‘If I don’t laugh, I’d cry’ — how Alani Ferreira is overcoming life’s challenges

‘As Paralympians we really do feel like a big family, so there is a lot of joking that goes on,’ says Alani Ferreira. ‘We are like brothers and sisters.’ (Photo: Roger Sedres / TeamSA)

By Gary Lemke in Paris

5 Sep 2024

Alani Ferreira is competing in the S12 class at these Paralympics, having taken part as a S13 swimmer in Rio and Tokyo. Which means her eyesight has deteriorated.

Alani Ferreira had her fingernails painted yellow before arriving at her third Paralympics. “It’s my favourite colour,” she says, as she taps her smartphone. Her screensaver pops up and she turns it to show me. “He’s the love of my life.” And it’s understandable why. He’s blond, he’s beautiful. His name is Gatsby. “As in the Great Gatsby.”

He is a labrador from the SA Guide Dog Association who has been Ferreira’s constant companion for three years.

“Time flies, it’s scary. I got him after the Tokyo Paralympics. He’s my first guide dog and the 7th September is our third anniversary but I won’t be home for it,” she says.

“This is the longest I’ve been away from him. I miss him so much. He’s such a precious boy. He’s not in Paris because he gets triggered by stress because he’s a little perfectionist.

“He doesn’t want to disappoint. But also, there’s the hassle and paperwork. I can get him out of the country without much fuss because I’ve got my veterinary team back home, but then getting him back into South Africa is a completely different situation, and I don’t want him in quarantine. I use my cane here instead.”

Deterioration

Ferreira is competing in the S12 class at these Paralympics, having taken part as a S13 swimmer in Rio and Tokyo. Which means her eyesight has deteriorated.

“I have got macular degeneration. It affects the central vision. The blind spot that I have has grown larger. When it first started it was virtually nothing, and now it’s getting bigger and bigger, which led to my reclassification. But I will never go totally blind,” the bubbly 26-year-old says, as if in a form of reassurance.

Ferreira is comfortable talking about her life and there’s a confidence and lightness in her voice. I’d first been in her company at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics when she and her teammates were playing cards.

“Oh no, you’ve got a bad hand, throw it in … you’re never going to make it as a stand-up comedian … you didn’t see that coming.”

alani ferreira paralympian Alani Ferreira dives into the Antigone Piscine Olympic Pool in Montpellier, France ahead of the Paris2024 Paralympic Games, on Tuesday, 20 August 2024. (Photo: Roger Sedres / TeamSA)

My lasting impression after Tokyo of the difference between Olympians and Paralympians was their outlook on life.

“As Paralympians, we really do feel like a big family, so there is a lot of joking that goes on,” Ferreira admits. “We are like brothers and sisters.

“We tease each other, we joke around, but we obviously know where the line is, and the time and place. But often we make jokes about our disabilities. I think it’s almost a coping mechanism.

“If you don’t laugh about it, you’re going to cry, and I’d much rather be laughing than crying. Our humour can definitely get a bit dark for people who aren’t used to it. So I can imagine that sometimes, if you don't know me and I make a joke, then it can be really awkward because you don’t know if you should laugh or, you know, what you should be doing.

“Sometimes I still need to be mindful that it’s not normal for everyone, even though it is normal for me.”

I’m sitting a metre away from the South African. She is looking at me, making direct eye contact. “I can see that you’re there but I can’t tell what you look like or how old you are. I can make out the outer shape of you.”

Those of us who aren’t visually impaired take so much for granted. So, when Tatjana Smith won the 100m breaststroke gold medal at the Olympics I recorded the race, the audio that is, attempting to momentarily project myself into the world of someone who couldn’t physically see what was happening in the pool. I later played it back.

Simply put, it was extremely difficult to follow – for me, impossible.

Did Ferreira follow Smith’s Olympic 100m final? “Yes,” she replies. “I watched it with my mom. Luckily, I was at home. The TV commentary was in English, and there isn’t as much background noise that carries over from when you’re in the arena.

“I could hear the TV commentary quite clearly, but my mom said, ‘she’s leading. Oh no, she’s not. Oh, wait. Oh yes she is. No. OK, she got it. She got it!’ My nerves were shot!

