My story
Kevin Xirum
UKAbout me
After reading a newsletter about Deaf Children in Bolivia. I decided I’d like to find out more about their life in a Latin American country. I contacted David and Denise Flynn, who are connected with Latin Link. Denise is Bolivian.
My Story
My project started in Belfast, where I met Denise and she taught me Bolivian Sign Language (LSB) and some basic Spanish.
On the 30th of August, I flew to Cochabamba via Madrid, Sao Paulo and Santa Cruz. In Cochabamba there are three schools, one is an Evangelical Christian boarding school (Vinto) and the other two are Catholic day schools. In the North, there is a day school in Riberalta.
I was taken to Centro Christiano para Sordos – Christian Centre for the Deaf (Vinto) in Vinto, which is a small town outside the city of Cochabamba. I arrived late evening.
Next morning the first impression was of the height of the mountains and the weather was like spring.
Josemiguel, the watchman guided me round the school grounds and introduced me to the children and the teachers.
Deaf children hugged me as if they has known me for a long time, which was a nice welcome.
I was at the School in Vinto for a total of eight weeks. It’s a boarding school for fifty children from age 6 to 19 from all over Bolivia. Most of the children have been abandoned or are orphans. While I was there one girl, Rosmery was abandoned by her parents because the mother left her husband without saying where she had gone and the husband couldn’t afford to keep Rosmery because there were other brothers and sisters.
There are two dorms, one male and one female. The boys have house parents but the girls only have a housemother. There are also two dorms half finished; they have been waiting for five years to complete them because of lack of money. The dorms are old but the boys’ dorm is worse than the girls’ and the toilets have no doors and the smell affects the rooms.
There is a building where they cook and eat. One lady cooks during the school days and on other days children cook. They use gas to cook. There is a rota for the children to wash the dishes with cold water and washing power for clothes!!!! Every morning at 7 children have maize with milk like porridge or maize with water, coffee or tea with cinnamon with bread. At break time, they have fruit. At 12.30pm they have soup and for example rice, pasta, potato and pieces of meat all together. The next meal at 6.30pm is the same as breakfast. I noticed some days they didn’t get as much to eat as on other days. To me the children seemed to be always hungry. They don’t have snacks or sweets or soft drinks because children have no pocket money.
The School was established by Americans missionaries in 1979 because they were anxious to reach Deaf people for Christ in Bolivia, still today it is a Christian School and children have bible teaching everyday and must attend church on Sunday. It is Evangelical, not Roman Catholic. I also visited the Roman Catholic school called Instituto De Audiologia (IDA) which started in 1957. Although it is an oral school the children sign. There is another Catholic school outside Cochabamba called Centro Audiologico Multifuncional, which was established 9 months ago. Here there is more emphasis on sign language.
In Centro Christiano para Sordos, everyone can sign including the hearing people for example the cook, head teacher, and secretary, the odd job man. The Vinto has five Deaf teachers; each teacher has his/her own classroom. There is one hearing teacher for sewing. Two teachers teach the small children. One teacher works with children with mental problems. The other two work with children who are latecomers to education, one is a Finnish lady who has worked there for five years and gets support from her church. The children learn number, colours, letters, and basic words by copying, they don’t read, write or solve problems. The children have only three hours of education from 9am until 12pm. Children have drama classes every Tuesday and Thursday in the City of Cochabamba. It takes thirty minutes journey by bus. It’s difficult to take a group if children on public transport because the buses are very full. They have their own school bus but no money to cover the petrol.
The school has very little equipment and material and there are no computers. Also two children have hearing aids and the rest don’t.
In the past the school used to have an audiologist from Japan but now there is no one because of lack of money.
The rest of the children go to mainstream school from 12pm until 5pm. Their grade is not the same level as their peers. For instance one nineteen-year-old boy with eleven year olds.
They have interpreters but they are not qualified. My observation was that they did not interpret everything that the teacher said. Also they don’t have Deaf awareness or perhaps they forgot and they stood in the wrong place, also interpreters tended to take over the teacher’s work. I spoke to the children about it; they said that they weren’t very good.
There are two hearing helpers for homework, both can sign.
