While still in nursery school, she would come home and, instead of crying about the bullies, she would sing about it. “Every kind of music is about some sort of emotion. I was able to channel that at a very innocent and naive time of my life,” she recalled.
But a turning point was quietly approaching. In her teenage years, she noticed it was getting harder to read the blackboard.
The words on the pages of her books began to get fuzzy. Because of negative experiences with doctors, she was reluctant to follow up on her health.
Instead, she adapted. She memorised her scripts as soon as she got them so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed reading in front of the cast.
She hurried to her next classroom as soon as the bell rang so she could find a seat close to the front. And if she was asked to read out loud in class, she would find an excuse.
A Devastating Diagnosis at Twenty
In 2007, after completing high school, Crystal went to the UK to study film and theatre at the University of the West of England, Bristol. With lecture halls significantly larger than her high school classrooms, she could no longer simply get by. She was forced to get examined by an optician.
“I went to the optician, and he said to me, ‘Crystal, I don’t mean to raise any alarm, but you need to go to the eye hospital immediately. Right now. Don’t go shopping; you need to go now. There is something seriously wrong.'”
After two months of tests, they told her she had a disease called glaucoma. They told her glaucoma has no cure and that it basically eats away at the retina. She was told she wouldn’t be able to see for very much longer and was predicted that by 2013, she would be completely blind. She was 20 years old.
The optometrist also told her that because she is Black, the disease would be more aggressive due to the colour of her eyes.
“I just sat there, hearing all of this…blow by blow. I wondered if there was any good news,” Crystal said.
Lost and Struggling
Between 2010 and 2016, Crystal had eight surgeries in six years, but nothing worked. Her first surgery brought down the pressure in her eyes, but she lost some vision on the operating table due to the trauma.
Away from her family and with no solid support system in Bristol, Crystal was inundated with emotions. “I thought I wasn’t good enough, and that I was never going to do this music thing or theatre,” she said. “I tried to smile and be happy and be the person that I was expected to be. I don’t think I really got through it. I would just go out drinking and partying…anything to distract me.”</p></p>
After her first surgery, she went back to Mombasa and fell into a depression for about 10 months. During this time, she had suicidal thoughts.
“When a doctor tells you you’re going to go blind in a few years, what are you supposed to do? Nobody hands you a book at the beginning of your life and says, ‘Here is the condition you are going to face in your life and here are the steps you need to follow to deal with it.’ So, I stayed in denial. I dealt with it the wrong way, and it wasn’t healthy.”
The Dream That Changed Everything
One night, she had a dream that proved to be the turning point.
“In the dream, there was this bright light. I was sitting cross-legged looking at this illuminated figure, and it was shining back at me,” Crystal said. “I thought immediately that it was God. It was very bright, and I couldn’t see anything apart from the light. The dream felt like it went on for so long, and it was so comforting and reassuring.”
At the end of the dream, the light reached out, put its hands on her cheeks, and said the words: “Be still.”
Crystal woke up in the morning overcome with emotion. She desperately wanted to go back to the dream because her vision was perfect in the dream.
“I went to my mum and asked her what ‘be still’ means. We went to the Bible and looked up Psalm 46 verse 10. It says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God…’ I felt God reassuring me that He is God and that all I needed to do was be still,” she said. “That was a turning point for me. I knew that even though no one else understood what I had experienced, I knew what I had felt during that dream. And in that moment, I decided I was going to take charge of my situation.”
Taking Charge
Crystal began to search online for doctors, assistive software, and associations dealing with vision loss in her area.
“I wanted to be proactive and get back to the Crystal that I knew. I started to write music again in my free time and got back to being me,” she said. “I even applied for my work visa back to the UK. I got that and went back to the UK in 2011. I ended up working for the BBC. It was that dream that propelled me forward.”
But returning to Kenya brought new challenges. She faced employment discrimination. “In interviews, the moment they saw I was a person with a disability, they wouldn’t hire me. It really crushed my confidence and made me start to doubt whether I really wasn’t good enough.”
