Customer Reviews

My Path Leads to Tibet: The Inspiring Story of How One Young Blind Woman Brought Hope to the Blind Children of Tibet

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Sabriye Tenberken is a young woman from Germany who happens to be blind. She has written one of the most amazing and uplifting books I have read in years. MY PATH LEADS TO TIBET is an account, in her own words (translated from the original German), of how Sabriye fulfilled her dream of helping the blind children of Tibet achieve independence and attain a sense of dignity. She has done this by establishing a school for blind children in Lhasa against incredible odds -- all alone and before she reached her 30th birthday.

There could be no better introduction than her own words: "Strange as it may seem, whenever I'm about to take a leap into the unknown, I always have the same dream. I'm standing at the top of a sand dune, looking down at the sea. The sky is clear and blue, the sea flat and dark. The sun is bright, the beach is filled with people. Then all of a sudden, on the horizon a huge towering wall of water is moving slowly toward us in total silence. Everyone is running in my direction. The wall of water, growing ever more menacing by the second, blots out most of the sky. Instead of running away, I walk toward it. And the wall of water crashes over me. To my surprise, however, instead of being crushed by its mass, I am in my dream left feeling tremendously light, filled with new energy. And I know that from now on nothing will be impossible." (pp.11-12)

Sabriye was diagnosed with a serious eye disease in childhood and became completely blind at age 12. She uses a white cane when she walks and travels around the world without assistance. In a place where she has never been before, she relies on strangers to help her and trusts that they will. She is rarely disappointed. The faith she has in herself and in the best of human nature is extraordinary --- and extraordinarily rare to read about at a time when, more often than not, we are being bombarded with words of worldwide deceit and destruction.

The book is written in a flowing, straightforward and easy-reading manner in first person, much like a journal. Yet Sabriye never forgets that we who are reading her book have never had the experience of being blind. She takes us into her world and shares with us her experiences in such a way that we gradually begin to realize what an extraordinary teacher she will be, when and if she is able to get her school started.

On a previous trip to Nepal with her mother, Sabriye spent a brief time in Tibet and learned that blind people are viewed as having been cursed at birth and are treated very much like lepers, or worse. She developed a burning desire to teach Tibet's blind children that they can have full lives, that they do not need to be ashamed or handicapped and that they can live as Sabriye herself lives --- to the fullest.

Tibet, now a part of the People's Republic of China, is famous for its exotic isolation. Yet she set off with only a few pieces of luggage, her white cane and a promise of a small amount of financial backing from sources in her native Germany. She had to apply for permission to the Chinese government and faced bureaucratic obstacles that must have seemed as insurmountable as the mountains themselves. She doesn't give up. She makes friends. She buys a horse that knows its way through the mountain passes.

Not only does Sabriye have to get permission to build a school, she must also go out among the people --- some of who are nomadic tribes --- and find the blind children who will become her pupils. Because their parents are ashamed of them, these children are often hidden away. Thus she travels on horseback and tells us of her travels, the hardships, the joys and the people she meets along the way. Even though you know she will achieve what she has set out to do, the fact that she was able to do it is so remarkable that you will read with your heart in your throat much of the time.

The publisher has included a selection of color photographs that, for us sighted folks, add much to the book.

Reading MY PATH LEADS TO TIBET is an unforgettable experience. Sabriye Tenberken has done us all a kindness by taking us with her on her incredible mission.

--- Reviewed by Ava Dianne Day

This book tells the story of a young woman with an impossible dream, and how she set about accomplishing it. Tenberken was born with vision problems that led to complete blindness by the time she was a teenager. Once while she was in middle school, she and her class visited a special museum exhibit about Tibet. From that point on, she was fascinated with Tibet, and when she started university, she decided to major in Asian languages with the goal of going to Tibet. Pursuing a major in Asian languages is quite difficult for any Westerner, but even more so for a blind Westerner, since Braille materials and computer software for language study in these languages are limited, if they exist at all. Indeed, Tenberken ended up creating her own Braille system for writing Tibetan script (which proved so useful in her studies that she was even able to use her class notes to tutor sighted students in her classes). Upon graduation from university, she set off for Tibet by herself to found a school for blind children and teach them how to read and write using her Tibetan Braille alphabet with the goal of allowing them to be integrated into regular schools once they became literate. The very thought of just picking up and moving to a country that happens to be occupied by a communist government and establishing an independent school for unschooled children, especially when you yourself do not have teaching experience, sounds positively ludicrous. Fortunately for the blind children of Tibet, Tenberken doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the phrase "you can't do that"- -perhaps a result of her upbringing, since her parents obviously supported her endeavors, or perhaps a simple character trait that drives her.

In a few places in the book, Tenberken's style is a bit stilted, or she seems to gloss over details that beg to be explained. She carefully avoids any mention whatsoever of the political situation in Tibet, since any hint of criticism would no doubt result in the immediate closure of her school and the undoing of all of her efforts. In any case, she taught her students Tibetan language from the start, rather than only sticking to Chinese. The book is quite interesting for its story of how one determined person can have a tremendous impact on the lives of many, many others.

Sabriye Tenbergen is a young blind woman who has accomplished a great deal. Almost single-handedly, she developed a Braille script for Tibetan, then went to Tibet, where she traveled on horseback, looking for blind children to teach. Before then, blind children were hidden away or abandoned as cursed, with no future, but Sabriye was determined to give them one. So she founded a school where she taught blind children to read, as well as other life skills such as cane travel. She herself got around by cane by using landmarks in the city.

