Deaf Tamang Brothers

In a traditional Tamang town near the Tibetan border, we met an 80-year old woman with two deaf sons. Her first two children had died. She sat in the yard of her home, where her sister-in-law was sifting corn and another woman took an occasional pinch of snuff and leaned back on her bamboo stool. The mother told us that she was afraid of dying with no one to care for her sons. Her older son was 60, her younger son 45. The older son was working in the fields, while the younger sat by himself under woven baskets in the corner of the yard. He was hidden from sight, and his mother led him by the arm into the courtyard, where he refused to look at us. He wore a tattered red tunic and had a shaggy mop of black hair. He was very shy and seemed depressed. When she let go of his arm, he retreated into the house, his head low, still not looking at us. We were told that he was afraid of new people, and when he returned to the doorway, he sat looking over the courtyard with an expression of abject sadness.



A few minutes later, his older brother returned from the fields, a wide smile on his creased face. He was literally bouncing up and down with excitement, and he pantomimed that he worked in the fields while his younger brother wouldn't work. Like the deaf man above the village, he knew only basic hand signs and gestures. The brothers personalities' couldn't have been more different.



On the hillside before reaching the town, we'd met a deaf man with an empty bamboo basket slung over his shoulders. In his belt he had a khukuri, a traditional Tamang knife, and he carried a long stick of bamboo, which would be stripped into rope for bundling firewood. Later that day, he would hike the steep descent back to the village with a heavy load of wood.

I tried to sign with him, but he only looked at me in confusion. One of our guides knew a few words of “sign,” words that were self-explanatory and used in rural villages all over Nepal. By snapping his thumb and middle finger and pointing his forefinger in the air, he was able to ask the man where he was going and what he was doing. The man gestured up the hill, and made a chopping motion with his palm to indicate that he was gathering firewood.

I signed to him that I was also deaf, and he began to laugh at me. He simply couldn't believe that we had this thing in common. I pointed at the hearing aids in my ears, and he laughed and pointed. I wanted to laugh with him-- we could share this at least, but clearly he was also confused and uncomfortable. What could this white man with a big fancy backpack have in common with him?

He continued up the hill, and we went further down, where a group of young girls was cutting grass for fodder. We asked if they knew the deaf man and what his name was, and they giggled, too. He was called Tuku, and I wondered if he knew his own name.