Wouldn't have missed it for the world

My daughter invited me to come to "Deaf, Deaf World" at her school one Saturday a few weeks ago.  It was a chance for students, volunteers and teachers to showcase what they experience every day. 

My mother-in-law and her girls came with me.  It was so much fun.  We stopped at Timmies to help us on the trip.  Jake came too (Jake is my GPS - he has an Australian accent) to show us the way.  We got there in time to enjoy the whole shindig.
They had organized the day by having each person receive a passport once their entry fee was paid.  Then it was up to each 'tourist' to choose the direction they would go.  No one was allowed to talk out loud.  We went to 'school' first, to learn a few signs to use and then had to make our way through the various stations, just using signs, and trying to understand what was being said to us.  All of us found it very challenging.  But it was a great experience to step into other people's shoes, who every day must deal with a hearing world.  The only sound was laughter every once in a while.  If anyone talked out loud, they could be sent to jail, where they had to draw their own mug shot and when the judge said they could come out for good behaviour, they resumed their tour. 

There were a lot of stations to go through.  We didn't make it through the whole thing, but we went through enough to feel like we'd experienced a taste of life in the deaf world.

We went to The Flower Shoppe and the Tattoo Shoppe and the SPCA where a couple of kittens were 'adopted'.  The most fun was at the Library, where one of the teachers told some hilarious stories.  I found out later that one of them, which I thought was about a man who chopped down mountains, was really about a man who chopped down trees.  (OOPS). 

The most challenging was ordering lunch.  The lady there was very patient, but insisted that we figure out the sign for the different types of hot dogs and chips and pop that we wanted.

 (If you want to know the sign for pop, you can look here:  http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/p/pop.htm )

After a few hours, we decided to make our way home. We stopped at a large mall on our way, and were completely overwhelmed by the amount of sound clutter that came at us.  The whole day was an eye  ear opener.  We came home, feeling like we'd done something really worthwhile with our Saturday.

(P.S.  A proud mama is writing tonight, as my daughter just received her acceptance into the next step of her education in becoming a translator. )