This account is just one more example of how the best humanitarian work is often founded by determined individuals with a dream. Conversely, Sabriye was opposed at almost every turn by incompetent and apathetic bureaucrats in organizations both in her native Germany and in Tibet.

She clearly loves the land and people, but is not "blind" to the reality either. The country is frightfully cold in winter as well as being prone to floods. And she noted many of the superstitions that harm the wellbeing of the people. But she noted the strengths as well, e.g. Tibetans designed houses to cope well with the cold, while the Chinese made concrete boxes that are hopeless. [Reminds me of the opposite in sub-tropical to tropical Queensland. The early settlers designed open-structured "Queenslanders" that caught the breezes very well, but later architects in New South Wales and Victoria designed houses that became convection ovens in Queensland]

Sabriye has a way of writing that seems very visual, so sometimes it's easy to forget she's blind.

Sabriye Tenberken, at the age of 2, contracted a retinal disease that left her blind at age 13 for the rest of her life. Born and raised in Germany, Sabriye was fortunate to have loving parents who allowed her the opportunity to have the best of care and training, and to luckily attend one of the best schools for the blind money could buy.

Never allowing herself to be pitied, assisted, or thought to be disabled mentally or physically, Sabriye considered herself fortunate to have remembered what seeing was like and injected those memories into her daily sightless life, always acting as if she was a sighted person herself.

This is her amazing story of a life of ambition and fortitude against the odds to accomplish her life goal as a teacher to other blind children. Her path from Germany leads her to the many blind children of Tibet who are brutally ostracized by their families, left to incur poverty and lack of self worth. Disabled Tibetan children are all too often cast away into the streets to die or become beggars, their families treating them as imbeciles incapable of learning, or vermin to discard.

Beginning with her plan to invent a Braille system in the Tibetan language, she quickly overcomes that challenge, and is armed with proof that she can attain her dreams as she found it quite easy to translate her Braille machine into English, Tibetan and Chinese. Sabriye's struggles to gain financial investors, to obtain a backer and location to build a school, and to outwit political and governmental red tape and obstacles, are those akin to what occurred in the recent story of Three Cups of Tea written by Greg Mortenson. Step by Step Sabriye's unrelenting determination to build a school for Tibetan blind children is a tale most uplifting and one filled with much inspiration. To learn about her ability to navigate in a foreign land with nothing but her trusty white cane, to feel the wind in her hair as she rides horses about the Tibetan countryside as she visits village after village seeking out blind children to recruit for her new school, is something to marvel and feel awe at, as the reader simply can't believe her incredible abilities. Sabriye Tenberken is a wonder to behold, and certainly a guiding light to the blind people of this world. She would certainly make any "Sighted" person feel wimpy as we that can see, often do an awful lot of unnecessary whining and complaining about our lots in life.

Trials and tribulations certainly played a large part of this amazing story, but against the odds Sabriye and friends attain their prize and the blind children of Tibet are ever so happy to be learning, working, and gaining their self-confidence back. She teaches them to read, write, ride horses, play soccer, act in plays, sing and read poetry. These children become Sabriye's protégés as they too eventually grow up and carry on her role, as she then leaves Tibet to other international frontiers in need of her expertise and assistance to the blind people of the world.

I really enjoyed Sabriye's story and feel any reader would find her book interesting from many standpoints. This is an adventure travel book, a story of love and hope, an act of giving to others, and also an up close and personal look into the cultural of the Tibetan people.

This autobiographical story tells about the struggles of a young blind woman trying to establish a school for blind children in Tibet. Her ability to meet and overcome obstacles is really inspiring. I feel it is not as well written as it could be, and yet there is something compelling about it that makes you want to continue reading, to find out how it all turns out. I was especially impressed by her determination which I believe stemmed from her sense of call to this mission. That is reflected in her choice of title. She also had a stubborn streak that made her determined to do what she was told she could not do. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading a good, true story.

After watching a slew of Everest documentaries, I came across the documentary Blindsight about a school for the blind in Tibet and how a famous blind mountaineer took some of them climbing near Everest. The woman who founded the school, Sabriye Tenberken, is blind herself and had come from Germany to establish this school and offer a place for Tibet's blind children to learn. It was amazing and I was so moved that I immediately had to know more about these schools! I saw that Sabriye (sorry to be a little casual, she strikes me as the kind of lady who would insist on being known by her first name and not "Ms." anything!) had a memoir about her journey to Tibet and I bought it immediately and read it all in a single sitting.

I don't know that I can offer any comment on this woman's life that can compliment her accomplishments properly. Just a taste of the strength of this woman: she traveled to Tibet by herself with the idea to establish a school to teach braille because she had just created a Tibetan translation for braille. Then she headed into the countryside on horseback with only one companion - someone she met while traveling (she did not bring a 'sighted' companion with her on this journey, feeling that she didn't need one), broke down social stigma barriers related to blindness in encouraging the locals to ADMIT that there were, indeed, blind children (because most Tibetans are Buddhist, they believe that afflictions such as blindness are a penance for sins in a past life, so most blind people are shunned and treated poorly. When researching for this expedition, Sabriye was told by the government that there were NO blind people in Tibet.), then she goes and establishes a school and hires a staff and takes in a group of kids who are so eager to learn that you can't help but read with tears running down your face.

It's truly a remarkable story and Sabriye Tenberken is my hero.