I can’t hear, and that is the only snag

My name is Rose Kwamboka, I am deaf with a capital D, which means I am completely hearing impaired.  So I can communicate only using sign language.

I was not born deaf; I was born hearing and had a very playful childhood in the village, somewhere in the armpits of Kisii County.

Then, when I was eight, I suffered a bout of mumps. After some time I recovered, but mumps took away my hearing, so I joined the world of the silent.

In this soundless world, you cannot hear the chirping of birds or the laughter of your siblings. You miss the cock crowing in the morning, and even miss your mum’s tongue-lashing. Your siblings also have to adapt to the change in your life.

I am the fourth born in a family of five children, and I must say I was lucky to receive lots of support from them. So we continued communicating after I lost my hearing, albeit at a lower rate.

The bond I had created with them enabled me to read their lips since I was knew the way they spoke and was familiar with the way they pronounced certain words.

But I had to change schools and moved to Kerugoya School for the Deaf in central Kenya. It was bad enough that I had lost my hearing, but leaving my childhood friends and moving to a new special school, in a different place, took a toll on me.

I was used to speaking Ekegusii,yet here I was in a new school, and I could speak neither Swahili nor English, nor could I sign.

Gradually, I got used to the new environment. I was taught how to sign and within three months I had mastered it.

Though I missed home, sometimes I would be in school for so long that when I got home, I would find that my siblings had forgotten the little signing I had taught them.

At Kerogoya School for the Deaf, I worked hard and it paid off when I sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education. I passed well and was admitted to Mumias School for the Deaf. 

Things were better at Mumias because I could sign well, and so could my peers, so secondary school was kind to me.

However, one thing that some teachers of deaf students should know is that hearing-impaired students learn much faster with the help of visual aids.

But you find that some teachers standing in front of the class and signing for a whole 45 minutes, at the end of which the students get nothing.

If a teacher comes to class with a picture of a cow and then tells the students, “This is a cow” and this is the sign for a cow, they learn much faster.

We also have a shortage of professional sign language interpreters, which has led to a surge in the number of quacks.

As happened during the funeral of Nelson Mandela, there are many fake sign language interpreters and students sometimes end up learning wrong language.

Sadly, at the end of the course work, we still sit the same national examinations as a student who is in, let’s say, Alliance High School. The only concession we get is an extra 30 minutes during national examinations. 

High school

Back to my life in high school: I sat my Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in 2003 and passed well enough to get admitted to Moi University in Eldoret.

During my freshman year as a Bachelor of Education student, I studied Christian religious education and history, as well as guidance and counselling.

Joining university is a completely different experience for someone who has been to special schools all their lives.

I had to train my own interpreter, who would attend classes with me and accompany me wherever else I needed her services. I had to attend classes in which I was the only hearing-impaired person.

In the beginning, some lecturers would kick me and my interpreter out of class. They mistook her signing gestures for mischief and wondered why the two of us were playing in their class. 

So the attitude of both the lecturers and students really needs to improve. As much as universities are the institutions with the highest concentration of the most learned members of society, they still have this mentality that it is a waste of time for a deaf person to pursue university education.

They reason that since you cannot hear, you must be dumb, and you can see it on their faces. Some think you cannot go beyond the second semester of first year.

You might be surprised to learn that about 90 per cent of university students have never interacted with a deaf person before, so in a way I do not blame them for this.

I would also meet students at the university who would start chatting me up and when I signed to them that I could not hear them, they would start apologising, saying they were sorry.

I wonder why they kept saying sorry when I am a normal person. 

But you do what you have to do to make the best out of every situation you find yourself in. The fact that I had made it to the university was a milestone for me and I told myself I had to make the best of it.

When I finished my bachelors’s degree, I again passed well, falling just three points short of getting of a First Class Honours. To me, that was proof enough that the only thing the deaf cannot do is hear; we are okay everywhere else.

I performed better than many of my hearing friends.

My sterling performance at Moi University caught the attention of the media and after one newspaper ran my story, one Dr Mohammed Saidi who knew me when I was in high school got me a sponsor from Spain called Dr Pedro Chavadas. He is an internationally renowned surgeon.