While I was there, there was a volunteer from California who is a missionary. Every morning from 8am until 9am, he taught the children from the Bible. He was from the Christian organisation called Christian Deaf Fellowship (CDF), which gives money to Vinto for building, teachers’ wages and for food, accommodation and education for children whose parents can’t pay. The Government doesn’t give monetary support. But they do recognise the Deaf school as a school.
On Sunday, everyone goes to church in Vinto town. Monday evening is boy’s bible class and Tuesday girls’. And Thursday evening everyone goes to church in Vinto school.
Monday morning is the day all the children gather together to sign sing the National Anthem and the flag is raised.
Friday is the day all the children do the school cleaning before lunchtime and sometimes they are late for lunch. They sweep the floor, mop the floor, collect the rubbish, clean the classrooms, school toilets, clean the school hall, polish the school stage with petrol to make it shine and the wood strong, the smell is unbelievable!!!!
Every morning on the weekend, the children have to do the work for instance boys do the gardening in a great field. They grow vegetables. The girls do the gardening too. They use simple tools and it’s very hard work and they have to irrigate. They have blisters on their hands and get really hot from the sun.
They have to wash their own clothes by hand outside in cold water. They have cold showers daily.
The older boys and girls have their own responsibilities looking after the little ones, making sure they are washed, dressed for church and school, and ready for bed.
The little children always get dirty because it is very dusty also they are not well trained, how to wash their hands, brush their teeth, keep themselves tidy, and have good manners. This is because they have no parents.
The school has walls around which means the children are always together and rarely go out independently, little social life, they don’t see the real world because they don’t have pocket money to go any where although children go home for three months December, January, and F February if the parents come to collect them. Also for 30 days during the cold weather in June/July some children go home because there is no heating in the school and the dorms. They have the TV in the dining area but no subtitles and of course they don’t listen to music.
On the 6th of September is the day they did the school march with all other schools around Vinto, the Mayor was there. A Deaf person told me if one school didn’t attend then the Mayor would order the school to be closed.
The children who are latecomers are more likely to work for Vinto when they leave school whereas the children who are in mainstream will look for jobs outside and one girl wants to become a Music teacher for the Deaf.
During my stay in Vinto, I helped to do the cooking, wash the dishes, look after boys/girls out of school hours, work in the garden, take classes and help the teachers in general. I spent a lot of time talking with the children and playing with the little ones. They were interested to learn about the Deaf World and they were interested in BSL, but I felt they didn’t know about Deaf Pride and Deaf Rights.
I met Deaf people from outside the school, most of them are low pay job, they have no Deaf identity, and they don’t want to meet other Deaf people, although in Cochabamba they have Deaf Association, really they there for Sports such as basketball. I didn’t visit there because, as I was at a Christian school, I was discouraged going there because they said the people at the association were not Christian and they wouldn’t give me the address.
In the middle of my stay in Vinto, I went to a town called Riberalta for two weeks. Riberalta is in the very North of Bolivia on the river of Beni. It’s very different from Cochabamba. Cochabamba is in the mountains and it’s hot and dry, whereas Riberalta is low lying on the river with reddish brown soil and hot and humid, a tropical climate.
The name of the day school in Riberalta is called Centro De Sordos “Arca” Maranatha – Centre for the Deaf “Ark” The school started in 1979 then closed because of lack of finances and was reopened on the 1st of June 1998 by a Deaf man from Switzerland and his Deaf Bolivian wife, they used to work for Vinto.
In Arca there are two Deaf teachers with a Deaf Director also two hearing teachers who can sign and since 2002 there is a speech therapist from Switzerland and she is also an interpreter for the school.
Twenty-six Deaf children and four adults go to school. In the morning the youngest children go to school from 8am until 12pm. The older children and adults go from 3pm until 6pm. There are two boys who left school without completing their education because one boy’s family needed money to support their family, all his family worked at the Walnut factory. The other boy was not interested in education.
The children are taught a variety of subjects similar to schools in this country although their method of teaching is different.
When the children finish their school day, they would wait for their taxis, in fact a taxi is a motorbike not a car. About up to four little children would climb onto the motorbike, one in the front of the driver and others at the back. In Riberalta everyone rides motorbikes and very few have cars, because it’s cheaper transport.
