Deaf culture (Mark)
In the states we had zero exposure to Deaf culture, something that I never
even thought twice about. Having our friends Sam and Miranda working at a
deaf school, in the deaf HIV/AIDS program, has really opened our eyes. I'm
sure there are just as heart wrenching stories in the US about deaf children
being neglected or not taken care of but in Kenya and probably all over East
Africa it is more the norm than the unusual. Children that are deaf are
often considered mentally retarded. When the family eats or has guests over
they are often made to eat in a different room, and in a culture that is so
communal and family oriented the isolation has got to be doubly worse. For
most deaf children nobody in their family knows any sign language so coming
to a deaf school is their first time to be able to communicate with people.
Sam told me of one student saying that coming to the deaf school was like
going to heaven. Sam posted a very interesting entry on his blog (Is
Negative a Positive thing?) about teaching HIV/AIDS to the deaf. I'd highly
recommend that if you have time to read it (he also posts some great
pictures):
Last Saturday we were visiting their home and they took us around the deaf
school. We first visited the primary school (think k-8) where we were almost
instantly mobbed by at least 50 small children all of them deaf. They were
enamored with hair and wanted to touch and feel any hair that might be
different than theirs. So they loved to touch Bebeth's arm hair and my head
(I haven't shaved my head in about a month so it's fairly fuzzy). It was
here that I received my sign name.
So in deaf culture you have a sign name and a regular name. My sign name is
the letter M held on your left arm right where a short sleeve shirt would
end (I was wearing a short sleeve shirt when I was given a name). Bebeth's
is the letter B signed twice in a row.
After that we went and had lunch with the girl's secondary vocational
school, where they made yummy ugali, sukumawiki, and some sort of scrambled
egg dish. All very yummy. We then talked with them about what sort of
benefits there were in teaching them about computers. Would it really help
them find jobs if they had computer skills, perhaps in Nairobi, but would
computer skills be useless in the village? Some parents don't want their
children to learn computers as it won't directly benefit the income to their
family like dress making etc. Anyone back home have ideas?
Well we enjoyed ourselves a lot and we are planning on heading back to down,
Bebeth wants to help teach some jewelry making classes and we both want to
help teach computers and just play with the kids.