in the afternoons, Owen<BR>volunteered at a local school where she
learned there<BR>were<BR>14 blind students integrated with the regular
class.<BR><BR>“I got to introduce Braille and taught them how to get<BR>around
on their own using canes,” she says.<BR><BR>Two girls in particular became her
shadows. They were<BR>totally blind, she recalls, and “I fell in love
with<BR>them.” Their parents opened their home to Owen<BR>because they wanted a
good role model for their<BR>daughters, to show that being blind didn’t mean
being<BR>limited.<BR><BR>Owen became so close to the girls’ parents that
she<BR>promised that should anything happen to them, she<BR>would take care of
the girls. <BR><BR>New Responsibilities<BR><BR>Kenya is a relatively stable
country in East Africa,<BR>but even so, Owen and her co-workers still needed
to<BR>go everywhere with “askari” – armed guards – because<BR>of the general
political unrest in the region. “We<BR>always had guards,” she recalls.
<BR><BR>Unfortunately, the family from whom they were renting<BR>their house was
threatened, and then their belongings<BR>were stolen, so the next day, Owen and
Jelly<BR>and her remaining colleagues left the country for<BR>home.<BR><BR>Owen
had already planned to maintain her connection to<BR>Kenya by sending supplies
back to the blind school,<BR>but shortly after she returned to Chicago,
she<BR>learned that the two little girls to whom she had<BR>grown so attached
had been orphaned after their<BR>parents were killed in a fire.<BR><BR>The girls
have come to live with her, and Owen is<BR>taking on new responsibilities as a
single mother. She<BR>is tutoring them in English, and they are
starting<BR>orientation and mobility training; they have already<BR>learned the
Braille alphabet.<BR><BR>She is lucky, Owen reflects, that she has a
great<BR>support system. Her father lives nearby, and<BR>volunteers from her
church have already stepped in to<BR>help.<BR><BR>Although the Kenyan courts
formalized Owen’s adoption<BR>of the girls pretty quickly, she had to wait for
the<BR>paperwork to wend its way through the U.S. legal<BR>system. In July, what
she had been waiting for<BR>happened: the adoption was finalized.<BR><BR>Owen is
on leave and has transferred to another<BR>position in her company that will cut
down on her<BR>traveling. Even when she does have to travel, she<BR>plans<BR>to
take her new daughters with her. “I want them to<BR>realize their full
potential.”<BR><BR>With Joni Owen as their mother, they’re off to a
good<BR>start.<BR><BR>Photos: (1) On the cover of The Guideway, Joni Owen<BR>and
a group of African school children. The caption<BR>reads: Joni Owen (back to
camera) addresses a group<BR>of school children in Kwakamba, Kenya. (2) Jo
with<BR>Jelly her guide dog. Photos courtesy Joni Owen<BR><BR>The graphic at the
end of the story is the flag of<BR>Kenya. Description of the flag: three equal
horizontal<BR>bands of black (top), red, and green; the red<BR>band is edged in
white; a large warrior's shield<BR>covering crossed spears is superimposed at
the center.<BR><BR>This article can be found at: <BR><A
href="http://www.guidedog.org/Pubs/guideway/text/61_2_07.txt">http://www.guidedog<WBR>.org/Pubs/<WBR>guideway/<WBR>text/61_2_<WBR>07.txt</A><BR><BR>The
Guideway®, the official newsletter of the Guide<BR>Dog Foundation for the Blind,
Inc.® William Krol,<BR>editor. It is available in print, on audio, and on<BR>our
Web site. We welcome letters, articles or<BR>photographs, but reserve the right
to refuse any<BR>material.<BR><BR>The Foundation’s postal address is 371 E.
Jericho<BR>Turnpike, Smithtown, NY 11787-2976. Phone:<BR>631.930.9000 or
1.800.548.4337. Web
site:<BR>www.guidedog.<WBR>org.<BR><BR>____________<WBR>_________<WBR>_________<WBR>_________<WBR>_________<WBR>_________<WBR>_<BR>Yahoo!
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