This text is part of a project in which Inventura interns create texts for an emerging educational web portal operated by the organisation People in Need.

When I went to the special school in Nepomucká Street, Headmaster Lins wanted to prevent us from attending school. He declared me and Pavlík Dufek to be uneducable people. Pavlík Dufek went to Strašnice, to a daytime social welfare institution in Vilová Street. It used to be called a social welfare institution for youth. He told me about how he cried because he didn’t like it there. But then he got used to it and made friends. Pavlík Dufek and I talked about it.

And in 1995 Mr Lins established an evening school for people with disabilities, and that’s a good thing.

And when I left school, they deprived me and all the clients of our legal capacity. That Doctor of Laws was named Gurtl. And he deprived us of our capacity to perform legal acts.

And Dad objected, and all the parents objected. They complained about it; why did they want to deprive us of our legal capacity? But they did. They deprived all us clients of our legal capacity. And then I went in for a psychological examination. The doctor asked me something and I told her I didn’t know how to tell time. And that made Dad sad. What did I blabber to her? And then he got angry with me. And then he made up to me and forgave me.

When Dad went to the hospital with gangrene, he had a heart attack there and died. One director of the Palata Institute for the Blind in Na Hřebenkách Street had been taking care of me, and she asked me if I wanted to stay there after Dad died. I was very sad. The director and the head nurse thought I wouldn’t return to where I’d lived before. And they were counting on it, that Mrs J. and Mrs G. That head nurse wanted my apartment and thought I’d sell it to her. And then it started, just like that. They gave all my books away to a used bookstore, but I didn’t know about that. And I thought I had all my favourite books and fairy tales in my apartment, but they weren’t there. The ones that Dad had bought me when I was young were simply gone. They didn’t even ask my opinion. I was about 26. And then I wanted to go home and have a look at the apartment, but I had to go have a look with someone; I couldn’t go there on my own. It was during Communism. And so I cried because I couldn’t take a look at my home. And then I got aggressive towards the people at Palata. So I was also in the psychiatric ward in Bohnice, and I was taking strong sedatives. I was there for about fourteen days, and then they let me go home – but not home, to Palata. And it happened again.

After the revolution I went to the social welfare institution in Krč in Sulická Street. And then I went to Duha, I guess in ‘95. I was in a protected apartment in Ruská Street with a friend, but we didn’t like each other very much. She took all my things and we hit each other there.

Now I’m satisfied with my accommodation; I live in an apartment inherited from Dad’s parents. It was possible thanks to the director of Duha, Mrs Hrabánková. She wanted to take care of me as a guardian, but my uncle objected. Now my uncle is my guardian. Then a new director came to Duha and it’s good, because we go out on our own and there’s no night service there. Before, we weren’t allowed to go anywhere on our own.

Before, the neighbour didn’t want us there because there was gas there and the children could be poisoned by the gas. But now there’s electricity there. I live with Martin, and we love each other. He calls me Bébulko and we kiss. And the dolls are my children. Sometimes Martin and I bicker, but it’s okay.