Blindness doesn't stop student from learning mechanic

Abdullah Nikzad's hands are covered in black grease, and his loose-fitting shirt is polka-dotted with smudge marks. He moves his fingers across a heavy cylinder head from a V-6 engine, slips a valve spring compressor around it and squeezes the lever shut.

Gregg Barlow looks on, his hands snow-white compared with his classmate's.
"I'm going to watch," Barlow said. "Watch and learn."

Nikzad, who is blind, is one of the top students in his auto-tech class on Kennedy High School's campus. He can change your tires, your spark plugs and your oil, so it's not unusual for his classmates to look to him for pointers.

"I'm amazed at what he does," Barlow said as Nikzad removed valves one by one from his cylinder head. "I didn't think someone who is blind could do something like this."

By now, the high school senior is used to surprising people with his mechanics skills and independent streak. He arrives at school early each morning, crossing the parking lot to reach his auto-tech class, which is run by the Mission Valley Regional Occupational Program.

A woman who works with visually impaired students keeps an eye on him during the class and tellshim to step to the left or right to avoid tripping or walking into vehicles in the cluttered shop.
Outside of class, though, he's on his own.

When the bell rings at the end of the day, Nikzad assembles his long cane and steps into the corridor as students pour out of classrooms around him.

Last week, on his way to the school bus, a boy careened into him and mumbled an apology.
"See that?" Nikzad said with mock-seriousness. "People don't get out of my way."

The 18-year-old was born in Pakistan to Afghan parents who left their country just before he was born. His family moved to Texas when he was a few months old and lived briefly in Hayward before finally settling in Union City.

Nikzad, who speaks Farsi at home, transferred into the Fremont school district in elementary school because of its programs for visually impaired students, he said. He has passed the California High School Exit Exam and plans to graduate in June.

"He is certainly a success story," said Michele Germany, a vision specialist who has known Nikzad since kindergarten. "He has ambition."