Name: 【TED】Sitawa Wafula: Why I speak up about living with epilepsy (Why I speak up about living with epilepsy | Sitawa Wafula)
Uploaded: 2017-06-14T16:31:49.000Z
Duration: 8 min 30 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I wish I could talk about butterflies in my stomach

I wish I could talk about sweet words spoken

All I can tell you about is the aftermath,

so we were singing and dancing and hugging each other.

and so I couldn't put the spoon in my mouth.

and because I couldn't talk, I just pointed at my mouth.

after a few minutes, the chattering stopped.

I was about to dash out, and she told me --

no, she insisted -- that I go up to the dormitories to sleep.

Here I was in my final year of high school,

just a few months from doing my end of high school exams

and a few days from doing a set of exams we call here in Kenya "mocks,"

which are somehow meant to gauge how prepared one is for the final exams.

and there I was, down Kenyan coastal town,

the Giriama woman who led her people against British colonial rule.

and it was as if I was marking imaginary papers.

my classmates stopped concentrating on their reading

And then, when it was sure everybody was looking at us,

in its final show and official introduction,

which was the beginning of what has been a 15-year-long affair.

Seizures are the trademark characteristic for most types of epilepsy,

and every first-ever seizure needs to be assessed by a doctor

In my case, it was confirmed that I had epilepsy.

I spent a large chunk of my time in hospital and at home,

to be admitted for an actuarial science degree

Unfortunately, I had to drop out in my second year.

but I was fired from that job when I had a seizure in the workplace.

and the denial was maybe because of the things that had happened,

dropping out of school and being fired from my job.

Or maybe it was because of the things I had heard about epilepsy

that they would never travel on their own

with a spirit in them that they needed to be delivered from.

And so the more I thought about these things,

my head and my hand would still be twitching.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Sitawa Wafula: Why I speak up about living with epilepsy (Why I speak up about living with epilepsy | Sitawa Wafula)

constantly

engage

applause

constant