I felt that this school compared to Vinto, is very clean, modern, and the children are better dressed. They have nice desks, chair, and books for studying and material for schoolwork.
On a Tuesday night, Arca has a meeting about how to become a professional interpreter. They use the method from Brazil. Deaf people are not happy with their standard of interpreter for instance interpreters keep forgetting to respect Deaf people; Deaf culture, and forget the basic rules of being an interpreter. They make sure all interpreters remember all the signs for names in the bible for example Matthew, Exodus and Genesis.
Every Thursday after school, older children gather together for dinner in Arca then social in the evening. They would talk and play games. One evening, I did a talk about Deaf culture in Britain also Scottish culture.
On the 15th of October, people from all over Bolivia respect Disabled people; it’s called Disabled Day. All the special education classes must display their schoolwork and people come and see how they are getting on.
Every Saturday two boys get paid for doing odd jobs at Arca.
The kind of jobs that Deaf people do in Bolivia are working in the fields, farm work, walnut factory, other factories, printing, selling food in the street, teacher for the Deaf, helping in school, missionary and shoe maker. Very few are professional.
I visited a 24 years old Deaf man who makes and paints colourful crafts for birthday celebrations although he still goes to school at IDA.
In La Paz, a Deaf lady approached me selling a little leaflet with wise sayings and the leaflet explains that she was Deaf and she was selling it to support her family.
Early one morning, I visited another Deaf school in rural area called Centro Audiolo-ologico Multifunicional, which was a very long journey from Cochabamba. IDA established the school about 9 months ago with the money from Japan. The school was planned for Deaf. However as there are only eight at present, the school accepts hearing children. There is a dorm for the Deaf but it’s empty. The Deaf teacher who lives in Cochabamba has to get up at 5am because the school starts at 8am. There are eight children of various ages. Some walk a very long way. He finds it difficult to teach the children because their grades are different.
Among the Deaf I met, I didn’t get a feeling of Deaf Pride or Deaf Identity however they made me feel welcome and they were very friendly. We learned from each other. Now I am aware of the needs of the Deaf in a developing country.
On the 30th of August, I flew to Cochabamba via Madrid, Sao Paulo and Santa Cruz. In Cochabamba there are three schools, one is an Evangelical Christian boarding school (Vinto) and the other two are Catholic day schools. In the North, there is a day school in Riberalta.
I was taken to Centro Christiano para Sordos – Christian Centre for the Deaf (Vinto) in Vinto, which is a small town outside the city of Cochabamba. I arrived late evening.
Next morning the first impression was of the height of the mountains and the weather was like spring.
Josemiguel, the watchman guided me round the school grounds and introduced me to the children and the teachers.
Deaf children hugged me as if they has known me for a long time, which was a nice welcome.
I was at the School in Vinto for a total of eight weeks. It’s a boarding school for fifty children from age 6 to 19 from all over Bolivia. Most of the children have been abandoned or are orphans. While I was there one girl, Rosmery was abandoned by her parents because the mother left her husband without saying where she had gone and the husband couldn’t afford to keep Rosmery because there were other brothers and sisters.
There are two dorms, one male and one female. The boys have house parents but the girls only have a housemother. There are also two dorms half finished; they have been waiting for five years to complete them because of lack of money. The dorms are old but the boys’ dorm is worse than the girls’ and the toilets have no doors and the smell affects the rooms.
There is a building where they cook and eat. One lady cooks during the school days and on other days children cook. They use gas to cook. There is a rota for the children to wash the dishes with cold water and washing power for clothes!!!! Every morning at 7 children have maize with milk like porridge or maize with water, coffee or tea with cinnamon with bread. At break time, they have fruit. At 12.30pm they have soup and for example rice, pasta, potato and pieces of meat all together. The next meal at 6.30pm is the same as breakfast. I noticed some days they didn’t get as much to eat as on other days. To me the children seemed to be always hungry. They don’t have snacks or sweets or soft drinks because children have no pocket money.
