Sounds of a Deaf School
My training had several deaf trainers and one deaf volunteer. Talking and, especially, eating with them was always a reflective time. Shut your mouth and use your hands. Much of communication was about choosing carefully what you wanted to say and then figuring out how to say that one concept. No small talk. Meals were especially quiet times. With this experience I expected that living in a deaf school would be incredibly quiet and introspective.
I was wrong. I have never, ever been in a place with this many sounds. In cities the vast majority of sounds tend to get blurred out. You know they are there but they become ignorable noise. That is not the case here. When I moved in I thought the kids were being abused. You would hear wailing and screeching and crying. Some of it is kids actually crying but most of it is just expressing your emotions. There might be a kid sitting next to a block of wood banging away with a stick and wailing “Aieee, aieee, aiee…” for hours. Turns out he is just bored. Kids will be walking down the path going “Aroo, aroo, aroo..!” just because they like the feel of the vibration in their mouth. It’s hard to tune out what sounds like intense human suffering, even if you hear it everyday and it really isn’t suffering. If an Event happens the whole place goes bananas. The electricity cuts off, a car drives in, somebody wins a game. It can be anything and the whole place erupts into a chorus of howls which last for a few minutes. Sometimes there really are kids crying but usually not for very long. The staff are all overworked and no other kids can hear it so they get ignored. Most kids cry a little then realize they aren’t such bad shape and they go on with whatever they were doing. On the other hand many kids naturally start making noises when they get excited. Somewhere along the line these howls and wails get suppressed as deaf kids become adults. The adults use a relatively quiet “Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm” when they want to get your attention or are excited. High pitched means really excited or happy.
The second loudest thing are my neighbors. On one side the guy loves his radio. He plays it from 6 to 11 or 12 every night and 5:30 to 8 every morning as well as lunches. The standard fare is blaring Kikuyu pop music though old style slow country is often mixed in. It’s very clear what songs are currently popular because there are only 5 or 6 and they are played ad nauseum (a lot like the US). On the other side there are three or four families. The only ones I really notice are the deaf couple. They also listen to the radio but that is minor. The woman usually uses speech rather than sign language. The problem is she can’t hear herself and can’t form words accurately. The result is someone who speaks 5 times as loud as anybody else but has the annunciation of a cavewoman. She also has a bad temper and tends to bang things when she is upset. It sounds like she is always yelling at her kids. I will here what sounds to me like “Mwangi, mwam, da, mwa ma! Marwa da mwa da!”. Mwangi is the name of her son and I currently know squat for Kikuyu. For some reason I have yet to figure out, I often hear banging at that house at 1 or 2 in the morning. It’s consistent, loud, and lasts for 10 minutes or so. The house is made of corrugated steel so the sound carries to everybody. I thought it was someone locked out trying to be let in but am probably wrong. The first few times I heard it it scared the hell out of me. To wake up with someone banging on what sounds like your door in the middle of the night is not conducive to rest. The main evening entertainment for the kids here is the television in the dining hall. There is one television and it is turned up very loud for those who can partially hear. It is the next building over and I can easily identify what program they are watching by the sounds. This kicks in around 7 every night and ends at bedtime, 9. I am also next to the athletic fields so I can usually hear whatever sport is going on. It is the opposite side of my bedroom so it has yet to bother me.
Another major source of noise is the animals. There is a weaver bird colony right outside my bedroom window. They are especially talkative around 5-7 in the morning. I feel like I could understand them if I knew their language. It seems to consist primarily of high pitched zs and qs. The earliest risers are the roosters who gain full voice around 4:30 though warm ups begin 3:30 or so. There are 3 main sources. The radio guy has one, the deaf couple have a couple, and the school houses around 4 or 5, depending on who’s been eaten lately. When they do their cock a doodle roo they also flap their wings against the cage, making a banging sound, also initially disturbing. When one crows another will answer a second later. I would have thought the roosters ran out of things to say months ago but I guess not. The sound that bothers me the most are the chickens going through my yard. I will be sitting eating lunch and a twig snaps outside. Glance outside and nobody’s there. A couple minutes later another twig snaps on the other side of the house. Is someboy sneaking up on me? No, chickens were scrounging through my yard again. Random rustling of grass with no one visible is pretty disconcerting. Especially as I am in the center of Mungiki territory and murder is a common practice around here. Crops are currently planted so all the chickens are put away for the next few months. Any roaming chicken becomes school property and gets eaten so this sound has disappeared for the next few months. The main nocturnal animal is the bat. They can be heard with metallic pings every couple seconds. These have never bothered me.
The sound which is always present but not always heard is the waterfall. There is a waterfall 4-5 km down the road which, if you listen, can be heard. It is a soothing sound which stays in the background all day but comes to the forefront at night. One day I will make the trek to see what must be a pretty sizable waterfall.
All in all not the introspective place I imagined but definitely interesting. The first month or so I had problems sleeping. The only time with no noise is 11-3:30 which is clearly not sufficient. Every month I have gotten better at ignoring the sounds and barely notice most of them now. It sounds (and is) insensitive but I have gotten pretty good at ignoring the howling kids. I am simply too lazy to check what their issue is and assume they can resolve it on their own.
