On Being a Deaf Fulbrighter

I was recently asked by the Director of Fulbright Nepal to write a brief description of what it's like to be a disabled Fulbrighter for something that the IIE (Institute of International Education) is working on. I thought I'd share my thoughts on being a differently-abled Fulbrighter with you.

First, a cartoon I thought was extremely appropriate:


Published November 1, 1991 by Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, New York.

I arrived in Nepal at the beginning of September, 2010, to do research in deaf education and literacy. Given that Nepal is my first real international trip, I was understandably nervous about the culture, and especially the language. Fortunately for me, my hearing (or lack thereof), was extremely beneficial in my immersion in the deaf culture here in Nepal. Within my first few days, as I was looking for the Nepal Federation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, I asked a group of local boys – who were signing – where to find it. They grabbed me by the arms and chatted with me all the way to the Federation, taking the time to sit down with me to wait for the President of the Federation to come available. Similar scenes are repeated at the deaf schools and associations around the country. People may shy away from me at first, but upon learning I’m deaf and know a decent amount of Nepali Sign (NSL), I’m suddenly surrounded by friends.

There have been challenges due to my hearing loss as well. Spoken language is the biggest challenge. I was determined to learn spoken Nepali when I arrived (despite the difficulty of not being able to hear it), but have discovered that lipreading Nepali is actually far harder than speaking it. Thus, when I use my –meager- Nepali vocabulary, it puts me in an uncomfortable position of being able to speak it but not understand it in return. Since realizing this, I’ve put my focus on NSL and that has been much more rewarding. Another difficulty is that despite my hearing loss, I don’t fit into the traditional “mold” of deafness because I speak relatively normally, and lipread (English) fluently. I’ve been told that “I must have only a small hearing loss”, that “if I want people to believe I’m deaf I need to act deaf”, and have had teachers and principals from deaf schools (who know I’m deaf) call me on the phone because they don’t believe it!

Overall, despite (or perhaps, because of) my deafness, I have had a wonderfully rich experience in Nepal, and have learned more than I could have imagined. I wouldn’t trade the opportunity for the world.


FYI: There's another new post below about my recent visit to the deaf school in Pokhara.