Do I Matter?

by

M. Richard Horrell-Schmitz

Do I matter?  Do I make a difference?  Who will remember me?    Haunting questions we sometimes, some more often than others, ask ourselves.

To be honest, one of my biggest fears in life is that when its all over I will not have done anything “real.”  That I will have used my life as some kind of waiting-room where I have sat around and breathed up oxygen, eaten up resources, taken up space and then just left…

I don’t know “The Meaning of it All.”  I don’t understand some secret of the cosmos, about G-d, or about life anymore than the next soul, but I know I matter.  And I know that YOU matter too.  

A couple of years ago I taught a three-week mini-course on Star Wars–stop laughing… really, I am serious.   At the high school at which I used to work, I taught Star Wars: A Look Inward where I helped students examine the historicity of the original trilogy.  We studied the hero’s journey and compared it with that of Hercules and others.  We talked about the idea of forgiveness, or atonement, of damnation.  We even compared the Empire to the British Empire and their uniforms to Nazi Uniforms.  Basically we went wherever the students took the class.

One student, discovered the important idea that Obi Wan had to leave so that Luke could become the hero.  It is a well worn literary device to write a young orphan (insert Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Hercules, and, in this case Luke Skywalker, etc) istaken under wing by a wise older mentor (Jor El’s teachings in the crystal fortress, Uncle Ben, the Centaur, Chiron, and Obi Wan Kenobi) who later dies, leaves, becomes one with the force.  (George Lucas has atested to this writing strategy, however, this student discovered it on her own.)

What does this have to do with anything?  Well, the student who figured this out, Janessa, wrote a blog about me entitled, “Mr. H: My Obi Wan Kenobi,” in which she makes the comparison between my teachings and Ben Kenobi’s.

Luke was a young kid when he was suddenly thrust into a world he didn’t know.  Janessa, my former student, was hearing until she became Deaf at age twelve and suddenly in a world she didn’t understand.

Luke needed to confront his own demons before he could face his destiny.  Janessa needed to face the reality that her hearing past was not a part of her future and get past that to face her destiny.

Luke met Ben Kenobi–a mentor who helped Luke to discover his inner strength and then died leaving him to mold himself into the hero.  Janessa met her first Deaf teacher who helped her discover her inner strength and then moved on so that she could use that discovery to mold herself into her own hero.  And that was me.

I want you to read it on her page.  Not because it is about me.  Only partly because its about Star Wars, which makes it SO much cooler…  Read it because it reaffirms that we DO matter.  The little things we do CAN and DO have an impact on others, even if we are only in their lives for as little as a semester, as in this case.

When you read this, remember that you do matter, that you can make a difference and that you will be remembered by someone.

http://janessasdeafjourney.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/mr-h-my-obi-wan-kenobi-2/

CLICK HERE to read Janessa’s Blog

On the Road: Just Being

By M. Richard Horrell-Schmitz

 

 

Though there is much to read in this post, none of it have I penned. As I looked through the last week’s pictures and saw how we walked the road to school, I realized that the walking, the road, just being, means more to me than my own words can express. So I have enlisted the help of wiser women and men. This post is entirely made of famous quotes about “The Road.” You will note, however, that few of them actually pertain to terra firma, but, rather, to how we relate to being in a state of motion, to going places, seeing things and experiencing life as humans being, rather than just a bunch of human beings…

It is not down in any map; true places never are. ~Herman Melville

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain

“There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.” — Charles Dudley Warner

“Travel penetrates your consciousness, but not in a rational way.” — Milton Glaser

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” — Helen Keller

“Traveling is almost like talking with men of other centuries.” — René Descartes

“Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.” — Anne Sophie Swetchine

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” — Miriam Beard

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” — Henry Miller

“I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” — Caskie Stinnett

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. ~St. Augustine

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” — John Steinbeck

“To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land; I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel.” — Fran Lebowitz

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. ~Anatole France

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. ~Seneca

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad. ~George Bernard Shaw

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. ~Mark Twain

Good night everyone.  Hope you enjoyed the road as much as I enjoyed just being.  

Warmly,

Richard

Update on Team Ismael: A Graduation, a Fiesta, and Letting Go the Trappings of Things

by

M. Richard Horrell-Schmitz

1)    Ismael’s Graduation:

It is Monday morning, 9 am local time, the time scheduled for the start of the graduation; and only about half of the graduating students are present and the janitor is still setting up decorations to the backdrop of soulful flamenco guitar music blasting over giant speakers.  My wife went to ask the janitor if we were mistaken about the time it should start and if we were early.   When she came back laughing to herself I took it to mean we were very early.

“No,” she laughed shaking her head.  “He said it starts at 9:00 … Mexican time… so it could mean close to 10:00.”

We both immediately felt even more at home knowing that we operate on DST, Deaf Standard Time ourselves.

“I wonder if Deaf Mexican Time is even later?”  I ask.

Sure enough the ceremony begins at about 10:00 in the morning…  The very last student to arrive is Ismael, our Deaf student.    Ismael is the only Deaf student at the local School for Students with Special Needs.  There are no “placement options” here such as Residential School, Mainstream, etc.  This school, or no school.

