‘The deaf are friends’ and ‘the hearing are bad’

On a Thursday morning around 7.30 I went to the house of a few deaf people (a ‘house’ here consists of ‘rooms’ around a kind of open air courtyard where people cook, wash, chatter, eat,… and often contains different families). Ama, Kofi and Kwaku – three deaf people – were in a small shed peeling corn. I knew the corn probably came from the land of Ama and Kofi and checked with Ama: “Whose corn is that?” She confirmed my suspicion: “Kofi’s and mine”. I asked: “Then why is Kwaku working too?” Ama laughed and answered: “Ah :-) deaf the same, you know? He stopped by to say hello, saw us peeling the corn and started helping out.”

One evening. I’m in the same house as the one mentioned above, talking to a few deaf people. Once of a sudden, Kwabena comes in and tells us that Kwadzo, another deaf man, gave him a serious beating. Kofi exclaims appalled: “But you’re both deaf, then why is Kwadzo fighting with you? (with an upset face) The hearing you can kill, that’s only fair, but the deaf are the same, you have to be friends with the deaf”. (To put this into perspective: he didn’t really mean the thing about ‘killing the hearing’, he was just angry ;-))

The end of my previous blog post already hinted in this direction: there is a strong connection between (at least some of) the 40 deaf people who live in this village. These people tend to work together on the land, tend to go and see each other for conversations, tend to marry each other etc. The anecdotes above are only two of a whole series I have already jotted down.

It’s one of the first days here. I’m sitting on a hill on the piece of land of two deaf people. We’re catching a breath from the walk up to there. Kofi is quite quiet. Once of a sudden Ama tells Kofi he has to talk to me, that we’re both deaf, and thus the same, and that that means he has to talk to me.

One night. Kwasi was very enthusiastic. He said he wanted to give me casava because we are both deaf. He shook my hand and said enthusiastically: “We are both deaf, you are white, but do I push you away? No! We are friends, both deaf”. He repeated this time after time: “You are white and I am black, but do I push you away? No!”

Thus, ‘Deaf the same' seems to ease my ‘integration’ here (although I have to mention that a hearing linguistic researcher seemingly also got a warm welcome here in the past). I am always welcome at the deaf people’s homes. Quite a few of them tend to visit me here, they make sure my water barrel is never empty, they join me when I don’t know where to buy something, they teach me their signs, etc etc, and they repeat constantly that I am just like them, ‘deaf the same’. Even though I am very different at the same time: white, highly educated and in their eyes ‘rich’. You see, I am very well taken care of and sometimes it’s difficult (more about that later on), but never ever boring. I never feel alone and some even say that they don’t want to let me leave. Sometimes it’s amazing to me.

On the other hand, as you can suspect after reading Kofi’s ‘killing’-quote cited above: there’s a strong negative feeling towards the hearing here. “The hearing are bad” seems to be a kind of expletive (‘cliché’) here, just as “deaf are the same/friends”.

A lot of deaf have bad relationships with the hearing. Elements which re-occur in their stories they tell me when I ask why the hearing are supposedly so bad, are the following: hearing men don’t give their wives any money, hearing women steal money from their deaf men, hearing scold deaf people, insult them and do not treat them respectfully.

That means there’s a downside too: when I interact with hearing people (to get to know their viewpoints), the deaf are apprehensive and want to protect me (in an exaggerated way). A large part of the hearing men I encounter, ask me to marry them (yes, typically Ghanaian) and then they without exception exclaim: “The hearing are bad!” When a hearing person approaches me and starts a written conversation in English, they give me an annoyed look and repeatedly warn me that all the hearing are cheats and that I’m better off ignoring them completely; even though I translate everything that is written in signs to not exclude them and even though the conversation is absolutely innocent: for example about a local tradition named Odwira. In other words: there is a huge deal of suspicion towards the intentions of hearing people. So even though the deaf greet the hearing in a friendly manner, and communicate with them in local Adamorobe sign language daily, in the conversations amongst the deaf, that suspicion towards the hearing is very clearly present.

Why this is so interesting? I previously mentioned that because of the large presence of deaf people here because of the spread of a deafness-gene, a local sign language had originated throughout the centuries which also a lot of hearing people master (on different levels). There are different villages know with similar situations; in Mexico, India, Bali, Israël and still in some other places. Well, some ‘Deaf Studies’ theories state that in these places, deaf are less (or not at all) inclined to seek each other’s company. This because, in these places there are little or no communicational problems with the hearing people, because they know how to sign. In other words: that the deaf only seek each other’s company when communication between the deaf and the hearing fails. But that is not the case in Adamorobe. There is a connection between the deaf, that much is sure. One of my research goals is finding out where that connection comes from, how it came into being or is motivated.

Does the ‘deaf-the-same’ or ‘deaf-are-fiends’ intuition only originate from the above mentioned negative experiences with hearing – that the deaf are driven towards each other? Or are the deaf also tied to each other on a different level, not directly linked to negative experiences? In Adamorobe, there are different very diverging ways in which the difference is made between the deaf and the hearing. The deaf go to a deaf school separately and have separate church services in sign language, the deaf perform patrol work, the deaf as a group perform or performed cultural presentations and storytelling on festivals… Might there be a kind of universal (Deafhood-)intuition which drives the deaf towards each other? Anyhow, the bond which can exist between the deaf goes way further than language and communication, and that is also the case in Adamorobe, that has become very clear to me, at this stage already.