Communication is Key

Today, was another manic Wednesday. All went well actually, standard day at the school and an enjoyable English tutoring session in Escazu. The 3 and 1/2 hour tutoring after work can drain me a bit; however, I cam home to some birthday cards and a package with Erin's famous cookies in it, so that made it all worth while! I am blessed to have great family and friends.
In other news, on Monday during my sign language course I met an interesting person. He had audiophones in his ears, and during the class did not speak; surely he was deaf. He was, but suprisingly he said "hey, how's it going?" To my complete surprise, because he had darker skin and hair and appeared to be of Costa Rican decent. We got to talking, and he was in fact costa rican, but had lived in the US for 10 years where he learned english. Here I was talking to a deaf man, one who happened to be bilingual and learning the sign language of Costa Rica. It is difficult enough to be hearing and be bilingual; I cannot imagine how you learn to speak several languages without the ability to hear. The conversation was awesome, and cool because he did not hear my English words, he read my English-speaking lips...mind blowing.
We got to talking about our future goals and why we are where we are. He said while living in the US, the education for deaf is focused on speaking and to communicate in society, and in Costa Rica the focus is lacking and accepting of only signing rather than speaking. I am not saying he is wrong or right, it was just interesting to see his persepctive; I am sure there are people of the deaf community who are against learning voiced language because it detours from the deaf identity. Like all things, there are pros and cons, I look forward to learning more about the issue...

P.S. This picture is of Liz and I at Volcano Poas...not relevant to the entry above.