The School was established by Americans missionaries in 1979 because they were anxious to reach Deaf people for Christ in Bolivia, still today it is a Christian School and children have bible teaching everyday and must attend church on Sunday. It is Evangelical, not Roman Catholic. I also visited the Roman Catholic school called Instituto De Audiologia (IDA) which started in 1957. Although it is an oral school the children sign. There is another Catholic school outside Cochabamba called Centro Audiologico Multifuncional, which was established 9 months ago. Here there is more emphasis on sign language.
In Centro Christiano para Sordos, everyone can sign including the hearing people for example the cook, head teacher, and secretary, the odd job man. The Vinto has five Deaf teachers; each teacher has his/her own classroom. There is one hearing teacher for sewing. Two teachers teach the small children. One teacher works with children with mental problems. The other two work with children who are latecomers to education, one is a Finnish lady who has worked there for five years and gets support from her church. The children learn number, colours, letters, and basic words by copying, they don’t read, write or solve problems. The children have only three hours of education from 9am until 12pm. Children have drama classes every Tuesday and Thursday in the City of Cochabamba. It takes thirty minutes journey by bus. It’s difficult to take a group if children on public transport because the buses are very full. They have their own school bus but no money to cover the petrol.
The school has very little equipment and material and there are no computers. Also two children have hearing aids and the rest don’t.
In the past the school used to have an audiologist from Japan but now there is no one because of lack of money.
The rest of the children go to mainstream school from 12pm until 5pm. Their grade is not the same level as their peers. For instance one nineteen-year-old boy with eleven year olds.
They have interpreters but they are not qualified. My observation was that they did not interpret everything that the teacher said. Also they don’t have Deaf awareness or perhaps they forgot and they stood in the wrong place, also interpreters tended to take over the teacher’s work. I spoke to the children about it; they said that they weren’t very good.
There are two hearing helpers for homework, both can sign.
While I was there, there was a volunteer from California who is a missionary. Every morning from 8am until 9am, he taught the children from the Bible. He was from the Christian organisation called Christian Deaf Fellowship (CDF), which gives money to Vinto for building, teachers’ wages and for food, accommodation and education for children whose parents can’t pay. The Government doesn’t give monetary support. But they do recognise the Deaf school as a school.
On Sunday, everyone goes to church in Vinto town. Monday evening is boy’s bible class and Tuesday girls’. And Thursday evening everyone goes to church in Vinto school.
Monday morning is the day all the children gather together to sign sing the National Anthem and the flag is raised.
Friday is the day all the children do the school cleaning before lunchtime and sometimes they are late for lunch. They sweep the floor, mop the floor, collect the rubbish, clean the classrooms, school toilets, clean the school hall, polish the school stage with petrol to make it shine and the wood strong, the smell is unbelievable!!!!
Every morning on the weekend, the children have to do the work for instance boys do the gardening in a great field. They grow vegetables. The girls do the gardening too. They use simple tools and it’s very hard work and they have to irrigate. They have blisters on their hands and get really hot from the sun.
They have to wash their own clothes by hand outside in cold water. They have cold showers daily.
The older boys and girls have their own responsibilities looking after the little ones, making sure they are washed, dressed for church and school, and ready for bed.
The little children always get dirty because it is very dusty also they are not well trained, how to wash their hands, brush their teeth, keep themselves tidy, and have good manners. This is because they have no parents.
The school has walls around which means the children are always together and rarely go out independently, little social life, they don’t see the real world because they don’t have pocket money to go any where although children go home for three months December, January, and F February if the parents come to collect them. Also for 30 days during the cold weather in June/July some children go home because there is no heating in the school and the dorms. They have the TV in the dining area but no subtitles and of course they don’t listen to music.
On the 6th of September is the day they did the school march with all other schools around Vinto, the Mayor was there. A Deaf person told me if one school didn’t attend then the Mayor would order the school to be closed.
The children who are latecomers are more likely to work for Vinto when they leave school whereas the children who are in mainstream will look for jobs outside and one girl wants to become a Music teacher for the Deaf.
During my stay in Vinto, I helped to do the cooking, wash the dishes, look after boys/girls out of school hours, work in the garden, take classes and help the teachers in general. I spent a lot of time talking with the children and playing with the little ones. They were interested to learn about the Deaf World and they were interested in BSL, but I felt they didn’t know about Deaf Pride and Deaf Rights.
