"Congratulations Amie, you did it". I said to myself as I sat in my room dressing up to give myself a treat for my little achievement, I went to the coziest restaurant in town to enjoy my life as it was a celebration of triumph, success, and humanity.
A few years back, I had wanted to learn sign language as I had about more than three friends in the neighborhood who were deaf and dumb and I noticed how they were usually neglected.
I usually like to challenge myself to face my fears and win. So, I enrolled in a sign language class.
The truth is before now, I've heard my instructor asking. " Can you do this? Many people give up on the first -third months of learning as it goes from simple to complex".
I looked him in the eyes and said: "Yes, I can do this".
" Well then, let's give it a try", he said.
I started the class and the first thing I learned was how to sign the alphabet, that part was really exciting.
For each part we had a test and only if pass the test will I be able to move to the next class.
I made sure I concentrated and was determined to pass the test.
For every test I pass, I celebrated my little wins. I would write an appreciation letter to myself and remind myself why I started this journey in the first place, I would also share my success story with people who cared to listen even though they felt it was something too small to celebrate.
And then we proceeded to sign simple words like water, food, father, and words like that then we moved to learn how to greet and exchange pleasantries and finally sentences using my hands, facial expressions, and gestures.
This part was quite complex however, I decided to prove my sign language instructor wrong. And after a year I could now sign very well and my instructor also told me how proud of me he was.
The deaf and dumb are humans too and need not just deaf and dumb as friends, so since I can now sign. I celebrated the little progress I made.
One day, I and other signers and even my instructor went on what we call the "Deaf search", we did this voluntarily to reach out to the deaf and dumb, you need to see the excitement on my face I realized I could now communicate with the deaf using my hands, facial expressions, and body language and especially I could now communicate with my deaf friends, they were excited and I knew my endurance in learning this not-so-common language was worth it.
After the search, we decided to celebrate the deaf we found a few days later, we made a tent for them, made customized tee shirts for them, and enlightened them too on what we felt they were missing out on, like how to stay security conscious and even self-empowerment. We brought in a meal and took a few pictures with them.
I would have loved to share the picture, but it is against a particular policy as it is a group picture.
The deaf are highly intelligent and sensitive people and they were excited we cared about them too.
That celebration kept lingering on my mind even though I've had opportunities to celebrate other occasions like weddings, bridal showers, and convocations with families and friends.
This particular celebration was more of triumph over my setbacks and defeat over my fears and more so, humanitarian as I made myself available to wear a genuine smile on people who were often neglected in the community where I came from, it is a skill I could have earned a lot from, but for the love of humanity, I learned this skill, not for the financial gain but to promote humanitarian services and that's something to be celebrated.
