St. Anthony's secret

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and it was only out of polite obligation that we didn’t cancel on our new friend Jonas. But went we did. And as the equatorial sun moved toward afternoon, we made our way down the dusty red road out of town. It was true, a more beautiful day you would be hard pressed to find the whole worldwide. Sunny and breezy with shadows just now starting to flicker over the road. Soon we were leaving our hilly haven far behind and descending down into the heat of the open African bush.

I had to admit, I was not at all prepared. Startled even. St. Anthony’s school was a few squat brick structures with holes for doors wide open to the rolling grasslands surrounding. Sand, paling in the sun, covered everything in view. It had become hot and sweat was on our backs. They came to meet us in the neck of the path after we turned off the road - a whole pack of them, faces turned upward into a burning sun and big baby-toothed gaps for smiles. Their little hands reaching up to us, clasping our fingers and thumbing our shirts. What was left of their too large, dusty old clothes were drooping down their chests and off their shoulders. All sets of curious eyes were on us and we were - for the moment - the very center of the universe. Expressive little sounds replaced words and signaled their excitement. “How are you?” they signed.

All were deaf and none could speak. A few had known speech as small children and from them you could sometimes catch a word in their sounds, like “mama”. Some had been deaf from birth. Untreated malaria or other fevers had claimed the hearing of the rest and for an unlucky few, took other pieces of the brain too. Uganda had too many hearing and speaking children to educate and to-be adults to find work for already, so it had no use for these children. Their parents didn’t know what else to do with them or how to communicate with them. So they were sent here - a small school for the deaf funded by small donations of churchgoers and what little guilt-money the government would drop. Orphans of functional society. This Sunday in particular had been a very special day - parent visiting day. Out of 36 children, 6 parents came.

But this did not keep them from smiling this afternoon. Within a few steps of our arrival, we were mobbed by children, and all our hands actively held. As we took a tour of the school, we were flanked by barefoot escorts who were walking through the brush in order to stay right at our sides. We saw the vegetable gardens where they worked to raise a little money of their own and the well that had been overrun with red mud. We saw the bunkbed dorms where they slept, mosquito nets full of holes and little old suitcase at the foot of each bed not much bigger than a lunchbox or just a few plastic bags - their belongings were not so numerous as to require much more. We saw the classrooms where they learned to write and to sign. More importantly, they were learning small trades and skills - ones that could perhaps someday allow them an income for themselves. Every last child knew how to work - garden, carry large jugs of water, lift a spade as soon as they were able. We took group pictures of them and loved to see themselves afterward - marked by a series of signs we didn’t understand and subtle squeals. We let them play with whatever things we had on us - an umbrella, a ponytail holder, a watch - and all were of immeasurable fascination and enjoyment. And then, we all went out back to play.

What kind of things can one play in a big empty field when no one can hear or speak? Answer = almost anything. The favorite game when the mzungus came was to be swung around by the wrists so that their little feet were airborn and their heads thrown back in happiness. Some of the older boys had set up a hurdle of sorts made out of sticks and they were competing jumping over it. There were backflips and handstands and cartwheels, ranging from impressive gymnastics to imitative tumbling and somersaulting in the grass by the little ones. These were the things you can practice when you don’t have toys or Tvs or sports equipment. In an effort to divert a fight between four children who wanted to hold my only two hands, I started ring around the rosie but without the song - they would just watch me eagerly for when it was ready to “fall down”.  Oh this, this was a good game. And it showed on their faces - exploding with excitement and suspense, fixed on my every move so as to leap into the air when it was time to go round again. With children, it seems that one little smiling face can sometimes expand to three times its normal size when having fun. And African children especially get these huge happy eyes and this incredible irrepressible expression - that when fixed on you is perhaps the greatest gift anyone ever gave you. Nothing was too simple to be thoroughly explored and enjoyed. And when that got boring, something else would surely present itself, in whatever form the spindly African bush and its white visitors would provide. They rarely cried when scraped - which happened often in bare feet. Instead some would cry sporatically in an exaggerated fashion in order to be picked up and held. For these young ones, being held in the arms of an adult no doubt happened rarely if ever. So we obliged them, we the big white santa clauses coming to town.  Yes, we were the headlining entertainment for the day. And tomorrow, surely there would be something else, if you knew how to look for it.

Soon it was time to go. The evening storms were coming and could be heard roiling in the distance. Time to make the long walk back up the hill before dusk. Goodbye was a non-event. No cries or fits,  just a smile and a wave. Loss was normal, goodbyes quite usual and everyday attachments far too fragile to fuss about. Come back soon, said Father Anthony, one of the three hearing and speaking adults helping run the school. Yes, we said. Couldn’t wait.

Three hours earlier, I had arrived, broken my own heart over the scene and cried quietly all over their little heads. Children of a society that never wanted to know them, who didn’t even have the words to express what that must feel like. No toys, no parents, no clothes or shoes to ease the pain. But when I left, I dare say, I felt quite cheerful. Quite happy indeed. They had infected me. Set me straight for that second. Shared their secret, one that not even most poor Ugandans knew. A secret that we could never fully unravel or take home with us. A gift from your God to his “forsaken” that none of the “saved” could know. That life is not worth waiting for. Promises not worth making. Comfort and convenience not worth knowing. The future not worth planning. Because without all those things, even without hearing, the metric system of life measures only in moments. These ones. Right. Now. Not even memories are worth more than a few shillings. Life is pennies in a pond - out of reach as currency but so very pretty when the sun catches them like that under those gliding, glittering ripples.