Living in the Boys Hostel

We relocated to the Boys Hostel (BH) several weeks ago.
The BH is the second school building of the St. Joseph school which is located on the Asha Deep campus. Currently, the main school building is expanding, so more and more of the classrooms are becoming unusable. That being said, during the day, two free rooms in the BH host classes for mentally disabled children and physically challenged children. Most of the other rooms are used by us, the boys and one guard, who we don´t see often because he works during the night.

Currently, one of the rooms in the BH is being used as a seminar room for a tailoring class. Merlin and I are living on the upper floor, which is the only floor which has a European toilet. This toilet serves as our bathroom, but in fact it is a small adjoining room containing a toilet and bucket. Instead of showering, people bath here using buckets and small scoops, with which they pour water over their heads.

A few days ago, I found out that there is a hose outside of the BH, which is much more effective, as well as more fun, than using the bucket. Normally, we “shower” after we play football. As Merlin mentioned in his report, the boys are really sporty. They told me that they are looking forward joining a gym as soon as they leave Asha Deep because they want to build up their muscles.

The BH boys separate themselves into two groups, one being the group including the hearing-impaired boys and the other group being those which are physically challenged. Except for a few troublemakers, the boys are very independent and voluntarily help when it comes to spontaneous exercises since there is no written list of names which divides the responsibilities around the BH. Everybody helps as much as their disabilities allow them to.

One of my favorite instances of the teamwork here is that a blind boy pushes another boy in a wheelchair, while the child in the wheelchair guides them around the BH and the rest of the campus.

Most of the boys here are deaf. Merlin and I have been living with the hearing-impaired in Asha Deep at least for three weeks at this point. We started to learn the basic sign language in Kotdwar, which houses the KSSS headquarters, a month ago.

Recently, we recognized that sign language is a very regional language, this being due to there being different sign languages spoken by each individual. For example, there is a teacher in the school who has studied sign language in Dehli for two years and her style of speaking is very different compared to the hearing-impaired children in Asha Deep. Furthermore, I use often a translation app called “Spread the Sign” which shows videos signing vocabulary in sign language in many different regional languages. Most of the time, the boys in the BH don’t know the vocabular themselves since they invent new signs for words as they go along. Merlin told me that deaf children often create their own language if nobody teaches them the “right” language. I think this is the reason for the different ways of signing.