Wednesday, 22nd October, 6.30 PM. Adamorobe, a village situated in a valley in between green hills, densely grown with cassava, banana palms, coconut palms, corn, mango trees and plenty more. At the edge of the village, the river Adamorobe makes its way. I’m sitting in a pitch-dark room, lit by candles only. Power is down for the umpteenth time, but my laptop has still got battery power left for about an hour. Next to me are two small children who seem to be intrigued by what I’m typing. In the meantime I’m hoping that I’ll find internet somewhere tomorrow, in a city a bit further on.
On the 15th of October, I landed in Accra (after a detour via Bombay to meet up with my boyfriend) and I came straight here. This means my doctoral research has begun. Finally!
I’m living in a spacious room with green walls (painted in two different tones, paint probably ran out ;)) in an empty but large house. The owner comes from a family with 5 deaf brothers and sisters. I’m the proud owner of a socket outlet, a light source, a fan, a latex-foam mattress on the floor, a garden chair and a wobbly mini-table. My belongings are in a corner, divided over different plastic and other bags. My ‘pièce de résistance’ is a huge barrel with water which a few deaf women fill up once in a while with pumped water they carry here on their heads. With this water I wash myself, cook food and flush the toilet.
In a while, I’ll be heading to the neighbours - by flashlight light - where almost ten deaf people live in the same group of houses. It was not possible to go and stay with them, because they are housed very small. Regularly though, I have deaf visitors and every day I go for a round of ‘saying hello’. On every little walk, I tend to stumble upon deaf people. There are about 35-40 deaf people in this one village and almost all of them were born here, in different families with deaf as well as hearing members. The sign language which is used by the deaf as well as the hearing, originated in the village itself and is at least 200 years old. The sign lexicon is about 100 percent different from the sign languages I already knew. Although, by now it has already gotten easier to read, because a few deaf people are very active in teaching me their signs, which results in the fact that in one week, I’ve already mastered more than 200 of them.
I’m permitted to use the kitchen of this house, which means I can make an omelette or cook pasta once in a while, but there aren’t a lot of opportunities to cook in a ‘western’ way; about the only vegetables sold around here are tomatoes and onions. This means I survive mostly on traditional Ghanese grub: fufu and banku (mashed dough balls which are eaten with an either spicy or slimy ‘soup’), cassava, eggs, fish and once in a while rice and white, fuzzy, low-nutrient bread. De woman of the house supplies me with a plate of such food each day, I venture to a ‘stall’ to buy prepared rice or a ball of banku once in a while and sometimes, I’m offered something there and there. Yesterday, I received 10 huge, slimy living snails from Bosmophrah, a deaf man (and they were surprised that I didn’t know how to prepare them, which lead to me getting a lesson in ‘squeezing slime out of slugs’ – I can assure you it was a greenish experience).
This is a ‘real African village’, with strong traditions and a lot of stories, dramas, a lot of deaths, complex family relations, bad sicknesses, gossip, extreme joy and extreme sadness, and last but not least: witchcraft-stories. And the one thing that makes this place really special and intriguing, is the century-long presence of deaf people, and the communication and relations between the deaf and the hearing. I have already come across numerous interesting potential research themes. More about all of this later on: definitely to be continued!