Ismael's School

Being a smart and cocky little guy, he is something of a leader in the school.  He carries the Mexican flag during the opening ceremonies each day.   He gets high-fives from the janitor.  Head nods from the other fathers and the women all seem to scratch his head as he passes.  He seems to feel welcome there, but at the same time, he seems to know he can do, can be, more.  He simply lacks the language to express his inner intelligence.

Ismael and his Mother, Elizabet

All of the girls are dressed in matching beautiful white dresses with pink bows and sashes—their hair done up in their “Sunday best,” and a couple even have glimmering tiaras.  The boys all have white slacks and dress shirts with little blue bowties.   Nikki, Katrina and Alexandra (who insists on being called Alejandra now) had fun looking at all the beautiful dresses the mothers, sisters, and teachers wore too.  It seemed like every woman there was dressed to the nines!  Vibrant colors and creative patterns on some.  Simple, monochromatic shades on others.  All were very fashionable and somewhat form-fitting.  The women in my family were each happy they had dressed in some of their most stylish attire.

The men were mostly dressed in simple shirts and slacks.  There was the occasional cowboy hat or fancy belt.  I, as always here, was wearing a simple white shirt and khaki pant with my now quite well-worn Birkenstocks.

Though it is early in the day, it is already incredibly hot, so hot, in fact, that most of the graduation’s attendees moved from the seating area to stand under the shelter of the trees, or the overhang of the building.

My family and I were quite welcome by the school’s administrator, its teachers, and even the district president (all of whom will be in Nikki’s sign class starting this week).   We had planned to spend the whole graduation taking pictures and continuing on our people-watching.  However, when the ceremony began and no one was signing, Nikki and I decided to get up and try our best at relay interpreting.

I stood behind Ismael, close enough to see the speaker’s mouths behind the microphone and close enough to the large stereo-speakers to hear a little more.  Nikki stood directly across from where Ismael was seated so he could look up to see her.

(Lipreading, I get maybe 20 percent of what hearing people say.  Wearing my hearing aids, yes, I know… so shoot me… I can hear about 50 to 60 percent of what people say.  Lip-reading with hearing aids, more.  [*but I am still Deaf and proud of it!*]  Lip-reading native Spanish… from a distance… out of context…  yeah, it was rough. )

Why, you might ask, would Nikki and I relay to each other instead of just me interpreting?  There are several reasons.

1)  I simply don’t hear enough to smoothly interpret—I need to process what I hear and see to make some sense of it, which makes my signing VERY ugly and choppy.  Nikki is an EXPERT at reading difficult to understand signers.   She can reprocess what I am slowly, awkwardly struggling to process and condense it into a clear interpretation.

2)  Even if I were a hearing interpreter, Nikki relay interpreting  it is still a better situation—why?  I am clearly of non-native fluency in LSM.  Nikki is near-native.   She is a beautiful signer and delivers precise and enjoyable presentations.  Those of you who know Nikki know what I mean.  Those who don’t, check out this video of her (CLICK HERE)  from 20 years ago when she was a story teller for Signing Naturally.

3)  Ismael is, honestly, not yet a fluent signer.  It is very hard for someone who is already not fluent, to understand someone who is being choppy, or otherwise awkward signing.   Nikki is a certified CDI or Relay Interpreter.  Not only that, she has a lifetime of experience signing to, and understanding signers from all walks of life.  (Her father worked with developmentally disabled Deaf persons at Sonoma State Development Center, her mother volunteered to work with foreign-born Deaf new to the US, and she has always been an avid traveler.  Growing up she was always around signers with differing backgrounds and so she has developed an immense repertoire of sign, gesture, contact-sign abilities to match seemingly any client.

Thus, it is better for our “client,” Ismael, to read Nikki than to read my awkward, in-process interpretation.

Me Signing to Nikki

Nikki Relay Interpreting to Ismael

In the end the school staff were very appreciative that Nikki and I did our best and we will address the need for staff to sign at all times during the LSM class starting this week.

Here are some more graduation pictures:

Graduating Class

Ismael and his Father

Ismael, Katrina, Johan and Alex

The Start of the Graduation March

Ismael as the Honor Guard with the Mexican Flag

Ismael

2)    A fiesta at Ismael’s Hacienda:

After the graduation, my family and I were invited back to Ismael’s house.   After a 10 block walk and 25 minute bus ride out of Zihuatanejo we came to a small town called Coacoyul.  The town was very small and vastly different from the tourist-centric Zihuatanejo.

Busses here are not like in the States.  There aren’t designated stops, per se.  They simply let people off anywhere along the route as requested.  We were let out right in back of Ismael’s family’s home.

The house was amazing in it’s simplicity.  No front door, for starters, and the entry way had two hammocks and a twin bed with a little tv and one armoire.  Ismael said he and his older brother shared that room.

But just before the entrance is the cookhouse.  There was no range, oven or stove in his home, because his mother cooks everything outside—in a clay fireplace that is heated by wood and leaves.   Ismael’s mother, Elizabet, showed us how she cooks here.  It was simply astounding!

