Thursday, September 23, 2010

Proudly Deaf

“In America, are there pastors or preachers that makes promises and try to cure Deaf people?” Josephine asked with a dispirited air around her.  I was standing outside of my house talking with her and a couple of other students during our lunch break during the beginning of the last term. 

“Unfortunately, yes.” I replied, uneasy of the direction this conversation would probably be heading into – religion is always a sticky area, especially here in Kenya, where they claim that no atheists exist – and knowing that I would hear yet another heartbreaking story.

“I saw one of those pastors during the holiday.” Josephine began half-heartedly.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Mum took me to this church, not our regular Sunday church, and I had no idea what was happening.  All of sudden mum pushed me forward, and this pastor just grabbed my head and began shaking it.  I was scared and didn’t know what was happening.”

“That’s terrible!  Was that for your Deafness?”  I exclaimed. 

“Yeah.  I asked mum about what happened, and why it did – and she told me that she was hoping to be able to make me hear.” Josephine said. 

“That’s just wrong.” I said. 

“Do Deaf Americans have similar problems?” Monica asked. 

“Yeah.  We don’t encounter these as often as you do here in Kenya, like I just heard about this pastor coming to Kilifi last weekend saying the same thing, but we do have a few pastors in the United States who said they could cure Deafness.  It’s always hard – it’s not easy being told that something that you are is not good enough.  It just sucks.”  I replied.

This statement has been drilled in my kids time and time again, and really, not only in my kids, but in my friends and even myself as a Deaf person - I have encountered numerous people in the past, and will encounter quite a few more in the future that had and will have doubts of my capacity as a Deaf person.  Many of these people probably don’t realize they actually do this themselves, for example, not taking the time to communicate clearly with the Deaf person (essentially making them feel that they’re not worth the time or energy), looking at the hearing person for a response, rather than the more qualified Deaf person, and so on. 

Needless to say all this drives me absolutely batshit.

It especially drives me even more batshit when my students buy into that mentality and lack of self-confidence.  I know that this change will not happen overnight, but I do what I can to try and talk up Deaf people – trying to make my kids more confident in themselves as individuals, and especially as proud Deaf individuals. 

“Oh, the hearing students are better at this than me …”

“The hearing school plays football better than we do …”

“The exams for the hearing schools are tougher …”

I’ve heard these from my students many times over the course of last five terms, and probably will hear more of that over my last term.  Every time someone say something like that, I refute with an example, I talk about the time I borrowed the exam from the neighborhood secondary school for English, and compared to what I was doing myself – that some parts of my exam was tougher.  I talk about other Deaf Kenyans who have hearing family, brothers and sisters, and cousins that did not pass KCPE (the entrance exam into secondary school) while the Deaf individuals passed.  I reminded my boys of that one huge football match when they played a local all boys’ school and just absolutely killed them. 

“Sure, Deaf people have challenges in their lives, but so do everyone else.” I would say. 

Time and time again, I work hard to instill Deaf pride in my students, and I know I’m fighting the overwhelming tide, but it’s just something that I need to do as a Deaf person, to not only keep myself sane and feeling good about who I am, but also to hopefully see my kids grow up to become confident adults. 

One evening close to the end of last term, after an especially bad day of non-communicativeness from teachers at my school, and a few exchanges of emails with Peace Corps that left a bad taste in my mouth, I walked around my school checking up on my kids to see how they were doing with their homework assignment and studying for the upcoming exams, we started a conversation about a couple of other teachers and how uncomfortable they felt in approaching them for something they need or whatever because the teachers would not communicate clearly with them.

“So what does that say about me? That I’m an easy target?  That explains why you all ask me all these weird questions and for whatever you need!” I asked with a laugh.

“Yeah, you’re easy!” Mercy said, slapping Shukurani’s hand, to laughter from the table I was talking with.

“Don’t worry, we still respect you as a teacher.” Alii added with a smile, worried that I was offended. 

From a table across the room, Lemmy stood up and signed, “Of course you’re easy!  You’re Deaf, we’re Deaf, and we love you!”

The entire room erupted with laughter, as Lemmy was rarely that expressive.  After some more joking and correction of homework, discussing the focus of the exams with my students, I suddenly found myself in a much better mood. 

Maybe some of the things I’ve been saying are starting to sink in.

Just maybe.  

2 comments:

MamaMay said...

Hey, I just found you blog and had to leave a comment. Your post was just so on the mark in so many ways! I am ADHD and remember how medication was to make me "normal", like normal was a holy grail that everyone needed to strive for and uniqueness was an evil that needed to be stamped out.

M Tech Computers said...

mtechcomputers

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m tech computers

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This blog consists of my personal thoughts and opinions. It does not in any way reflect the position of the United States Government or the Peace Corps.