Het lezersblog is een groepsblog van inspirerende, gepassioneerde mensen uit verschillende landen en verschillende beroepsgroepen. Iedereen wordt van harte uitgenodigd zijn of haar standpunt of mening te geven over de zaken die hem/haar het meest ter harte gaan door te reageren op een blog. De dialoog kan beginnen!
Sencity at Sea: Communication is a peculiar thing
It’s a weird thing, communication. You might think, on a boat with 6,000 deaf and hearing people, there will be a lot of miscommunication or non-communication.
I wanted to write about that in the first place. At the airport we had some interesting examples of prejudices against deaf people. At the custom service I told the employee that the next people in line were deaf. He looked at them and then asked me: ‘do you know who is mentoring them?’ While I was thinking why on earth deaf people should need mentors anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to tell it to next custom officer again. Behind me, Serhat, one of our deaf dancers was waiting. Still the employee started mumbling to him, without looking at him, asking to take off his jacket. I repeated that he was deaf. She looked surprised and said, ‘Ohhhh, but he looked so cool, I thought, he cannot be.....’
It made me present again that we are not living in a world in which deaf people, or disabled people in general are looked at in a powerful way. Often they are looked at as people who are lacking something, who are restricted in something. In our Skyway team we like to look at what they CAN do, or even do BETTER because they are deaf, or blind or what so ever. For example, sign language is a language that gets picked up way more easily by young babies. Deaf mothers get to communicate several months earlier with their kids than hearing people. And our dancers have a natural way of self expression that many theater students would be jealous of.
Initiatives like ours and of Deaf Travel’s to organize this cruise ship, will create a change in that point of view. I have been talking to several successful deaf people who are perfect example of what you can achieve, even if you are deaf. It will start with some drops on a cooking plate, but I am sure that we will transform that way of looking!
But right now, it is the miscommunication between the hearing people themselves that is more present as Deaf Travel prepared this trip very well, with interpreters everywhere. The service crew is very well instructed and helpful for all the visitors.
But as this whole trip was a last minute deal, things have not been communicated very well between Deaf Travel and Royal Caribbean Cruises, the managers of the ship. The cruise director is very scared that we are going to do something that will cause trouble. Whether it’s filling the air with aromas or giving a dance workshop for deaf people, she is blocking almost any idea. They would rather have their own musicians on every corner, (never seen so many musicians ignored) than our deaf performers on stage. Their artists have already have been trained for months while our dancers “might do something in the heat of the moment that Royal Caribbean doesn’t know about and Royal Carribean does not want to be held responsible for.” However, every minute she repeats with a big smile on her face that she wants us to have a nice trip and….Enjoy yourself!”
We get to do one party on Wednesday night, starting at 12:30 AM and a dance performance on Friday, which is not even half of what Deaf Travel asked us to do.
So… we got some work to do, a new challenge to look at how we are going to make the impossible possible! Still the vibe is very great in the team. We took the advise of the cruise director and we enjoyed ourselves! All day long doing whatever you can think of when you are on holiday, including getting a sunburned back. We will rock on Wednesday night and give a party that the visitors will never ever forget!
Keep you posted!
Thank you for both of your fascinating blogs, Ronald.
One of the things I find most interesting about people with any form of hearing loss is that, in my experience, they don't seem to feel the need to 'talk' so much in the first place! In fact, it has often been the same experience with people with any eyesight impairment. (I deliberatley do not use words like 'vision' and 'sight', as their underlying meaning implies abilities far more expansive than using eyes simply to 'see'.) Communication seems to be more direct somehow and more purposeful, for want of a better word. And as you have experienced, other skills and abilities that 'hearing' and 'seeing' people don't always make very good use of come very freely to those with impairments in these activities.
I suppose that the bottom line is that the sense of 'self' somehow equates any problems with, or loss of sensual abilities as 'incompleteness'. It's one of its many strange and wonderful was of creating separation and comparison to maintain and aggrandise itself. In fact, there are only differences in shape, size, colour, sensual abilities, etc. which carry no significance. With a less pronounced self-sense, these become irrelevant as there is just one Life, of which people are a part, plants are a part, everything is a part! That way of true seeing would bring about an end to discrimination and the need for 'special' events, services, etc. for different people, as everyone would be naturally included in everything and the planning of all services, events, etc.
In the meantime, thank you for your work and that of your fellows and colleagues. Wish I had been at the events - they sound terrific!
posted by adamgilliland on 10/30/2007 1:17 pm