Dis-ability. Who decides?

So, one of things I didn't expect when I came to Cambodia was to be immersed in a deaf community and be challenged as a hearing person. The Epic Arts VTP program consists of young adults with either physical disabilities or deafness. They are performers and run dance and theatrical workshops and belong to a strong deaf community. They use Cambodian sign language which has only been around for about 15 years and only recently in the provinces outside of Phnom Penh. Most of these young adults grew up without a shared method of communication, they didn't have options such as speech therapy, hearing aids, sign language or cochlear implants and were often isolated from society. They were denied access to an education and became vulnerable to stigma and abuse in a country with poor acceptance and understanding of disability. 


Just recently I was walking down the riverside in Kampot at night to get a massage and just happened to pass a group of the VTP students. A tuk tuk driver was trying to get my business and the VTP students were signing to me not to go with him. I told him "no thanks" and he looked at the deaf students and said "don't worry about them, they are stupid people". It made me realise the little disability friendly bubble I was living in had very thin walls. 


Being at the Epic Arts Cafe everyday, and interacting with staff who are deaf, signing for my order and trying to follow conversations in sign has been a unique experience. It has made me question myself and how I take my intact senses for granted, but also about cultural expectations of the norm. When my mum came to visit Cambodia she kept comparing it to back home and what was different, which did not help her to embrace and accept that this is a new way of living, not better or worse, just different to what she is used to. Because of that she missed out on the magic. 


I have come to feel the same way about deafness or any disability for that matter. Sign language is amazing. Communicating with your hands, coupled with the most emotive facial expression is wonderful to watch. It makes me wonder too, without the auditory channels being stimulated, how much more the tactile and visual pathways must be attuned as the brain compensates. I also wonder if it is easier for a deaf person to pick up one another's body language, mood or temperament? I wonder what it is like not to hear music, laughter, speech or dialogue on movies? I wonder if the little voice in your head chatters on and on in the same fashion as a hearing person? I wonder if you can't hear a person's voice, what other cues and messages you pick up to get an idea of their identity?


I also see how many misunderstandings or missed commnunication opportunities occur when there is a mixing of hearing and non hearing people. The jokes that are not understood but only evident by the resulting laughter. The effort it must take to rely on the visual sense to lip read and then translate that into a verbal or kinesthethic output (sign language). Just as I feel disconnection from Khmer people because I cannot speak their language, I feel removed when trying to communicate with someone who is deaf with my modality-speech, and expecting them to do the compensating by lip reading. 


So often disability is seen as a lack, dis-ability, being without an ability, having something of the norm taken away from you. Then we try to overcompensate, and smooth over society's social cement with a politically correct palette knife by calling people with disabilities "special" or having "special needs". I think we've lost the essence of what special is meaning in this case, not special as in talented or beloved, or something to take pity on, or even something to treasure, but special as in a distinct or specific type of character, set apart. Unique but still complete in every way, not lacking anything, but being whole in its own right.





And who is to say when someone is disabled? At what point does lacking a body part, a mental faculty or any other feature away from the norm make you "dis-abled"? We all have different variables that make up our beings. We are complex and complicated creatures. We exist to be in community. Yes we are all different from one another. What of it?

So am I disabled because I can't use sign language in a deaf community? In this context I am the one without the ability. I am the one who finds it difficult to integrate. I am the outsider. I have realised I waste a lot of time and energy worrying that I am "missing out' on something. That maybe I'm not in the right place at the right time. Making comparisons with other circumstances. What a way to miss out on the present. Life doesn't have this one ideal path to travel. We all experience it differently. That is ok. It is what it is.