Spark of Light

By Anne Miller
Express-News Staff Writer

   There are many obstacles in Ksenia "K.C." Fadeeva's path.
   Between the den sofa and the kitchen door lay a piano, its bench, a chair, a table and a cactus.  Fadeeva bumped gently into each as she crossed the room.  One evening after school, the 18-year-old exchange student from Russia was too busy to talk about her life in America to concentrate on furniture.  And probably too stubborn, or too excited, to use her cane.
   Fadeeva has been blind since birth, a result she said of too much oxygen administered when she was born.
   In Moscow, she lives in a two-room apartment with her mother and grandmother, both of whom can see.  She attended a school for the blind from the age of 4.
   In San Antonio, she lives at the beginning of Inspiration Drive with a host mother who can see and a host father who cannot.  Fadeeva is the fifth exchange student, and the second blind one, that Walter and Patsy Musler have been sponsoring through the American Field Service exchange.
   Fadeeva has her own room in the one-story ranch house.  She attends Holmes High School with 3,000 other students.  Program officials suggested she enroll in the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Austin, but she declined in favor of an average American teenage experience.
   In Russia, she said, she leaned on others.  She was not made to help around the house, nor would she offer.  She was shy.
   "I was selfish.  I was child.  If somebody in Russia said, 'K.C., do something,' I say fuggetaboutit, she said, in her pronounced Russian accent.
   Now, however, she is liberated from those old attitudes.
   At first, the Muslers said, she lacked confidence in her English and rarely spoke.  Now she chatters constantly.  Her words tumble out so fast her mouth can't keep up.
   She sits on the edge of the Muslers' bed at night and talks until they shoo her out.
   She never had cooked before coming to America, but now she takes half an hour to demonstrate exactly how she makes breakfast in the morning -- where the bread is, and the hot chocolate, which shelf the milk is on, how the microwave with the Braille keypad works.  She must be one of the few people in the world to approach a sink full of dirty dishes with a sponge and a smile.
   Fadeeva is slightly built with brown hair in a pixie cut.  When she talks, the right side of her mouth curls up in a half-smile with dimples.  She inclines her head toward the listener.  Her eyes roll a little as she fingers the ends of the collapsible cane that is always beside her.  "Everybody wants to meet me, and they ask about Russia," she said.
   "Over there, you have the same students in the classes every day.  In Russia, you have school -- it doesn't matter if it's public or for the blind -- there are four or five floors -- no one moves."
   The main difference in school here is the supportive teachers and the diverse students, she said.
   "(Teachers in Russia) try to put you down.  I'm not good at math, I must confess.  I tried to take my classes, but I had bad grades so I got a private tutor.
   "(Here) they say, 'You're so smart, you can do it.  You're from Russia, so you can't do it today, but you can do it tomorrow.'"
   She leaves each class a few minutes early, guided by a classmate, to walk her to her next class before the halls get crowded.
   Homework is a group effort.  Patsy Musler checks out books from the library and reads them to Fadeeva, who takes notes in Braille by punching holes in paper with a stylus.  She writes her papers in Braille, which Patsy Musler translates into English.
   At school, instructional assistants read English assignments to her.  Classmates fill in the blanks on her worksheets in less than half the time it would take Fadeeva to write the answers in Braille.  All of her tests are oral.  Fadeeva's teachers have Braille copies of the state-approved texts that they use in class.
   According to the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Fadeeva is one of 1,326 blind students in public Texas high schools.
   Her teachers profess their awe of her.
   "Imagine being blind and going to Russia," said Wendy Seeliger, Fadeeva's American government teacher.  "Could you do it?  I couldn't."
   For Fadeeva, though, life is a series of adventures.
   "I live a mysterious life," she said, grinning and laughing.
   How does someone who has never seen a flag on a mailbox know what it is or how to put it up when posting a letter?  How do you differentiate between ham and chicken salad unless you stick your fingers in the bowl?  You don't know whether a canned soda is Big Red or Coca-Cola until you try it.
   America has offered her a host of new sounds and feelings.  She felt the pigs and the Clydesdales at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo.  She held the Muslers' newest grandchild.
   "I took that baby," Fadeeva said.  "Her little hands, her little head.  I thought, is she comfortable?  She's so small.  What can I do with her?"
   She attended every Holmes football game but two.
   "Now I know -- six points is a touchdown," she said, then listed all of the scoring possibilities in a game.  "And I know Deion Sanders, and my favorite team is the Dallas Cowboys."
   Without her cane, Fadeeva shuffles across the hardwood floor, placing one foot before the other, her arms slightly bent.  She feels around the coffee table.  Inadvertently and painfully she finds the cactuses.  She says "ouch" and keeps walking.
   "Most important thing for blind people is not to ask for help.  If you ask for help, your brain won't develop," Fadeeva said.
   A good sense of humor is crucial, she believes.
   Fadeeva makes jokes constantly.  She titled a scrapbook in one class "Troublemaker K.C.'s Book."  She was disappointed at the end of her newspaper interview she didn't think there were enough in-depth questions.
   "You didn't ask me how many lovers I've had!" she said, grinning.
   She almost can't finish the story about how she put two packets of cocoa in a cup for Walter Musler and none in hers, because she's laughing so hard at how confused she was at the funny-tasting cocoa.
   "You really have to learn to laugh," Patsy Musler said.  "You have to laugh at your mistakes.  When you can laugh at these things it makes them easier.  No longer is she afraid of her blindness, because we accept it.
   "With all of our AFS students we have had, children come and we have sent back young adults" -- and that includes Fadeeva, she said.