My training had several deaf trainers and one deaf volunteer. Talking and, especially, eating with them was always a reflective time. Shut your mouth and use your hands. Much of communication was about choosing carefully what you wanted to say and then figuring out how to say that one concept. No small talk. Meals were especially quiet times. With this experience I expected that living in a deaf school would be incredibly quiet and introspective.
I was wrong. I have never, ever been in a place with this many sounds. In cities the vast majority of sounds tend to get blurred out. You know they are there but they become ignorable noise. That is not the case here. When I moved in I thought the kids were being abused. You would hear wailing and screeching and crying. Some of it is kids actually crying but most of it is just expressing your emotions. There might be a kid sitting next to a block of wood banging away with a stick and wailing “Aieee, aieee, aiee…” for hours. Turns out he is just bored. Kids will be walking down the path going “Aroo, aroo, aroo..!” just because they like the feel of the vibration in their mouth. It’s hard to tune out what sounds like intense human suffering, even if you hear it everyday and it really isn’t suffering. If an Event happens the whole place goes bananas. The electricity cuts off, a car drives in, somebody wins a game. It can be anything and the whole place erupts into a chorus of howls which last for a few minutes. Sometimes there really are kids crying but usually not for very long. The staff are all overworked and no other kids can hear it so they get ignored. Most kids cry a little then realize they aren’t such bad shape and they go on with whatever they were doing. On the other hand many kids naturally start making noises when they get excited. Somewhere along the line these howls and wails get suppressed as deaf kids become adults. The adults use a relatively quiet “Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm” when they want to get your attention or are excited. High pitched means really excited or happy.
The second loudest thing are my neighbors. On one side the guy loves his radio. He plays it from 6 to 11 or 12 every night and 5:30 to 8 every morning as well as lunches. The standard fare is blaring Kikuyu pop music though old style slow country is often mixed in. It’s very clear what songs are currently popular because there are only 5 or 6 and they are played ad nauseum (a lot like the US). On the other side there are three or four families. The only ones I really notice are the deaf couple. They also listen to the radio but that is minor. The woman usually uses speech rather than sign language. The problem is she can’t hear herself and can’t form words accurately. The result is someone who speaks 5 times as loud as anybody else but has the annunciation of a cavewoman. She also has a bad temper and tends to bang things when she is upset. It sounds like she is always yelling at her kids. I will here what sounds to me like “Mwangi, mwam, da, mwa ma! Marwa da mwa da!”. Mwangi is the name of her son and I currently know squat for Kikuyu. For some reason I have yet to figure out, I often hear banging at that house at 1 or 2 in the morning. It’s consistent, loud, and lasts for 10 minutes or so. The house is made of corrugated steel so the sound carries to everybody. I thought it was someone locked out trying to be let in but am probably wrong. The first few times I heard it it scared the hell out of me. To wake up with someone banging on what sounds like your door in the middle of the night is not conducive to rest. The main evening entertainment for the kids here is the television in the dining hall. There is one television and it is turned up very loud for those who can partially hear. It is the next building over and I can easily identify what program they are watching by the sounds. This kicks in around 7 every night and ends at bedtime, 9. I am also next to the athletic fields so I can usually hear whatever sport is going on. It is the opposite side of my bedroom so it has yet to bother me.
Another major source of noise is the animals. There is a weaver bird colony right outside my bedroom window. They are especially talkative around 5-7 in the morning. I feel like I could understand them if I knew their language. It seems to consist primarily of high pitched zs and qs. The earliest risers are the roosters who gain full voice around 4:30 though warm ups begin 3:30 or so. There are 3 main sources. The radio guy has one, the deaf couple have a couple, and the school houses around 4 or 5, depending on who’s been eaten lately. When they do their cock a doodle roo they also flap their wings against the cage, making a banging sound, also initially disturbing. When one crows another will answer a second later. I would have thought the roosters ran out of things to say months ago but I guess not. The sound that bothers me the most are the chickens going through my yard. I will be sitting eating lunch and a twig snaps outside. Glance outside and nobody’s there. A couple minutes later another twig snaps on the other side of the house. Is someboy sneaking up on me? No, chickens were scrounging through my yard again. Random rustling of grass with no one visible is pretty disconcerting. Especially as I am in the center of Mungiki territory and murder is a common practice around here. Crops are currently planted so all the chickens are put away for the next few months. Any roaming chicken becomes school property and gets eaten so this sound has disappeared for the next few months. The main nocturnal animal is the bat. They can be heard with metallic pings every couple seconds. These have never bothered me.
The sound which is always present but not always heard is the waterfall. There is a waterfall 4-5 km down the road which, if you listen, can be heard. It is a soothing sound which stays in the background all day but comes to the forefront at night. One day I will make the trek to see what must be a pretty sizable waterfall.
All in all not the introspective place I imagined but definitely interesting. The first month or so I had problems sleeping. The only time with no noise is 11-3:30 which is clearly not sufficient. Every month I have gotten better at ignoring the sounds and barely notice most of them now. It sounds (and is) insensitive but I have gotten pretty good at ignoring the howling kids. I am simply too lazy to check what their issue is and assume they can resolve it on their own.
posted by Ross at 7:09 AM
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