“Coming out”, or not?

In Ghana, deafness is often seen as a punishment of a god or something that’s done to you by a witch. It’s mainstream to mock deaf people or to compare them to leaf-eating animals like goats: a leaf is put into the mouth and you pretend to chew on it. Or people point and say in ‘gestures’, insulting or mean, “you cannot hear”.

2nd July 2009. I’m witness of a slightly dramatic village argument in Adamorobe. A hearing woman enters into a conflict with a deaf woman (Adwoa) and goes on to mock her deafness behind her back. The hearing daughter of Adwoa hears the fighting and stands up for her mother. More and more people gather from every corner of the village and about 4-5 women get entangled in a fight: pulling hair, each other, hitting and scratching. The hearing woman really gets it good.

Several deaf told me about similar fights. People of Adamorobe are well-known for certainly starting a fight (or a heated argument) when they are mocked. They don’t just let it slide by, and the hearing are aware of that, so they’re usually quite careful. Also, the hearing here in Adamorobe do not generally seem to have quite the negative attitude towards deaf people. Thus, fights like the one mentioned above are not a daily reality.

3rd July 2009. I’m in Accra. I have to take a trotro and I write the destination on a piece of paper for the ‘organizer’ of the buses. This hearing man, who noticed darn well that I’m deaf, starts talking to me, in God knows which language. I don’t understand him and communicate several times that I do not hear. He looks at me, says something to a few other men who are stood with him. They start to laugh. I start to get goose bumps and I give him a mistrustful look, because it’s definitely about me. He looks at me again, pretends to be an animal who’s chewing something – with a retarded expression on his face – and laughs mockingly. It feels horribly demeaning and it infuriates me, so I treat him to my most destructive look, making a stressing hand sign meaning something like “what’s your problem?” and openly ignore the laughing man with a wave of the hand. What I really wanted to do at that point was attack him brutally.

12th December 2008. A large funeral is being held in the center of the village, and here, the evening part of a funeral still bears most resemblance to an exuberant open air rave. I walk into the compound of Ama and ask her if she and Afua will be attending. She answers that she’s not in the mood and explains that there will be too many people of outside the village. In that case, the deaf tend to go have a look, but also signing there is something else. “When you use AdaSL and for example a Ga (another ethnical group) sees it, he will say something to the person sitting next to him. They laugh and that person puts a leaf in his mouth and mocks: ‘he/she-doesn’t-hear’. And that leads to fights”, Ama concludes.

14th June 2009. I’m in a little house on a point where different paths cross each other, together with two deaf women. We’re having a conversation. A few hearing people come walked up after each other on one of the paths. Afua, who’s speaking at that moment, is seated with her back in that direction, but she sees me looking in that direction. She looks behind her and stops in the middle of her sentence. She waits until the people have walked by. When they were gone, I ask her why she silenced so abruptly and she reasons: “They will go an spread the word in other places that there are a lot of deaf people here and that thus, this is a bad place!”. Another woman passes by and we exchange greetings. Afua tells me: “You see, I know Adamorobe’s people, I greet them warmly, that’s all alright”.

So even though the situation here is not always without conflict, there’s a balance between small scale fights and teasing, everyday conversation or just saying hello and asking how things are. Outsiders of Adamorobe make the deaf here realize that it’s not all that bad here. There’s communication between the hearing and the deaf and the hearing do not generally seem to have negative prejudices about the deaf.

So, what about when people go ‘outside’? Well, in Madina or Accra they will just negotiate and take the buss like the hearing do. I also explained in former blog posts that the average hearing is able to communicate much better than in the West. The hearing are generally not taken aback when they notice that someone’s deaf: they smoothly switch to ‘gestures’. I have never seen deaf pretend to be hearing. And still, and still: having a more elaborate conversation in sign language with another deaf person; outside of the normal interactions and transactions, is not something every Adamorobe deaf people seems to be comfortable with every time.

2nd of January 2009. The end of my first research period. A few deaf people accompany me to the airport to say their goodbyes there. I treat them to a drink before I go inside. Everybody is very quiet and I wonder why. Kofi answers that it’s wrong for people to see AdaSL. I answer that in my eyes, it’s not wrong, but Kofi explains that de doesn’t want the hearing staring at our signs and slandering.

5th December 208. We’re in the bus to Madina: Ama, Afua and I. Ama and I are talking, but Afua does not want us to sign in the van. When we’re walking in the city and are constantly moving, all of a sudden she’s fine with it.

In our society it’s generally perceived as valuable to ‘show who you really are’: sign language user, homosexual,… Some people tend to reason that you’re not yourself when you systematically go hiding things for the outside world, and that it’s good to make large and plenty variations between people public.

The Adamorobe deaf will strategically hide or lessen their sign language once in a while. It it because of shame? I have the impression that maybe I could rather call it pride. They’re very clearly proud of their sign language, and the most deaf of Adamorobe would not want to be hearing. Or is it simply ‘self preservation’: preventing humiliation, confrontations and fights? Is ‘coming out’ a luxury for them who live in a (more) free society where they are not mocked or condemned? Who knows?