Elizabet Preparing a Fiesta

First she builds a fire with very hard, very slow burning, wood.  Directly on the fire she put a cast-iron pot inside of which she placed a whole chicken wrapped in palm leaves in water with spices, tomatoes, and herbs.  She left it there to boil all day.  (Let me just say it was the most tender, delicious chicken I have ever tasted!)

Elizabet also explained how she cooked the homemade tortillas.  She started with dried corn, maze, which she grinds on a stone.  She then mixes the fresh cornmeal with water and spices and pounds and rolls them into thin cakes.

She then places the tortillas inside the clay fireplace flat against the lining all along the sides until they are done, then peels them off the walls.  She indicated several old scars, and a few new, she got while cooking this way.

She reaches into this fire to place tortillas along the sides of the clay

There were two other rooms in the house and two more outhouses.  The two other rooms belong to Ismael’s parents and his sister, along with her two children.  The outbuildings are the washroom for laundry, dishes and baths, and the restroom.

The Washroom

It was a peaceful little home and, due to the intelligence of the design, surprisingly cool despite the climate.  The walls and floors were entirely concrete and the roof clay, which helped.  Also, having no windows or doors, the air moved through the home freely.

We whiled away the afternoon talking about Deaf culture, Ismael’s progress, and my work at CSD and my pride in it’s many accomplishments.  We used a combination of LSM, ASL, fingerspelling in Spanish, Gesture, Mime and speechreading.  All of us were committed to each other with respect and all of us did our part to be understood and to understand each other.

3)    Letting Go the Trappings of Things:

After hours in the dining area eating, I swear, the most AMAZING lunch, I finally retired to the siesta area where I lounged in a hammock watching my son play with Ismael’s four-year-old niece, Zuri.

Blissfully Letting Go...

Taking the bus back from Coacyul Nikki and I made two astonishing discoveries:

1, we have TOO much “stuff.”  We, as Americans, that is, just collect needless, and useless bobbles to make our houses feel like home.  The simplicity and humbleness of Ismael’s home made us feel relaxed and free to be more natural, more together, and more …real…  We suddenly started to think of our “humble” abode in the Bay Area as grossly over-filled with things we really don’t need or want.

2, Our children delighted in playing with the children around Ismael’s home and seemed to lament having to leave.  It was a major breakthrough!  Our “spoiled American children” didn’t look at a TV, play Xbox, play dress-up, or play with any newfandangled toy (my goodness I am sounding more and more like my father everyday…) or anything.  They just ran, threw sticks, kicked dirt-clods, swung on a hammock, and made human contact—and they loved it!  They seemed to have loved the freedom FROM all the trappings of things we so cling to in America.  And just like Nikki and I, they seemed to understand that having more, may, in fact, mean appreciating less.

I know that there are some who would leave this house and say, “Now I appreciate what I have.”  But we left thinking,  “Now we appreciate life more.”  It is NOT the same.  We recognize now that in at least some ways, we have been raising our children to be consumers of resources, distracted by shiny bobbles, flashing doodads.

Riding on that hot, cramped bus back to our little place in Zihuatanejo, we seemed a little different, all of us.  And over the next few days, we noticed that the kids stopped asking for every toy they saw in every little shop.  They stopped asking for candy and icecream.  They started asking to go out into the calle, the street, to play soccer with the neighborhood kids.  They started running and climbing more.  Its like they were shedding their Bourgeois-American identities and put aside their or nouveau riche obsession with collecting… just stuff…

Going to the graduation fiesta has turned out to be the highlight of our time here thus far—not the boatride, surfing, parasailing, or even horsebackriding—just spending time with a loving family and letting go the trappings of things.

I wonder what we will change when we have to come back to the States…

The Founding of Team Ismael: From the Heart

by

M. Richard Horrell-Schmitz

First Sunday in Zihuatanejo

In Loving Memory of Haley Rose Gans (06/16/1995 – 11/20/ 2009) and Carlos Garcia Serna (11/04/1927 – 06/16/2011)

Hola amigos.  Saludos de Zihuatanejo, México!

First, forgive me for it has been eight months since my last post…  No excuses.  Yes, I have been busy, but I should have made time to share my family’s exploits at CSD, etc.  My apologies…

Second, why the Spanish greeting?  My family and I are in our favorite place on the planet—Zihuatanejo, Mexico—for the summer.  No, no, not all fun and games, ok, some fun and games, but we are here because we are volunteering to teach LSM and Spanish literacy to los niños sordos (Deaf children) here in the local community. For the next two months, I will be blogging about our experiences doing so and, at the end of our trip, my children will create a DVD and Youtube posts that will highlight their volunteer experiences, introduce our students here, give some introduction to local culture and share some of the LSM and Spanish literacy they have learned.

Let me back up a bit.  This post will cover the following:

1. Why Volunteer
2. Why Volunter In Mexico
3. How We Formed Team Ismael
4. Dedicating Team Ismael

Be warned, this post is laced with layers of sentimentality and emotion; I had to write this with a box of tissues close at hand.

