Australian Theatre of the Deaf- Summer drama camp 2008 was held at Alexandria Redfern. I did remember thinking if I could bail myself out of the camp because I was really tired from travelling and wanted some time off to just chill at home. Somehow, there's this tugging that got me going and there I got myself to the venue on Monday morning. When I got into the class, I heard rarely a pinch of noise. In fact, I saw heaps of hand and fingers moving and signing and then I realised what I was in for.
All my mates were hearing impaired or deaf. Some has hearing aids and having grown up in a community that does not have many people who have hearing difficulties, they learnt to speak with the hearing aids and were the ones whom I communicated verbally. Otherwise, I had to depend on Gerry( my interpretor) to translate sign language to verbal language( if that's the name for it). I was the oldest at the age of 22 while the others were between 13 to 17:) haha..heaps of fun with people who are younger than me.
We learnt all sorts of stuff- drama, theater, circus( hoops, juggling, scarves and clowning, human pyramid) and for Vivi- sign language. I picked up signing throughout my week and could sign all the alphabets and simple greetings and form simple sentences with the 10 fingers and the body that God gave me. Working with these kids taught me how to not only appreciate my gift for being able to hear, I appreciated the fact that God may have not given them hearing but he has given these kids the talent to use their bodies and facial expressions to tell stories and perform. People might say God's not fair to these kids by taking away their hearing. But, change the way we see it- perhaps it's a bonus that we could all hear. Instead of giving us talent to be expressive in our body movements, God gave us audio abilities to communicate with people. I remembered one of the incidents when it hit me in my head that I took my hearing for granted. We were trying to practise side to side stepping with clapping. Some of the kids can't seem to follow- and it's because they are hard of hearing so they can't hear the clapping to keep count and they had to rely on visual aid to follow which might give a lag in between. They will not possibly know what's keeping quiet because they can't hear themselves when they make squeaks of laughter. Even within their community, they have their divisions- the people who signed and those who hear with hearing aids.
As a class, we had to come up with a performance on the last day of the workshop and you could the sparkle in everyone's eyes when they performed. It was their day. One of my group mates Lydia fell and twisted her ankle the day before but she still pushed her way through to perform and gave the best she could for the show.
Of all, I will miss Dylan the most. He's my favourite. He never fails to bring joy and laughter with his acting and tricks- is a genuine and sincere attitude to provide entertainment for people that touched my heart. He gave me a big hug on our last day. I remembered that on the train back home, he asked me if I was bored and how he made every effort to ensure that I understood what he was signing. His freckled face that lits up with that charming smile makes my heart melt and something in me tells me that he will be a great performer one day- because he performs with sincerity.
For once, being a minority ( being abnormal amongst people who all have hard of hearing since I deviated from the normal standard they hold in their audio abilities) was something rewarding. Learning to communicated with them in Sign was the greatest reward of my week and when they allowed me to enter their circle of trust, I reckoned that I should return them a favour by allowing them to enter ( at least) my circle of trust by providing them that comfort of knowing that I can understand them through signing. SO! my next mission- take up signing classes. So that if I ever have patients who are deaf- They will not feel lost and handicap. How interesting- my skill gained is a way to overcome their handicap.
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