5 minute read
Senseless
Can you touch the signs ?
One day, a blind teacher met a deaf photographer in a portrait exhibition on diversity. Since then, four years have passed and the photographer, Louise, now works at the same place as the teacher, Patrick, the Lycée Ermesinde in Hollerich. But how would they manage to talk with each other ? Would they ever be able to share emotions and feelings, and work together ?
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Email, that was an easy solution. Then, there was a laptop with a screen reader the IT specialist had managed to set up at school. Nevertheless, something more spontaneous was missing and Patrick was eager to find out about this mysterious thing they called sign language. How was that to be done, though, without seeing anything ? Louise could at least read his lips, but how were they to communicate spontaneously in both ways ?
Suddenly, a flash came into their mind : there lived an American academic who was blind and deaf herself. Her name was Helen Keller (1880-1968). How could she become an academic nearly 100 years ago without hearing and seeing a thing and without such technical gadgets like the Internet or text messaging ? This was only possible through her childhood nurse and assistant, Anne Sullivan, who was almost blind herself. Both had developed a common tool to use : touch and memory ! Indeed, the hand is a small space to write onto. But memory can help to overcome this. In technical terms, it is like a computer, on which the hand is the keyboard and your brain the memory combining the letters into meaningful words.
That’s how they started their first “hand alphabet” lesson a few months ago.As you can imagine, everything went quite slowly, because each letter is a specific combination, involving the “speaker’s” and the recipient’s fingertips and palms. “It’s a completely new sensation”, thought the blind man. “I didn’t imagine touch to be so meaningful and so diverse, ranging from dots on your fingertips, through finger snapping, to caresses”. “So let’s try again”, he said to Louise. “Oh, was that an H or a W ?” And the deaf woman asked “Do you still remember what kind of touch X is ?”
While they were working, the teacher realised it requires a tougher concentration, especially when messages get more complicated. Indeed, each single letter counts now and has to be remembered to match a word puzzle. But he noticed the second week that he had remembered quite well and as he wanted to know more about sign language, they absolutely had to go on. So they went for their first “sign tour” around the school : a glass, a car, leaves on the tree, Patrick very quickly understood that all the signs had to do with shapes.
Now, four weeks had passed and Patrick had learnt the hand-signed alphabet and many signs (to drink, to eat, to drive, to swim, the sun etc.). Wow ! He could now venture onto the street with Louise. And off they went to the grocery store. “What would a banana, a peach or an orange feel like in sign language ?”, Patrick was wondering. He had a notion of what shape they have, but the sign for banana is actually the action of peeling the fruit. So, Louise peeled it. “Stop ! You have to pay before eating it”, yelled a shop assistant rushing towards them from the back of the shop. Fortunately, Louise had a pen and could explain to the shop assistant that she was just showing her friend the sign for “banana” which is based on peeling it.
How strange to see a blind and a deaf person together in Luxembourg ! No wonder, deaf-blind people hardly exist as a social community. We even meet very few people with only one of both disabilities. But as we can see, some of them are determined to communicate, to express their feelings, to experience emotions and to share them, just like anybody else. And it works !
A theatre performance at Neie Lycee questions our attitude towards the five senses
To raise awareness of these issues, students put on a play …
Three students, Ben, Sven and Tony, are gathering in a classroom. Tony, supporting himself with a cane, calls Sven. At the same time, Sven is eating an apple, desperately trying to find out what it tastes like. “I don’t taste anything”, he mutters quite frustrated.A third student yells out : “Why can’t I hear a thing ?” And suddenly all three start realising that they have lost one sense and what they’ll miss most :
one can no longer taste pizza, paella and other favourite dishes;
the other is plunged into a world of darkness;
the third can no longer listen to his dear rock tunes from Nickelback, System of a Down and The Doors. For all of them, it seems to be The End.
The three of them seem to be looking towards an uncertain future until one of them realises in a flashback what happened the night before. At a university ball, they had mixed and drunk a strange substance (NX5H3A) they hoped would improve their senses to experience new sensations. This is how the story navigates around the school building, lost bottles and flashbacks, to find out what happened. Although the students seem quite panicky about having lost their senses, the play does not remain frozen. No, it makes people, even us spectators, move along : from a classroom to the canteen, through the backyard, the library and back to the classroom. It finally comes down to a confession from one of the students who explains how it all started. It is also a deeply philosophical reflection on our human condition and what we really need : Can we experience more than what our senses allow us ? The answer simply lies in the word “Trust !”
As a teacher, I have done several experiments like this with students in class or even at a “blind dinner”. Most of the people were shocked at first, but realised how well their senses work and that with their eyes closed, the noise around them is emphasised.
The same happened when several students walked around the noisy hall at Luxembourg Central Station with their ears plugged. They felt quite “relaxed” and their look was focused on one thing rather than all the noisy details surrounding them. But the play leaves one question open to debate : Are blind and deaf people “desperately in need of some stranger’s hand ?”
In real life, we, Louise and I, have tools and strategies to overcome barriers. Here, new technologies have helped a lot to give blind people access to the Internet, or to let deaf people communicate with text messages on their mobile phones. The rest is also a question of accessibility which requires social and political commitment. That’s why I founded a new organisation for people with disabilities called “Nëmme Mat Eis !” (Only With Us). Louise is also
closely involved in the deaf movement, and although personal assistance remains essential for us to achieve full independence, we believe that a barrierfree mentality is the basis of all things. In the play, the students still have their memory to help. Although they miss one of their senses, their strong emotions lead them back to the origin of their misfortune; moreover, they are lucky enough to experience the substance abating, letting it be a short “bad episode”.