I.   Why Volunteer:

This should really be unnecessary to discuss—because its needed.  Everywhere in the world, in our own communities and across the globe, there are those who have and those who have not.  Those who have are obligated morally to help those who do not.  Volunteering is, in essence, charity.

                A brief vocabulary lesson:

~Charity is from the Latin Caritas meaning: from the heart.~

Though we often think of charity as some form of “handout” or financial gift, it is really more the spirit of love with which one helps others.  It is the root for words like care, caring, and careful.  When you give charity, you give from your heart.  When you care for others, you do so because your heart tells you to.  When you are careful with others’ feelings, etc, you are doing so because you are investing in them from your heart.

To understand the importance of our current English Charity, it is interesting to look at its evolution.  In Middle English charite from the Anglo-French charité.  It is also related to the Old Irish carae which simply means friend.  In Sanskrit kāma, which means love, is said to have also derived from this Old Latin root.

Growing up my family didn’t have much.  When my mother left, we had even less.  Our community was always there for my dad, who was disabled and couldn’t drive to the store, much less manage raising us on his own.  We got weekly rides to the store from one neighbor, etc.  But I digress—this isn’t about my dad—although it does make for interesting reading.

This is just an example of how others, who had, volunteered to help me, one who had not.

… Now it is my turn…  In this case, my family and I have many great blessings—ASL and Deaf Culture chief among them.  We are simply embracing our calling to share.

Our lovely Teija Kishna

Our thirteen-year-old daughter volunteers in a veterinary clinic. Our nine-year-old reads with and encourages other students with literacy struggles.  Our little seven-year-old, is tender in his giving Tzedakah, and donating his toys, and even his allowance to others in need.  My wife is always volunteering her time and energy to Deaf persons who may be struggling to gain independence, develop sign language skills, or understand their rights in the legal system, etc.  We are also the guardians of our precious Teija, whom we took in from Guyana, South America two years ago—again, another interesting story for another time.

As teachers at CSD, many of us join groups to support one another, like the Gay Straight Alliance.  Some of us read after school with elementary students.  We coach, we donate time, we stay long hours to watch our students play ball just to give that one more familiar face in the crowd.  There are so many in our community who donate so much TO the community.  If we have time but not money, we give time.  If we have more money than time, we give money.   If we have money and time, not a problem I am burdened with, we give both.  Whatever it is that you give, do so from the heart.

My mom and little sister Julia Rose Horrell

Getting back to my dad—though he depended on the good graces of others, he always made time to volunteer at a local convalescent hospital reading, playing music and just spending time with residents.  He always took us with him and it had an impact on us growing up.  And though he was not quite comfortable financially, he always found ways to give to charity.  The capstone in his life of servitude came when, in his late fifties, he and my step-mother (she is really more mom than step) adopted their eighth child because they just felt compelled to.  My little sister, Julia Rose Horrell, is thirty years my younger…

Please, please, don’t take this as self-praise or bragging about my family.  I am only trying to share that everyone can volunteer at many different levels, with many different talents and help many different people.  All of us can give something.  These just happen to be the people in my family.

There is just SO much need in the world.  Some need medical care.  Others need escape from abuse.  Some need someone to talk to.  Others need to be heard.  Some need language.  Some need a home, a family, a meal, a kind word, a hug …

All of us should do what we feel called to do for others.  So the question isn’t, “why volunteer?” its “why wouldn’t we volunteer?”

II.   Why Volunteer in Mexico:

Zihuatanejo Bay

Mi espose e yo adoramos la cultura Mexicana (my wife and I love Mexican culture) nosotros adoramos la cultura sordos (we love Deaf Culture)… why not get involved with la Cultura Mexicana Sordos?!   Simple as that…  It is OUR calling.  Everyone has their own.  For us, Mexico just feels… like home… and if home is where the heart is, and giving to charity should come from the heart…  Isnt Mexico is where we should be?

My wife and I have been coming to Mexico since we were still dating.  We fell in love here.  Yes, we met in the States, but we connected here and it’s a place with which we have a sentimental attachment.

We now come not only for the sentimentality, not only for the sun and the surf, but we bring our kids so that they can learn to give and learn to love diversity.  (see below Mark Twain quote).

Here in Mexico there is a vibrant and beautiful Deaf Culture whose language, their own natural language, LSM, is as beautiful and evolved as our own ASL.  They have art, poetry, depth, and everything we celebrate about ASL.  But they do not have language RIGHTS like we have in the States.  As a result, sadly, there are many children who live in rural areas isolated from the other Deaf in DF.  Nikki and I are trying to reach just some of these children.

A few years ago, while vacationing here, we happened upon a school for students with special needs.  Deaf students were also in this school and they had very little resources, both in personnel and in material.  When the teachers saw my wife and me signing to each other, they eagerly invited us to begin teaching lessons on the spot.  Nikki knew basic LSM and I knew basic Spanish.  But we didn’t feel equipped to teach here.  The teacher in the classroom was eager to know how to teach Deaf students and were trying their very best to give the students basic knowledge of the world.  We started introducing the idea that sign language was a “whole language” to the teachers and the students immediately connected with us.

