During the last seven months of my Peace Corps service, I am featuring photographs and stories of several persons with disabilities living in Cameroon. All the photos are part of a series called “Persons with Disabilities of Cameroon.” The goal of presenting photographs and their stories is to create better awareness about the plights that persons with disabilities face in a developing country. When I return to the US, I hope to exhibit this series in a gallery and publish a book to educate others about persons with disabilities living in developing countries as this topic is so rarely discussed in the media.

In a country where resources are so lacking for persons with disabilities, their potential to grow their mind goes unnecessarily wasted.  A 17 year-old teenage boy who is both deaf and blind grew up never going to school.  A few humanitarian groups have visited him in home while he was growing up and tried to take him to school but they all found that he couldn’t learn because had no sight and no hearing to communicate.  When one is deaf and has no access to technologies such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, the person cannot learn the language through hearing and speaking.  Sign language provided deaf people who had no access to technologies a visual system of communication. When blindness is added to deafness, one has to learn tactile sign language, a language system that involves touching the hands of a person who signs.  However, in a country like Cameroon where resources and knowledge are limited, tactile sign language is often unheard of.

Sylvester was born with normal hearing and vision.  At age two years old, he became sick one morning.  The mother said he had discharges on his eyes and she and her husband noticed that when touching top of his head, blood was no longer pumping.  His parents took him to Bamenda Regional Hospital.  He stayed at the hospital for one week where he received eye drops.  He was then transferred to another hospital in a nearby village, Mbengwi, that happened to have an eye specialist.  When he was in Mbengwi for two weeks with his mother, a doctor tried to operate on his eyes because his eye lids became permanently shut.  The mother said thirty minutes into the anesthesia, the doctor said they could no longer operate him and it was better to leave his eye lids shut because he would die otherwise.  His deafness was first discovered too while staying in Mbengwi.  When they were testing his eyes by using flashing lights, they put an instrument in his ears to test his hearing.  Hearing aids have not been available to him to try.

Before he became sick, he was hearing and talking.  He was able to say papa, mama, and call people’s names.  He enjoyed listening to music.  He was punching in numbers on the phone key pad to hear the tones.

When the mother and father first learned that their son is deaf and blind, the mother cried but the doctor comforted her and asked her to take her son home.  She said since bringing her son home, “it has only been God and prayers who has comforted [her].”  When they came home, she said that she and her husband concluded that “only God knows who gave him deafness and blindness.”   The mother added that people in the community told her and her husband that their son’s deafness and blindness were caused by witchcraft but the parents told them, “Only God knows.”

Shortly after bringing Sylvester home, the mother had to take him to a local clinic again twice due to discharges coming back in his eyes and needing eye drops.

The parents did not figure out how to effectively communicate with their son.  They let him play and be on his own.  When Sylvester was growing up, the mother taught him how to cook and wash himself and clothes.  He can tell which clothes are clean or dirty by smelling.  He knows how to put his clothes away and find his clothes.  He knows how to dress himself.  He can eat by himself.  She taught him how to fetch water from a well.  He knows how to walk to a well and get water.  He can sweep the floor and wash dishes and things.  She has created one tactile sign language.  When she touches his palm of his hand with her fingers closed in, he knows that he has to get his dish for food.  The mother added that he was also taught how to pray.  He knows how to put his hands together to pray.

Sylvester has finally been in school for the first time in his life in the past seven months to learn how to do handicrafts, which includes making brooms and baskets.  There is a bus that comes to pick him and take him to school and bring him back home and goes there five days a week, Monday through Friday.  The mother first learned about the school when a staff member came to the house and encouraged her to send him to school.

Before he started going to school, he stayed at home all day.  He was often angry.  When he was angry, he ran around, hit and throw things and break them.  The mother also said that when he was angry, she could tell that he was lonely and bored.  The mother struggled to keep him busy at home and found that keeping him busy was a challenge. To calm him down, she would hold his hand and when he smelled her, he calmed down knowing that his mother was present.  Since he started school, the mother said that she noticed that his anger has decreased.

Sylvester with his mother.