So let’s put away the dastardness of dealing with inefficient large corporations, card fraud and other nasties as I talk a little about the pleasure I had to welcome two young deaf people here last night.

Let me quickly start at the beginning when I went down to Austine School for the Deaf in Brattleboro to enquire about the local deaf social activities, I had been informed that there is a sizeable deaf community in Brattleboro and the surrounding areas of Vermont so I was naturally keen to find out more.

The busy bubbly receptionist named Kim at the Austine School audiology department had me wait a short while whilst she attended to some weather-beaten senior citizens who had come in for their regular check ups, but then finally Kim came over and asked what I wanted. I told her I was new to the area and would like to get involved with the deaf communities, to which she replied;

“Hmm, I’m totally the wrong person to ask for that, why don’t I give you some email contacts who are a little more clued in to the local action”.

This was fine by me, so I went away with a couple addresses of whom I wrote to. The first probably doesn’t check her email so often as I have yet to hear from however the second address I tried, I got a reply immediately. He instantly told me that every Sunday at 4pm there is a deaf group who tend to go bowling and every Friday they meet up at a local pub/bar called McNeils at 8pm. Well surprise, surprise, this was my fathers favourite watering hole. So I agreed with my Dad to go check it out.

That was not all though, the guy (named Karl) asked in his email what I was doing tonight? Well here I am in the middle of nowhere just outside of Putney with limited means of transport, I told him I’d be out tomorrow at McNeils but gave him directions to here anyway. He didn’t reply to that so I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, it was getting dark and I kinda thought they wouldn’t make the trouble to drive out here (whilst getting lost and wet in the rain).

So a few hours later, I’m doing more research on the PC here when there is a knock outside. “It couldn’t be?”. Thought I.

It was!

Karl and his roommate Susan had driven the 15 or so miles out in the rain and dark to meet this unknown deaf person at the whim of an introductory email from myself.

Gosh well, that took me by surprise!

These two interesting individuals were signing avidly at me so I rushed off in a stirred state of mind to grab a pen and paper so that we may communicate for I knew only a little BSL (British Sign Lanuage) and practically no ASL (American Sign Language, yes they are different languages..). Turned out that I needed had bothered, with some extensive lip-reading and exaggerated body language from both parties we were able to have a nice talk to introduce ourselves and get to know one another a little better. If I couldn’t understand a particular word, Karl was thankfully able to fingerspell it out in BSL for me.. Great stuff. I began to feel very compelled to accelerate my learning of ASL so that I may talk to these interesting people more easily.

Karl was from South Africa and Susan had moved here from Washington State, they were living together and also both were currently teaching younger deaf students various subjects at Austine School. They stayed for tea and my father also seemed intrigued by the pair.

I was surprised to find out that they both had a little residual hearing and so I showed them my own songs on CD which they seemed to appreciate, Susan apparently having the better hearing of the two was able to compare my music to that she had heard in some films, which was a good sign indeed.

Karl seemed intent on recruiting me for a play for the deaf he was working on, I don’t think I am much of an actor but I could certainly help out backstage, with lighting and the more technical aspects. We shall see?

And so eventually, Karl and Susan had to go for they were due to be teaching at 8am the following morning (ouch). They promised to introduce me to more of their friends and help me get assimilated into the American deaf culture. Also they asked if I had a deaf sign name (not fingerspelled but a ‘nick sign’ so to speak), since I had not really sufficiently been around deaf people enough in England to be assigned one yet, they said they would go away and come up with one for me (Oooer!).

Thus begins the start of something I’ve always wanted to do but put off till now.. Really get involved with the vibrant culture that is the deaf world.