One boy in particular, Ismael, really caught our attention. He was bright, streetwise, charming and just a bit cocky.  All the other kids seemed to look up to him, despite him being a little younger, and a little smaller, than his peers.  My wife gave him a namesign that was similar to our son’s and when we left, we both felt a little bittersweet longing.

Ismael in his school uniform

We spent the next couple of years practicing Spanish.  My wife became fluent in LSM.  And we corresponded with many local educators as well as Deaf adults in places like DF where they have access to language and culture.   We have Deaf Mexican adult signers who are volunteering their time and talents to make DVD’s of LSM for the teachers and students here.  Nikki will be teaching parents and teachers the intro course in LSM through the month of July and early August.   One new friend, Omar, is a beautiful signer with a heart of pure gold!

Omar the Great

Besides, volunteering in Mexico is very good for my children.  To paraphrase Mark Twain—travelling is the best way to learn to love and respect others.  That is something I want very much for our children to learn.  In their time here I hope that they will learn to recognize their own biases and their ownprivilege and learn to see past their own experiences to understand another’s.   All in all this is an experience that is as much for the local Deaf children as it is for the benefit of my own.  What he actually said was “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

III.   How We Formed Team Ismael:

This endeavor isn’t just about us doing our part.  There are several others to whom we owe a great deal for making this happen.

A.   Muchas Gracias, Maria Elena:

One of the partners of Por Los Ninos, an Oregon-based non-profit here in Mexico, established to help support the educational and medical needs of young children in rural areas, Maria Elena, offered us her apartment for the summer… though we had never, and still haven’t, met her.  She was our contact person on-site who helped us plan our itinerary, etc.

Though a US citizen, Maria Elena raised her children, at least part time, here in Zihuatanejo and has established much of her identity here.  She is absolutely committed to helping others including putting young adults through trade schools, college, cosmetology programs, etc.

Through Maria Elena’s willingness to give up her home for or two months, her local landlords, the Garcia Serna and Noriega families, offered one of their other apartments, a larger apartment that had just been completed.  We are honored as it’s first occupants.

Though we had not, and in fact still have not, met Maria Elena, her generosity has helped make it possible for us to do our work here.  My family and I look forward to her arrival sometime this week so that we may thank her for her generosity.

B.   Muchas Gracias la Familia Garcia Serna:

The Garcia Searnas are Maria Elena’s land lords who opened up their newly built apartment to us.  They are just… amazing people…  just beautiful and loving.  There are five siblings and their respective spouses and children who own and run La Gula Restaurante here in Zihuatanejo.  One brother lives in Chicago, one sister in Cancun, and one sister in Australia, yes, Australia.  They are all very close despite the miles between them.  Despite their father’s passing only the day before we came, they still saw our mission here as important and still made the effort to make us feel welcome and comfortable.

We have come to love the Garcia Serna family in so short a time that I was able to lend support to one of the brothers as he reminisced about his father and shared how hard it was for him to spread his father’s ashes in the ocean that afternoon.  Through the course of our late night conversation we felt close enough to embrace and shed tears together.  Though quite sad, it was also quite touching. Proof of their openness as human beings to share such feelings with a relative stranger.

The following day, the family put together a surprise fiesta for us!  All fifteen or so of us ate and shared stories and laughed and honored Carlos Garcia Serna and his legacy of love with his beautiful family.  At the end of our meal Nikki and our children and I were toasted by Elipidio, second eldest sibling, who told me my name was no longer Richard, but that I must change it to Ricardo Garcia because we are now no longer separate families… It was beautiful and special and made me tear up a little.  I know that this family will always be a part of our lives.   If you ever come to Zihuatanejo, you must eat at La Gula!

Pepe, is an INCREDIBLE chef!

la Familia Garcia Serna:

Maria Serna Sanchez, surviving wife to late Carlos Garcia Serna, is the mother of Guadelupe Garcia Serna of Australia, Elipedio Garcia Serna and his wife Dolores Garcia, of Chicago, Illinois, Elena Garcia Serna of Cancun (her daughter is a great English/Spanish interpreter!), Rosalba Garcia Serna and her Husband Pepe Noriega, who still live in Zihuatenejo and run the family business, and Carlos Garcia Serna is the youngest sibling and laughs good heartedly about being spoiled by the family.

C.   Muchas Gracias, Pat Gans:

I have saved Pat for last because she is truly the center of this whole mission.

We have to look back nearly sixteen years for Pat’s role to become clear.  Nikki and her mother, Caroline, invested a great deal in Haley Gans (our daughter’s earliest Deaf friend) and her family.  It started as Haley’s mother, Pat Gans, somehow found Nikki and Caroline as Deaf Language Models for her infant Deaf child.  (Though, looking back, Nikki and I can’t seem to recall how that came about). Over time, they each became close to the others’ family; Caroline even spent a month in Europe with them as a travelling-tutor/“Deaf-Gramma” to Haley.

