‘I woke up to a world of silence’
Stepping into the vortex of a world of silence is no easy feat, writes Jabulile S Ngwenya.
|||Cape Town - Stepping into the vortex of a world of silence is no easy feat for someone, who one moment was enjoying music and the next moment had to learn how to read lips, how to communicate in sign language, and how to navigate a world without sound.
Twenty five years ago, Vuyile Wiseman Baliso, an assistant director for the national department of public works in the Mthatha regional office and chairperson of the Eastern Cape branch of the South African National Deaf Association (SANDA), woke up to a changed world.
He had suddenly became deaf.
This transition from a world of bustling sound to a world of silence happened all too quickly for Baliso - within the space of mere days following a short illness which saw him admitted to Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town.
The illness put him in a three-day coma. When he awoke, on his 16th birthday on September 13, 1990, he discovered he could not hear.
Baliso recently celebrated his 41st birthday and 25 years of deafness - a milestone, which each year, falls in Deaf Awareness Month.
“It was very painful and unbelievable at first, and I had depressing thoughts,” Baliso said, recalling the day his life changed.
“At first, I didn’t know I was deaf yet as I was still weak, but the doctor noticed I didn’t reply, raised his voice five times, and noticed it,” he said.
He said he was “shocked and surprised” at the news. The shock soon gave way to anger and depression as Baliso struggled to cope with this sudden, life-changing event.
“I just could not accept it, but some doctor brought me a lot of reading material on losing hearing and deafness, and how to live after this diagnosis,” he said.
The hospital appointed a social worker who assisted Baliso in understanding what happened to him, and who arranged for him to complete his schooling at Filadelfia Secondary School for learners with special needs in Soshanguve, Pretoria.
He had passed Grade 9 at the school he attended beforehand, but had to repeat that grade as all subjects were new to him. “It was a new start,” he said.
After two long years of living in denial, Baliso, who has a National Diploma in Accounting from Tshwane University of Technology and a B Tech Degree in Business Administration from the Central University of Technology, Free State, finally accepted his deafness.
His moment of acceptance came when after befriending some deaf people at his school and discovering they shared similar life stories, Baliso said, “it dawned on me that I was not alone”.
Highlighting how his deafness initially left him reeling, he reminisced about music. “I miss music a lot. When I could hear, I loved gospel and reggae,” he said.
It didn’t take Baliso long to master SASL (South African Sign Language) soon after starting school at Filadelfia.
“The guys taught me immediately at school from alphabet to all. It took me three months to fully grasp it,” he said.
Baliso doesn’t wear any hearing devices as they don’t benefit him at all. He communicates through the spoken word and SASL and has access to an interpreter to enable him to perform his duties to maximum capacity.
The theme for this year’s Deaf Awareness Month is “With Sign Language Rights, our children can”.
Baliso said that this means that deaf children, who have access to equal education and opportunities provided to them in SASL, can make it in life.
Deaf Awareness Month, he said, is important for increasing awareness about deafness and how to support people who suffer from hearing loss.
“It is important to make sure that the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people are met because we are building a broader society and no one should feel neglected,” he noted.
“At SANDA, we have always believed in developing deaf kids from an early age so that as they grow up, they become competent in the basics of sign language,” he said.
SANDA, started in 2004, is a non-profit organisation run by volunteers, and Baliso is one of the original handful of volunteers. The organisation, he explained, was born out of a need for “an organisation for deaf people which will provide access to even villages and the remotest areas, and led by deaf people themselves”.
SANDA advocates for the “rights of deaf people and aims to remove barriers and create opportunities for deaf people through different programmes”.
Baliso volunteers his time working for the organisation. During most weekends he could be found doing SANDA related work that mostly involves “lobbying for funding, engaging with communities, and with municipalities and government departments, and arranging educational workshops”.
He added: “Working for SANDA is rewarding when seeing maximum awareness created and deaf peoples lives being changed on various fronts”.
Baliso, who has garnered several awards for his work in developing deaf sports, including the 2008 Free State Premier Award Gold for Advocacy and Sports Development, said the accolades he has received motivated him to “lobby hard for the rights and opportunities of deaf people”.
The work Baliso does in developing deaf sports has helped to keep youth off the streets, steer them away from crime, and develop their talents.
“I love sign language as it gives me the ability to communicate noiselessly, even in places where it would be tough to talk,” he laughed.
“Being deaf made me learn to accept things and gave me a completely new perspective of things,” he said. Becoming deaf was a blessing, he said, as he reflected on his life. “It opened some doors for me which I never knew existed”.
One of these doors, he said, is the opportunity given to persons with disabilities to make a difference through being “involved in government paper discussions under disability, which enables us to influence things and policy when it comes to our issues”.
Baliso is also a national disability committee member in the public works, and it is a role that sees him providing direction and guidance on disability related issues.
The positive aspect of being deaf, he said, “is that it made me understand not only deafness, but disability as a whole, and has taught me to be a fighter and champion”.
The only negative aspect, he added, “has been the frustrations of sometimes being taken by other people to be an invalid”.
Baliso, who is avidly following the Rugby World Cup, said the changes he would like to see in South Africa included the “prevalent culture of corruption being reduced, if not eliminated”.
Deafness, he said, is never an excuse to think you can’t do something. He urged the country’s youth to “connect spiritually with our Maker as most of our problems can be sorted if people have inner peace within themselves”.
Baliso, who would be celebrating Heritage Day in some of Durban’s beautiful gardens this week, encouraged youth to “work hard, not expect free things from the government, value education and make the most out of every opportunity they receive”.
– African News Agency