oftentimes when i don’t have a ride home, i take the jeepney. the shortest route from ateneo high school to katipunan (where i catch a jeep) is through miriam. most ateneans and miriamites know that within the borders of their school there is small bridge that connects our schools together (more popularly known as the “friendship bridge”).
between the two very large schools resides SAID (Southeast Asian Institute for the Deaf). this is where some of our deaf brothers and sisters study.
i find it kind of weird that whenever i pass by, it sometimes is actually very noisy. you wouldn’t expect that deaf people could produce voices (well duh, they’re deaf, not dumb). but still, it’s a weird experience because their voices are not like normal voices. of course they could not speak, but there is something special about the sounds that they make.
at first you would think that these sounds came from either autistic people or babies. since they lack the element of words in their speech, we tend to look at this as abnormal.
a trip home this afternoon changed my perspective.
as i was passing through miriam this afternoon i noticed 4 SAID students ahead of me. i watched them exchange hand signals and smiles. and after a while, they started laughing. they laughed a child-like laughter, like of a baby’s. at first i dismissed this as something very normal of, non-hearing people with non-speaking voices. i felt sorry for them for they were deprived of voice.
but as i walked further, i thought, “who is the one deprived here?” i noticed the freedom in their laughter. they laughed as if no one was listening to them, as if no one really cared. they laughed with a very careless laughter. they laughed with a laughter unblemished by societal standards of laughter.
then i realized that somehow they were privileged. they needn’t listen to the harsh judgements of the people around them. they simply turned a deaf ear whenever people would say nasty things about them. it’s as if they have their own world.
wait, they DO have their own world.
i admire these people…