Haley Rose Gans

Sadly, Haley Gans died in a skiing accident two years ago.  The tragedy was obviously devastating, but Pat, somehow, was able to muster the courage to celebrate Haley’s life through mourning her loss.  I always knew that Haley was special—very smart, kind, warm, thoughtful, and highly talented, but the celebratory tone of her mother’s writing made me realize just how much life Haley had lived in so few years.

Her loss was the catalyst for Pat’s decision to travel the world in her houseboat with her husband, Haley’s father, John, a lifetime sailor.  While traveling, she also began to write regularly about her experiences and her thoughts on life.

Haley's parents, John and Pat, holding trophies named in honor of their daughter.

One email Nikki and I received mentioned that their travels brought them to, as fate would have it, southern Mexico.  When we heard about their arrival we asked Pat to check in on “our kids” in Zihuatanejo and, after struggling for some time to find it, through her friend Maria Elena, she did!  And like we had years before, Pat fell in love with Ismael.

Pat has always been one of those who would give two arms and two legs and the shirt off her back to help others.  When she heard that Nikki and I planned to come back to teach the students here again, Pat decided to subsidize part of our trip as well as donate educational items to the school and to the kids directly.

Pat and her husband have huge hearts and the financial means.  Nikki and I have the talent and time to teach.  Together we formed “Team Ismael.”  And here we are.  (Oh, and, FYI, now that we are here, we found that we have not just Ismael and a couple other kids, we have more and more students, four sets of parents, two teachers and three of our own four children to teach).

Tracing the six degrees of separation back to Team Ismael is interesting:

1)      We have the students to work with through the help of

2)      The Garcia Serna family, who we met through-

3)      Maria Elena who we met through-

4)      Pat Gans who we met through-

5)      Caroline who had met Pat through-

6)      The birth of Haley Rose Gans….

And it all comes back to Caroline and Nikki volunteering as language models…  almost sixteen years ago…

I guess my ultimate motive for writing this is to share my feelings on what charity really means.  Charity doesn’t mean grudgingly giving a couple bucks to the guy in the Santa suit ringing the bell outside Trader Joe’s–if it isn’t from the heart.  And Charity doesn’t have to mean travelling all the way to Mexico.  Like my dad, who was poor but volunteered in that hospital within walking distance—like Caroline and Nikki who lived just a few miles from Pat and her little Haley—like Katrina who goes to the veterinary clinic to walk and bathe dogs—like Alex who reads with kids—like Johan’s little Tzedakah box–like the Garcia Serna family who opened their hearts to our family–like Maria Elena who has helped so many I can’t even keep track–like Pat and John Gans and their impact on the lives of others, everyone has something to give… and to give from the heart.

All of us on Team Ismael have come together donating and volunteering what we can and the result is this wonderful opportunity that I will be sharing with you all over the next two months.  I am excited, my children are motivated, and Nikki, as always, is… well, she’s awesome…  It will be an adventure of a lifetime!

Katrina is a wonderful TA

IV.   Dedicating Team Ismael:

The day before we came to Zihuatanejo was a sad day for everyone attached to Team Ismael.  Through the months of planning our curriculum, through our countless emails and VP calls, it was never far from our thoughts that Haley would have been sixteen-years-old on our last day in the States—the day before we flew back to Zihuatanejo.  It was also Carlos Garcia Serna’s last day on Earth.

Thanks to the way Carlos Garcia Serna raised his five children, we have a loving family here who welcomed us and made us feel at home.  To the memory of Carlos Garcia Serna we dedicate this first blog entry from Zihuatanejo.

Every day that we are here, we remember the life and spirit of Haley Rose Gans.  We remember that every child we reach here we do so because of her and her mother and father and the way they embrace the spirit of Charity.  Nikki and Katrina and I would like to dedicate Team Ismael to the loving memory of Haley Rose Gans whose life was beautiful and far too short, but whose legacy has already spread all the way to a little town, a little schoolroom, and a little boy named Ismael.

Breaking News: Paddy Ladd Illuminates the Deaf Community in Fremont

By

M. Richard Horrell-Schmitz

From www.youtube.com/aslnikki

Hello my dear readership,

Though I usually throw my blog posts together over my lunch breaks, and usually they take the form of a stream-of-consciousness type of expectorating-exposition, I am struggling to write this latest blog.  This one will take some time, some tender care, some investment more than, well, my spitting sermons and authoritative assertions.   And, yes, at times I get angry and scream, but this is one of my softer blogs.

You must understand that, for me, writing about my experience meeting Paddy Ladd is like being an Israelite and writing about “that time when that guy brought down those rules from that mountain…”  Just as simple language will not do justice to “receiving the 10 commandments from Moshe on Mount Sinai,” simple language does not do justice to the experience of “receiving the Word of Deafhood from the prophet himself.”

