The Deaf Unit

As I reflect on the various adventures I shared with my friends during their new year’s visit, one of my most enjoyable moments spent with them was when we visited ‘The Deaf Unit’ with my host family. The Deaf Unit is where my host parents work. It consists of a boarding school for children, a vocational training center for adults, and a social club. It is estimated that 2 million people in Egypt are hearing impaired due to intermarriage, poverty, and poor healthcare. The Deaf Unit seeks to reach out to such people and to provide them with education, vocation, and interaction. I decided to bring my friends to the Deaf Unit so we could purchase some of the products manufactured by the deaf workers, and by doing so, support a worthy cause. As we spent time at the Deaf Unit, though, we found that the wares for purchase were in fact the least of the attractions there.

The first thing we did at the Deaf Unit was a tour through the Vocational Training Center. We were introduced to each of the workers as we made our way through the different areas. An introduction would simply consist of shaking one’s hand and sharing a warm smile with them. It is also customary to give the thumbs-up sign when greeting a deaf person. I think it means that you are doing well, or something like that. Ineke, will probably comment on this post and correct any inaccuracies I may have. I remember that their smiles seemed to beam so brightly as I was introduced to each of them. I meet new people on a daily basis, but the smiles accompanied with those introductions don’t seem to compare to the sincerity of these smiles. They all seemed genuinely happy to meet us, and in a sense, spoke to us through their smiles. I think my cheeks almost started hurting because I was smiling so much with them. A few times I would attempt some simple communication using hand gestures, but I was always afraid I would accidentally ‘say’ something rude or embarrassing. I hope I didn’t insult anyone when I itched my nose. Something as simple as wrapping the fingers on your left hand around your right thumb and then wiggling the fingers on your right hand means “I farted” (or so I’m told). That’s American sign-language, though. I think it probably means something to the effect of “I’m a stupid foreigner” in Arabic sign-language. Either way, I gathered that a lot of the women either liked my long hair, or thought I looked like a woman.

Just as we finished meeting all of the workers it came time for the morning break. A couple of the workers expressed an interest in playing a bit of soccer with us. I took a quick inventory of our talent: Tom plays soccer on our college team back home (when his grades are high enough, at least), Frodo looks like he could play soccer, and I suck at soccer. We agreed to play a game - foreigners verses locals. There were three of them, and three of us. The three of us Canadians had running shoes on, while they had flip flops and other non-soccer shoes, so one might think that we had the upper hand. Don’t be fooled, though. Soccer is a big deal in Egypt. Kids here grow up playing it in the streets with whatever ball they can find. A couple of twelve year olds probably could’ve worked us over that day. We decided to be good sports and play anyways. After a good thirty seconds of running around I had nearly had it. My lungs were burning, my muscles were aching, and my heart had somehow lodged itself into my head. Some might say that I just need to get in shape. I would say that I need to stop breathing in Cairo air. Some people say that living here for five years does the same damage to your lungs as smoking a cigarette every day for your entire life. Other people say that breathing the air in Cairo is similar to smoking a pack of cigarettes each day that you’re here. I don’t know how much of this is factual information, but the fact that I often feel the need to brush my teeth after ten minutes of cycling must say something about how dirty the air here is. At any rate, we played hard for a few hours (or maybe it was only 20 minutes and it felt like a few hours), and got beat senseless by the Egyptians. Apparently being deaf isn’t a huge handicap in soccer.

Thankfully, after twenty minutes or three hours or however long it was, break time ended and everyone had to go back to work. It was great fun playing with these two guys, despite getting pulverized by them. As we sat down in the shade, trying to catch our breath, a wave of little Egyptian children came running towards us. Apparently it was recess time for the boarding school. Once again we shook a lot of hands and gave a bunch of high-fives and such. One of the children noticed a cross on my shirt. He then proceeded to pull a cross necklace out of his shirt to proudly display to me. Then all of the other children revealed their own cross necklaces to me and gave the thumbs up. There were five of us Canadian guys there, trying to carry on conversations with fifty deaf Egyptian kids, all at the same time. Two women stood among us, attempting to translate a few things such as our names, but for the most part, it was up to us to figure out how to communicate with the children. Eventually it became apparent that the kids wanted to play with us. A few of them took the liberty of climbing onto our backs for piggy back rides. Suddenly there we were, back on the soccer field, running around like crazy… only this time we were carrying kids on our backs. I decided to pull out my camera to get a few shots of this hilarity. As I brought out the camera, it was like a magnet to the kids. Suddenly they were swarming around me like bees. I kept trying to back up so I could get a proper shot of them, but they kept trying to get as close to me as possible. It was pretty funny. There was such a glow on everyone’s faces. We were all having so much fun. I think a part of us were all wishing it could last forever. It reminded me of that scene from Mary Poppins where they are visiting that crazy old man who loves to laugh. They all floated around his living room, laughing themselves silly, wishing that they could spend the rest of their lives laughing with that crazy old man. I don’t know how the rest of the guys were feeling, but I wanted to stay there all day to play with those kids. It was such a fulfilling moment, as if life were created for moments like these; pure joy and happiness. Looking back on that day, I have come to the realization of something. Those who have a lot appreciate little, but those who have little appreciate a lot. If you go to a normal boarding school filled with rich kids, they would probably be sitting around playing with their PSP’s and IPods and they would hardly even notice someone new coming into the school courtyard. If they did see you, they probably wouldn’t give you much more than a curious second glance. But there we were at a boarding school for poor, disabled children who had very little, and the mere sight of us seemed to fill them with joy. Spending time there, among those people, was in my opinion much more enjoyable than checking out the pyramids or some of the other sights around Cairo. Sure, I nearly had a heart attack, but it was worth it. Now I am going to leave you with a few of the pictures I took that day. I am not going to caption them or commentate on them like I usually do. Instead I thought it would be fitting to let the silence of the pictures speak for themselves.