I met Deaf people from outside the school, most of them are low pay job, they have no Deaf identity, and they don’t want to meet other Deaf people, although in Cochabamba they have Deaf Association, really they there for Sports such as basketball. I didn’t visit there because, as I was at a Christian school, I was discouraged going there because they said the people at the association were not Christian and they wouldn’t give me the address.
In the middle of my stay in Vinto, I went to a town called Riberalta for two weeks. Riberalta is in the very North of Bolivia on the river of Beni. It’s very different from Cochabamba. Cochabamba is in the mountains and it’s hot and dry, whereas Riberalta is low lying on the river with reddish brown soil and hot and humid, a tropical climate.
The name of the day school in Riberalta is called Centro De Sordos “Arca” Maranatha – Centre for the Deaf “Ark” The school started in 1979 then closed because of lack of finances and was reopened on the 1st of June 1998 by a Deaf man from Switzerland and his Deaf Bolivian wife, they used to work for Vinto.
In Arca there are two Deaf teachers with a Deaf Director also two hearing teachers who can sign and since 2002 there is a speech therapist from Switzerland and she is also an interpreter for the school.
Twenty-six Deaf children and four adults go to school. In the morning the youngest children go to school from 8am until 12pm. The older children and adults go from 3pm until 6pm. There are two boys who left school without completing their education because one boy’s family needed money to support their family, all his family worked at the Walnut factory. The other boy was not interested in education.
The children are taught a variety of subjects similar to schools in this country although their method of teaching is different.
When the children finish their school day, they would wait for their taxis, in fact a taxi is a motorbike not a car. About up to four little children would climb onto the motorbike, one in the front of the driver and others at the back. In Riberalta everyone rides motorbikes and very few have cars, because it’s cheaper transport.
I felt that this school compared to Vinto, is very clean, modern, and the children are better dressed. They have nice desks, chair, and books for studying and material for schoolwork.
On a Tuesday night, Arca has a meeting about how to become a professional interpreter. They use the method from Brazil. Deaf people are not happy with their standard of interpreter for instance interpreters keep forgetting to respect Deaf people; Deaf culture, and forget the basic rules of being an interpreter. They make sure all interpreters remember all the signs for names in the bible for example Matthew, Exodus and Genesis.
Every Thursday after school, older children gather together for dinner in Arca then social in the evening. They would talk and play games. One evening, I did a talk about Deaf culture in Britain also Scottish culture.
On the 15th of October, people from all over Bolivia respect Disabled people; it’s called Disabled Day. All the special education classes must display their schoolwork and people come and see how they are getting on.
Every Saturday two boys get paid for doing odd jobs at Arca.
The kind of jobs that Deaf people do in Bolivia are working in the fields, farm work, walnut factory, other factories, printing, selling food in the street, teacher for the Deaf, helping in school, missionary and shoe maker. Very few are professional.
I visited a 24 years old Deaf man who makes and paints colourful crafts for birthday celebrations although he still goes to school at IDA.
In La Paz, a Deaf lady approached me selling a little leaflet with wise sayings and the leaflet explains that she was Deaf and she was selling it to support her family.
Early one morning, I visited another Deaf school in rural area called Centro Audiolo-ologico Multifunicional, which was a very long journey from Cochabamba. IDA established the school about 9 months ago with the money from Japan. The school was planned for Deaf. However as there are only eight at present, the school accepts hearing children. There is a dorm for the Deaf but it’s empty. The Deaf teacher who lives in Cochabamba has to get up at 5am because the school starts at 8am. There are eight children of various ages. Some walk a very long way. He finds it difficult to teach the children because their grades are different.
Among the Deaf I met, I didn’t get a feeling of Deaf Pride or Deaf Identity however they made me feel welcome and they were very friendly. We learned from each other. Now I am aware of the needs of the Deaf in a developing country.
"I was part of a Teen Missions Int'l team that went to the Vinto, Bolivia Deaf Center in june-july of 1981. While there we built from adobe what we were told was to be used as a church. We got the foundation and walls up while there and had just begun the supports for the roof when we had to leave. The Beals were the missionaries manning the center at the time. I am glad to read it is still a functioning place."