(Laughing to myself here)

Ok, ok, I KNOW that Paddy would be the first to say “don’t talk about me like I am something!  I am just a researcher!”  And that’s true, he isn’t a prophet, he isn’t a superhero, and he doesn’t deserve the pressure of being on some kind of pedestal.  He is human, he is humble and he would scream if he read that I compared him to Moses and his work to the Big Ten, but Paddy Ladd has done more with his simple, honest, diligent research than anyone else in recent history to reinvigorate the Deaf community.  And it is his very humility that makes it so hard to write about him!

With that, please understand that this blog is a long time in the making and will come to its final fruition sometime next week.

But here is the first installment, a taste of what I am working on:

There are moments in history when a popular movement is spread by large groups of people.  And there are moments when, simply put, times change and people evolve.   There are very few moments when a single person or idea—that goes against the grain, that pushes the boundaries of our comfort zone, that speaks truth to power—changes the world.   It is my belief that Paddy Ladd is just such a person and that Deafhood is just such an idea.

Oh, I am sure you can name a few deep thinkers who rocked the proverbial boat and made the world take notice—I already mentioned Moses; there’s

Einstein,

Gandhi,

Eleanor Roosevelt,

Charles Darwin,

Jesus,

Malcolm X, just to name a few.

Each of them has so impacted our world that their names are synonymous with their ideas.  We call our brightest students “little Einsteins,” our  social problems get blamed on “Social Darwinism. ”  We have “come-to-Jesus moments” when we need to hash out our problems and get things off our chests.  When someone “gives you the shirt off their back” we are calling them Gandhi.

So what is the common denominator?  What is it about these people that we all recognize as greatness?  Their looks?  Certainly Malcolm X and some others of them are good looking, but would any of us really characterize Eleanor, Gandhi or Einstein as beautiful aesthetically?   Could it be their charisma, public persona, or confidence?  Darwin wasn’t a social person, in fact didn’t even tell many people about his research.   Elenor Roosevelt was terrified to speak in public.  Moses had a stutter.  Jesus was quiet until his 30s before starting only a three-year campaign.  And Einstein was somewhat reclusive until very late in life, and well after his fame had risen.

Were they well liked by their communities?  Malcom X was killed by his own follwers.  Jesus was betrayed by his follower and executed by his community leaders.  Darwin is still eschewed by many.  Roosevelt was thought to be a “flaming liberal” and “the ruination of female virtue” by declaring a woman’s independence from male dominated society.  And Moses, well Moses had lots of public relations issues of his own.

What is “it” that they all have?  And what is “it” that they share with Paddy Ladd?

What kind of person can make a radical change in the world?  What common thread binds great women and men in history?  How is it that some people can try and try and fight and fight and things remain the same, and then one person shows up and the world is turned on its ear?  And, more importantly, why does it seem that so often those who radically impact the world are underdogs, little guys, small fries, or otherwise not expected to rise to greatness?

…  I will examine this in depth…  More to come…

Deafhood for the Fashionably Late Deafened: Better Late Than Never

by

M. Richard Horrell-Schmitz

The old me:

“Huh?”  “What’s that?”  “Say again?”  “I am hard of hearing, can you repeat yourself?”  “Can you repeat yourself a little slower?”  “Can you repeat yourself a little faster?”  “No.   Say it again at normal speed?”  “I know I speak clearly but I don’t hear as clearly can you annunciate?”  ”Oh, forget it!”

Familiar?   For those of us who ever tried to be hearing, maintain our hearingness, or imitate the hearing, it may as well have been printed on our business cards, because that’s what we sounded like.  It’s a lot of work trying to hear when you can’t.  It’s a lot of work trying to get people to understand who can’t.  It’s a hard life of an LDA (Late Deafened Adult).  Hearing aids are not comfortable.  Some sounds are so soft you don’t even pick them up.  Other sounds so loud you feel like your head may have just split in two.

Frankly, hearing aids suck!  But what options do the LDAs  have?

What do you do when you find yourself suddenly staring down forty (or thirty or twenty)—with a life, a career, a family, a community of friends, and a sudden hearing loss?

a)      Turn to the medical professionals who profit on your ongoing struggle to hear more, but never perfectly?  Get an overpriced, under-functioning cybernetic attachment that both acts as a source of neverending attention-getting and birth-control (think hard about this one) all in one?  Continue to say “huh?” “what?” etc?

b)      Turn to people who, like you now are, are Deaf?  People who do not profit financially on your “condition” but rather invest in you as a person?  Learn about the ways the Deaf Community communicates, lives, supports one another, shares in common experiences?

c)       Burry your head in the sand as you pray to be something you aren’t and miss out on your life?

d)      Re-read b…  

Simply put, I am late to the party but still a respected and welcomed guest.  If you are an LDA, like me, contact me!  I can share with you the ways the Deaf Community has welcomed and helped me learn to be… a Deafer me!  Believe it or not, there IS more to life than your hearing and there is a LOT to love about your new identity.  Yes, it WILL take some adjustments.  Yes it WILL be a struggle.  And yes there WILL be times when you still struggle.  But, speaking as someone who has been hearing, hard of hearing, and Deaf, it is MUCH easier to BE Deaf than to just NOT BE hearing anymore.

Read my other posts, we are here for you.