Still, she refused to give up. She began working as a freelancer in the NGO sector, focusing on video production and media projects. She also worked with the Open Institute on their MapAbility project, mapping the accessibility of buildings in Nairobi.
Faith: The White Cane That Walks Before Her
In 2017, Crystal had to buy a white cane because she could no longer walk on her own. She had to either walk holding someone’s arm or shoulder. But she decided she wanted to be independent.
“That, itself, was such a process emotionally. It was a public symbol, I felt, of me saying I’m not going to get better. Before, I would tell myself that I was at peace with it, but there was something about buying the white cane that made me really sad. I felt like I was giving up on God and His miracles.”
But she gave the cane a powerful name:Â Faith.
“I decided to call my white cane Faith. It reminds me that I’m walking by faith. So, when I’m about to go out, I will ask myself, ‘Where is Faith?’ Or I ask, ‘Can someone please bring me Faith?’ So, I never leave home without my Faith. And as I walk, she has to go ahead of me as I follow.”
“When the Bible says to walk by faith and not by sight… I am literally walking by faith because I have no sight.”
Music, Advocacy, and Making History
Crystal’s music career never stopped. She released her first album in 2014 titled Karibia (“get closer”) and received praise for her fresh and electric sound.
Her single Pulled Under from the album climbed to the number one spot on a UK-based chart in 2016. She travels with her band Chemi Chemi LIVE, known for giving audiences a memorable performance, and writes songs for other artists as well.
In February 2026, she released her new album Blinding Allure 2, continuing to explore themes of love, vulnerability, and human connection.
She moves seamlessly between her role as a senator and her music career, what she calls “art-ivism.”
As a nominated Senator representing persons with disabilities in Kenya’s Senate, Crystal has achieved remarkable legislative success.
Her landmark Persons with Disabilities Bill (2023) passed unanimously in Parliament and includes breakthrough provisions such as tax rebates for employers who hire persons with disabilities and tax exemptions for the importation of assistive devices and materials.
She has been ranked the best-performing senator for two consecutive years, with five bills to her name.
She is also a speaker and VIP (Visually Impaired Person) ambassador, sharing aspects of her daily life on her YouTube channel “Blind Girl Manenos.”
Lessons in Love and Spirituality
At this point, her vision is limited to light and shadows, but losing her eyesight has taught her powerful lessons she is grateful for.
“I didn’t know that I was this strong. I didn’t know that I had it in me to overcome something like this,” she said. “If someone had told me this ahead of time, I would have said, ‘No, thank you. Deal me another deck of cards. I cannot survive that.'”
Crystal has also learned lessons about spirituality that she says she never would have learned if she hadn’t lost her vision.
“I feel like the Bible comes to life way more now than it did before,” she said. “For example, when the Bible says to walk by faith and not by sight… I am literally walking by faith because I have no sight.”
When it comes to relationships, Crystal desires love like anyone else and believes she has something unique and special to offer.
“Just because I have this limitation does not mean that I’m not able to love. I’m actually able to love in more creative ways,” she said. “I cannot compliment you on something you’re wearing, but maybe I can complement you on a scent you are wearing. My fingers have become my eyes, and that can actually be more romantic.”
How many blind senators exist in the world? Crystal Asige has proven not only that it is possible, but that she can do it better than most.
From a 20-year-old girl told she would be completely blind by 2013, to a senator in Kenya’s highest legislative body speaking for over 800,000 persons with disabilities, every step Crystal has taken confirms the name of her cane, Faith.
Her story teaches us that anything one sets their eyes on is possible. Not because difficulties don’t exist, but because when a person chooses to “be still and know that He is God,” even darkness can become the starting point of light.
As she herself put it: “I didn’t know that I was this strong. I didn’t know that I had it in me to overcome something like this.” But she did. And she won.