Dr Pedro paid for my Masters’ degree, which I embarked on in 2011. For my Masters, I studied entrepreneurship development at the University of Nairobi. I graduated in 2013, and was the only deaf student in my class.

Joining the outside world came with its own challenges. Many people find it hard to communicate with a deaf person. But what people should know is that our eyes are our ears.

To gain attention, approach us from the side or the front so that you do not startle us. You can also wave your hands or switch the lights on and off.

Talk to us softly; don’t shout, because no matter how loud you shout, we will not hear you. Maintain eye contact and be aware that everything on your face, including facial expressions, is important to the deaf.

Let me also demystify the myth that all deaf people can lip-read. People who lose their hearing after they had learnt to talk can generally communicate through lip reading.

But a person who is born deaf has never heard any word, so he or she would not know how a word is pronounced.

Actually, the best lip readers can understand only 35 per cent of what you are saying and must guess the rest of the conversation based on the topic.

I think I must mention that when hearing people gesticulate or mimic signing to communicate, they sometimes make fools of themselves.

I know they mean well, but sometimes it ends up embarrassing both themselves and the person they’re trying to communicate with.

For instance, there was this day when I was the only one at home and a neighbour came looking for my father. He tried his best to communicate that he wanted to see my father but realised he was getting nowhere.

In desperation, he resorted to using signs but the gesture he made meant the male sexual organ. It was very embarrassing, to say the least.

Then, don’t assume that a person with a hearing aid can hear what you are saying. The hearing aid affects particular sounds or background noise.

Watching television is mostly not exciting for us. Although some media houses hire sign language experts to interpret the news, these people are often dark complexioned, and then they wear dark clothes, so you cannot see clearly what they are signing.

Besides, some of us have television sets with poor reception, so we cannot clearly see what the interpreter is signing. And if again you are in the village where the reception is poor, it is hard to see the interpreters due to the grainy images.

But the subtitles at the bottom of the screen usually come in handy.

During my free time I watch movies, but they have to have subtitles although I also enjoy watching action movies en if they don’t have subtitles.

Romance

Deaf people and dating is a whole topic on its own. Although I would not want divulge much about my relationship life as it has been chequered.

I often joke how, as I walk around, the only people I seem to attract are matatu conductors, drivers and watchmen.

But the deaf can get into normal relationships like the rest of you can. A relationship is not hard, especially if you get someone without that negative attitude towards deaf people.

You can get a really good person who is willing to even go for classes and learn how to sign. But for most who lack the grace to learn how to sign, communication is difficult; such relationships do not take off.  

 Being deaf means I have to adapt to the world of the hearing, and not the other way round. For instance when I am going home in the evening after work and have to use public transport.

I am at the bus terminus and I can see conductors shouting their destinations. I have to read their lips keenly to tell which destination they are touting.

 It is not easy, given how fast conductors talk but luckily, I board the right matatu most of the time. But there are times I have to walk to a bus conductor and ask what they are announcing.

Some get angry and wonder how I cannot hear them with all the shouting they do. But some conductors are actually wise enough to tell that I could be deaf. 

The national census was an upsetting experience for us. I would say the census officers did not count us. As at now, we do not know exactly what percentage of the Kenyan population is deaf.

The last census in 2009 was disorganised; the people doing the counting were all hearing, so they could not communicate with us. There are many questions the counting officers asked and we could not communicate.

They left saying they would come back with an interpreter but they never did; actually I was not counted.

So they came up with a figure of 600,000 for the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, but I believe we are about double that number.

 I only wish people would change their attitude towards the deaf. You hear people calling hearing-impaired people “deaf and dumb”.

You see that term in the media, in research and reports, in presentations. It is very offensive and demeaning, especially the word “dumb”.

You know, it is like saying we cannot read, write or do anything. People should see us as normal people, as people capable of doing many things.

Some think we are slow learners, which is not the case.

I am currently a disability inclusive officer with CBM, an international organisation, committed to improving the quality of life of people with disabilities. I train donors on disability-related issues and teach them how to work with people with disabilities.