Talia McWright
Deyli Gabriela Reynoso Bucu, a thirteen-year-old girl lives life in silence. The world moves around her. Birds sing from within trees, horns blast from the street and a radio amplifies the voice of a man proclaiming the resurrection of Christ. The world makes its music and she hears nothing. As she sits across from me twisting her pointer and middle finger together to tell me my name, I see it. She is a dancer, Gabriela dances; and though she cannot hear it the world plays faded music in the background of her center stage.
I am a foreigner here in Guatemala. Embarrassed of my broken Spanish and ashamed of how it seems that no matter where Americans go, English is catered to. I don’t have to try very hard to communicate. When my lips move, people listen, and for me, they try. They try to make sense of the nonsense coming out of my mouth. People don’t try for Gabriela and for deaf people like her. Being deaf is her responsibility. It seems. An ability she had no matter in deciding, and the fault is placed on her. Vocal language is how the world communicates. I guess it isn’t familiar with the language of movement, of dance.
Lensegua is the language Gabriela and her mother Yoli are learning to communicate with each other and the world around them. A language where the movement of hands expresses emotions, needs and any thought possible. But it is not taught in most schools. There is no requirement for people to learn to sign, to communicate with the deaf community. The world prefers listening to music, letting dancers perform in empty auditoriums. No roses for them, plenty of boos.
ASL, Lensegua and Levantine to name a few. Each country operates with a different sign language. Many dancers, different styles. Making it much more difficult for deaf people to communicate across the world. My initial thought when I learned this was that there should be a universal sign language. Yet when I travel, when anyone travels to another part of the world we’re introduced to a language not native to us. Signing, unique languages no different.
No universal language. Well maybe one, laughter. Sitting across from me Gabriela laughs at my jokes and her smile lights up the room. Okay another, love. Yoli’s dark eyes wet with tears glisten as she looks deep into the eyes of the daughter she created signing te amo. How one
communicates is not something most of us stop to think about. We open our mouths, words come out and the world spins. For deaf people, the world spins a bit differently. A silent dance, no music, just movement. Why don’t we learn to dance?