“When I’m inside an arena I need a commentator and one of my teammates normally does that for me. At these Paralympics, we were watching the women’s S9 400 metre freestyle.

“I had a teammate next to me, and he was more interested in eating during the race. And I said to him, ‘You know what? You’re terrible at commentating. Whoever the sighted person is, they have to tell me what is happening.”

Technology

When she’s not at the pool, but alone and wanting to follow a swimming event, Ferreira uses her phone. “By the end of the night, my battery is flat but I zoom in to the feed using my camera.

“I then say, ‘ok, which side of the pool are they on? Are they in the middle, or left, or right? And then I can sort of follow them racing, watching it on my phone, zooming in through my camera. But it’s not always possible.”

alani ferreira paralympian ‘As Paralympians, we really do feel like a big family, so there is a lot of joking that goes on,’ says Alani Ferreira. ‘We are like brothers and sisters.’ (Photo: Roger Sedres / TeamSA)

At her home in Pietermaritzburg, Ferreira does follow what she can on the TV, but obviously doesn’t spend much time there.

“I’ve got a fat sack (bean bag), and it’s right in front of what is quite a large TV. I can’t see any detail on the TV, so I get my cue off a lot of sounds. I can hear a male talking or female talking.

“But if I’m watching a series and I don’t know the characters’ voices, I won’t know what is going on. But after a few episodes, for example, I’ll know, okay, that’s Rachel speaking. Oh, that’s Monica speaking, if it was Friends, for example.

“I also watched The Office like that. So a lot of it is off sound. So if I’m watching sport, I need live commentary from the people in the room. Otherwise, I just sit there and I’m like, ‘what’s happening’ ”?

Although Ferreira has that golden smile the obvious question is how does she accept that her eyesight is continually degenerating.

“As I said, if I don’t laugh I’d cry, and I’d much prefer to laugh. Being reclassified from a S13 to a S12 is actually something that I spoke about to one of the other girls who had the same change,” she says.

“Everybody thinks that you are always so happy to go down a class because it’s supposedly easier, but in terms of your life, I mean, it’s devastating to hear that you’ve lost more sight.

“It really isn’t something you want to be told. And yes, swimming is a huge part of life, but the key phrase is that it’s part of life. My sight has deteriorated over the last three years. It’s when you chat to similar people that you realise, ‘wait I could do this and that last year and now I can’t’. So, it’s like, woah …”

Working life

Being in her mid-twenties, Ferreira now has a job to juggle with her swimming and everyday activities.

“I’m a training accountant, but not in the sense that I actually studied a BAcc. I actually studied a BCom and then did my honours in Business Management.

“But I mean, nobody’s going to give someone a job to be a manager without work experience. So I’ve actually really struggled to find work in my field, especially in Pietermaritzburg, and so, because I’ve always been swimming first, getting work done at the same time was difficult when I first started.

“Now, I consider myself lucky that I have a job.”

She is also an incredible individual with multiple talents. Another of them is photography. Specifically photographing birds – and of course Gatsby who she’s missing more and more by the minute.

“I’ve got a mirrorless camera now, it’s got an electronic viewfinder. The viewfinder is quite a lot bigger than your regular DSLR cameras. My camera has AI in it, which means that it can track things like a bird’s feathers or an animal’s eye, so I don’t necessarily have to see exactly where to focus anymore.

“When I was younger, I had to try and guess and get it to focus on the animal. Obviously, if there’s a bird sitting somewhere, I can’t actually see that there’s a bird sitting there.

“I’ve got what I call my spotters, who are normally my parents. I’ll say to them, ‘I’m seeing a tree, and it’s yellow with a bit of a weird stick coming off the side’.

“From there, they will then guide me to try and find the animal. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s where I have to become patient, which I’m normally not!”

Ferreira leans over to pick up her white cane on the floor next to her chair and those yellow fingernails make a striking, classy contrast.

“I actually saved money when I had my nails painted. They wanted to also paint my toenails but what would be the point if I can’t see them?’ Another example of her humour. And again she smiles. It’s infectious and uplifting. It’s Alani Ferreira. DM

Gary Lemke is in Paris as part of Team SA.

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

South Africa

Deterioration

Technology

Working life