More to come…

Touching Down on Sacrosanct Soil: Residential Schools for Those Who Grew Up Mainstreamed

   

By

M. Richard Horrell-Schmitz

From www.youtube.com/aslnikki

 

I remember the first time I went skydiving like it was yesterday… (insert wavy flashback here)… 

The thrill and machismo of the training and the gear. 

The excitement as I boarded the plane.

The thought, “what the HELL was I thinking?”  as the plane gained altitude.

The feeling that my body would not actually move from the door of the plane as I looked out on a quilted patchwork of greens and browns from fifteen thousand feet. 

The rush of adrenaline as my body accelerated to its “terminal velocity” (a horrifyingly menacing word when you consider its your body that is going that speed). 

The loss of memory as I freefell; “was I supposed to wave off at seven, and pull at six?  Oh no, was five the last chance for the secondary?  Wait, can I just pull it now and get it over with?”

The ten seconds of fear as my chute ever-so-slowly unfurled as I wondered, “is this the last experience of my life?” 

The four minutes of peace and tranquility as I lived out my childhood fantasies of being Superman gliding, soaring, through the air with nothing else in the world to trouble me except the flight. 

The approach… started to get scared again… 

The harder-than-I-expected landing.  

The chute catching a small gust of wind.

The chute dragging me twenty-five meters or so. 

Not being able to take off the harness or rein in the now fully unfurled, again, chute.

At last getting out of the harness. 

And then…

And then, do you know what I did? 

Irrationally, like so many movie depictions and dramatic TV spots, I actually kissed the ground!  Yes, I kissed the muddy, rock-strewn landing field like it was a long-lost-lover!  Not once, but repeatedly. 

 

Human beings were not meant to travel at their “terminal velocity” more than once… because it is said to be terminal…  And having done so, intentionally, without wishing to die while so doing, changed me a little.  I was away from what was my habitat.  I was off.  Alone.  I was stranded somewhere between heaven and earth between two worlds, and I was terrified.  Without thought, being so glad to be back where I belonged, I was moved to such a dramatic display as to kiss the ground, without care of who was watching. 

But I am not talking about just skydiving here.  I am talking about being so moved by a place as to have an emotional reaction just by being there.  I am talking about the feeling of going home after having been away.  I am talking about Schools for the Deaf. 

Residential Schools are more than places of education.  They are more than cultural centers.  They are more than homes.  They are havens, shelters, safe-ground where our young are protected, loved, and given a chance to be fully human. 

The irony is, sometimes we don’t know how safe they are until we have experienced that limbo, that life-threatening fall, that space between two worlds. 

I was never fortunate enough to have attended CSD—I grew up hearing—and because my Deaf identity was developed quite late in life, I didn’t know what I was missing.  Of course I went to all the open houses, the plays, tournaments, gatherings, etc.  And I slowly began to identify friends and acquaintances by their schools and years of graduation.  New faces were recognizable from yearbook pictures next to my wife, brother-in-law, even mother and father-in-law.  Eventually, I started to want to be there more often.  I wanted to be one of the faces in the yearbook.  Not because I wanted to be “cool.”  But because I didn’t feel good about my hearing loss at that time and everyone in those pictures did—I have since come to realize that I didn’t “lose” my hearing; rather, I have “become” Deaf.  But I was in that limbo between the safety of the plane and the safety of terra firma.  I was freefalling and I had no control over it. 

Finally, I did touch ground at CSD.  It was awkward at first, like my cute was going to drag me away as soon as I touched down.  Shadows of my old life, my hearingness, began to creep up, but I quickly threw off the harness and fully planted myself on solid Deaf ground.  Now, every time I go there, I feel that irrational pull to bend down and kiss the ground, thankful that I am safely settled where I belong.

The point of this is simply thus:

Schools for the Deaf are dear to many of us, some who never even went there as children, because they are the few places in the world truly ours.  They are places where we are at last important, welcomed, and respected for what we CAN DO and who we ARE.   They are places that, for us, we are wholly human, and not looked at as missing something. 

When I interact with hearing people at the gym, the store, the gas station, the hockey rink, wherever, I am consistently fully aware of my differentness, my “needs” so to speak.  I am always using their language, writing, asking to be written to, and being told, “never mind,” and “its not important” when I ask for something to be repeated. 

When I set foot upon a residential school’s soil, I feel a bit lighter, freer, and more whole because I know, without doubt, that I am and that I can contribute something to the world.  Of course I know that all of us can contribute to the world anywhere we are, and that, in fact, as human beings, we are constantly called upon to give to our world in whatever way we can, but the sense of pride and joy and accomplishment, and history… Ah… its beautiful!

There really is no admonishment or even praise intended in this post.  I just wanted to share my feelings, and those of many of my friends and contemporaries about how we feel when we touch down at CSD and other residential schools for the Deaf.

P.S.  I have since skydived many, many more times.  I don’t kiss the ground any more, but I am fully aware of the tenuousness of my existence while falling at “terminal velocity” and coming home, landing—landing safely, that is—is always a welcomed experience.