Found In Ceylon

An Exploration of Deaf Sri Lankan Identity

I’m sitting in the international terminal at LAX Airport, beneath a large information board titled DEPARTURES. There are four flights boarding; their destinations are Brisbane, Melbourne, Hong Kong, and Mexico City. Tahiti Nui #201 to Papeete is delayed; those who are on Asiana #203 to Seoul are out of luck because that flight has been cancelled.

The last flight for the day is Cathay Pacific #881 to Hong Kong leaving at 1:45 AM, with me in seat 33F. Then the departure area of the terminal sleeps for five hours, until the first two flights, headed to Mexico City and Guadalajara, take off at 7:00 AM.

Yesterday, I left a city and community that I was not ready at all to leave, and drove to San Diego with my friend Allison. I only had packed up my stuff the night before, so all afternoon today was focused on unpacking what I had brought down from San Francisco, and then repacking what I wanted to bring with me to Sri Lanka.

The funny thing was, I never really unpacked my Sri Lanka stuff from last year. I bought several of those Eagle Creek storage bags, and through the nine months I worked there, I stuffed them with various mementos and electronics.

And then they remained zippered for nearly a year…until today, as I furiously emptied them out, transferred some to Ziploc bags and others back into bags to reuse (such as electricity converters, a mini USB hard drive, sunscreen). I found my old journal and address book, and will just keep using them. I’m using the same camera, suitcase, and backpack; heck, some of the clothes are the same. In some ways, it’s almost as if I never left Sri Lanka.

But last year I was an English teacher. That was my job, among other duties. While I can reuse the same storage bags and miscellaneous objects, I can’t reuse my job.

Four weeks doesn’t lend itself well to teaching a third language to deaf children in a country where that language isn’t very visible in the environment or spoken by the populace. For all I know, they’ve completely forgotten everything I taught last year.

So I’ve been racking my brain and my friends’, trying to figure out my purpose for this second visit. I invented grand schemes and then dismissed those as being too paternalistic or colonialist. For a while, I seriously considered Sophie’s suggestion: be just a visitor with the aim of reconnecting to the children and friends. After all, they have not asked for my help yet.

But that didn’t feel right. While I’m aware that my very presence can make positive changes (by being a role model to the children, etc.), I felt that I had access to resources that I should somehow try to provide to the school and the deaf community. Other than the fact that I didn’t want a four-week tea break anyway, I also couldn’t brush aside the feeling that doing so would mean unconsciously taking advantage of my friends’ hospitality.

This morning, I opened up a package from my dear friend Amanda. Last year, she had collected an assortment of markers, stickers, and art supplies to send to me in Sri Lanka, but apparently the post office gave her a hard time with the customs forms to the point where she wasn’t sure her gift would arrive safely. So she just held onto it, knowing that I’d probably return one day soon. She was right, and she mailed the package to me to bring to Sri Lanka by hand.

I looked at the fun Crayola mini-markers and the bag of little colored foam stencils. And then, I don’t know why, but I figured it out.

I have been collecting this and that for the last few weeks. A book: Deaf Artists in America. Several DVDs of ASL storytelling from California School for the Deaf. A handheld camcorder and tripod from Lizzie, a friend who works in Gallaudet’s TV/Film department. Origami paper and instructions.

I didn’t know how to tie it all together. I imagined simply having random art and video activities after school to keep the kids busy and engaged. The least I could do, right?

But as my eyes searched the contents of Amanda’s package, I realized that the last eight months has been, in large, a consideration of my Deaf identity. What has been an almost unconscious journey of my deafness for a lifetime prior to living in the Bay Area has turned into a conscious investigation, both internal and external, of the world I live in, the Deaf community I am a member of, and how Deaf people, despite being marginalized and split into several fractions by cultural, medical, and economic forces, stubbornly continue to celebrate their sense of unity borne out of a collective experience, world view, and language.

90% of all Deaf people are born to hearing parents: in isolation from their potential Deaf brethen. And yet, this community exists. Is that not one of the greatest stories of humanity? What is this essence that connects Deaf people to each other, like moths attracted to a flame? What does it mean to be a Deaf person, to transcend the deafness pathology?

These are all powerful and fundamental questions; the exploration of these questions has been one of the most important things I’ve taken with me from my eight months in the Bay Area.

And it is this very journey of self-discovery that I hope to impart to the children at Rohana Special School. While these are some of the happiest kids I’ve ever seen, they still see their deafness as an affliction.

In the next four weeks, I hope to guide the children onto their journey of self-discovery, and consider what it means to be a Deaf Sri Lankan. Through art, education, group discussion, sign language analysis, music, storytelling, video recording, and dance, the children will explore every aspect of their Deaf identity.

In the end, they will understand that being Deaf is full of possibilities, not limitations.

I may not be the most qualified person to do it. I’m not sure what the end result or repercussions will be. I don’t know if a heightened sense of Deaf identity would help them get jobs or put food on their plates. I will need to be careful to make sure they do not develop a Deaf theory based on Deaf American principles, but rather their own.

But I know this much: intuition is powerful. The materials, knowledge, and experiences that I’ve collected haphazardly for the last several months do all have a common thread. They were all meant to work together as part of this new program that I’ve only just started to nurture in my mind. I’m astonished by how it’s all seemed to work out.

And once again, it is all about serendipity; the word derived from that island once known as Serendib and now my next destination, taking off at 1:45 AM.

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