Nehmat Farhat fights back after traumatic injury
Photo by Jason Joyce
Nehmat Farhat is doing well in Dr. Briggs’ French class, proving she is capable of learning.
Except for her cane, most would sense nothing different about North Lake College student Nehmat Farhat. But according to her caseworker with the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS), she shouldn’t be in college.
Prior to coming to the United States, Farhat led a fairly typical life with her family in Kuwait. That changed shortly after the 1991 liberation of Kuwait from Iraq, when armed men broke into her home and shot her brother and father.
After witnessing the murder of her relatives, Farhat was shot in the head and left for dead.
“I remember seeing a … fragment on the floor beside me,” said Farhat. “It was a piece of my brain.”
Fortunately, Kuwaiti doctors were able to treat Farhat’s injuries. However, she had a long and difficult road to recovery.
Due to the traumatic injury to her brain, Farhat said, she initially was unable to move her legs or speak her native language.
Despite her doctors’ grim opinions of her chances for recovery, Farhat never lost her determination to overcome her injuries.
“I kept closing my eyes [while lying in a hospital bed] and imagining that I was lifting my foot,” said Farhat.
Eventually, her imagined movements became small, but actual movements.
“Science and neurologists said ‘no way’,” Farhat said. “Then I stood up.”
Over months of physical therapy, Farhat’s determination never faltered.
“I would set small goals, maybe to walk a short distance,” said Farhat. “When I fell, I would say: ‘I will make it one day’.”
After spending three months in a Kuwaiti hospital, Farhat joined family members in California to continue rehabilitative therapy.
That’s when she found Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, Calif.
Evergreen College, said Farhat, offered classes for people with disabilities. Among them was an English- as-a-second-language class.
That class helped Farhat rediscover her love of learning, as well as a love of languages.
That’s why it came as a surprise and disappointment when Farhat’s counselor at DARS told her that the agency wouldn’t pay for Farhat to attend North Lake.
The reason?
“She told me that she wouldn’t
waste money,” said Farhat. “She
said the report said I was incapable
of learning with normal students.”
Even that didn’t stop Farhat. She charged her tuition on a personal credit card.
For someone the state has deemed as “incapable of learning,” Farhat is doing surprisingly well in her French and Spanish courses. She anticipates an ‘A’ in French and maybe a ‘B’ in Spanish.
And she’s done it all sitting alongside the “normal students” – with no special accommodations.
Through adversity, setbacks and frustrations, Farhat has held to one simple belief.
“Never give-up, whatever the obstacles,” said Farhat. “Put [adversity] to your back and keep going.”