Rod Ohira's People
Blindness can't derail English teacher

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

David Anthony Dzaka of Ghana would not have earned a doctorate from the University of Hawai'i in August or be teaching English today at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., had he followed the advice of his doctor.

David Anthony Dzaka graduated from UH one day, then reported to his new teaching job the next. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Refusing to dwell on the setback, Dzaka graduated from college and earned his master's degree in Ghana before completing his education at UH-Manoa, where he completed his doctorate work in five years. Dzaka got the degree in English and celebrated his 44th birthday Aug. 12. Twenty-four hours later, he reported to work at Messiah College.

"I feel I've not done anything extraordinary," he said in a recent telephone interview from his Mechanicsburg, Pa., home about 20 minutes from Harrisburg. "I have only a visual impairment."

Dzaka, the second youngest of six children raised by a widowed mother, is a native of Adidome in Ghana's Zolta Region. He is the only member of his family with more than an elementary school education. "My brothers and sisters called me Mr. Book since I read extensively," he said. "Schooling was an individual choice. I had determined at a young age I was cut for the life of mind."

Dzaka is of Ewe heritage, a tribe accounting for 2 million of Ghana's 17 million population. English is Ghana's official language, and he said education, for those who qualify for higher levels, is basically free.

But there's a reluctance in Ghana to offer educational opportunities to persons with disabilities, he added. One of Dzaka's goals is to return to his native country to teach English and work on changing attitudes, like the one that would have turned him into a basket weaver.

"In Ghana, blindness is a stigmatism," he said. "They see you as helpless, someone to be pitied, so it's an uphill struggle. I knew I had to fight it."

Dzaka began experiencing vision problems in the fourth grade.

"I couldn't see at night," he said. "I kept bumping into people. Daytime I was OK, I even played soccer. It was a progressive condition. At 16, it was clear to me that I would lose my sight one day."

Dzaka began preparing himself for life without sight by absorbing as much knowledge as he could. " I had to rely on friends to read to me and in college, my instructors gave me extra time to complete my work. Fortunately, I have a photographic memory."

While attending graduate school, Dzaka took an American Literature course from visiting UH English professor LaRene Despain, who was in Ghana on a Fullbright Scholarship. "We became friends and she invited me to come to Hawai'i for my Ph.D."

He came to Hawai'i in August 1996. In lieu of a Fullbright Scholarship, the U.S. Information Service paid his transportation costs. He worked as a teaching assistant and Despain helped him with other expenses, Dzaka said.

Dzaka's wife, Agnes, joined him the next year. "We relied on what I made as a teaching assistant and my wife doing odd jobs to support my education in Hawai'i," he said. "The teaching assistant job was for four years plus one extra year so I had to work as hard as I could to finish in five years."

Dzaka and his wife, who is also from Ghana, have three children, ages 18, 16 and 8.

"As for the future, I have a number of passions," he said. "I want to write, not only scholarly papers but a fictionalized story of the post-colonial situation in Ghana. I would like to raise money and set up a publishing company (in Ghana) that would be a center of knowledge, a place to motivate people to write.

"In Africa, we don't make knowledge. We only reproduce the colonial form of knowledge, and that is not helping us."

Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.