ASORGUA

Saturday was my first meeting with ASORGUA. H&M were kind enough to pick me up and bring me to the headquarters, which is a small section of a building owned by the Comite (pro-deaf and blind committee). The facility is actually the Comite´s school for the blind, which borders a private hospital. M gave me a quick tour. There is a garden with myriad indigenous plants for the blind children to get acquainted with by smell and touch. This lovely sheltered workshop has differently textured tile pathways to orient the children.
But back to the ASORGUA building. It is very modest but very well taken care of by its dedicated members. There is a communal kitchen and a room with a computer. The common space is sufficiently large and, more importantly, sufficiently well-lit. There was an impressive nativity scene occupying about one fifth of the room--this was their first meeting of the new year.
To say that I had a warm welcome is a gross understatement. As if with long-lost relatives, our connections were immediate and infused with energy and care. Introductions did not need interpretations beause greetings and fingerspelling were already in my diminutive GSL lexicon. The best part was reuniting with JB, who is a good friend and colleague of the MSW program at Gallaudet.
For the formal meeting itself, the agenda was written on the dry-erase board and M voiced in Spanish for me. I was pleasantly surprised, however, at how much GSL is intelligible for those with knowledge of ASL. I was an item on the agenda, noted by the words "estudiante de chicago" and "Barbara" (the primary GU liaison who set up the Guatemala US connection, who is in frequent communication with JB). Pushing my GSL to the limit, I fumbled through an introductionthat was met with truly non-judgemental smiles. The meeting was led by president C, with other officers leading different sections of the agenda. The main topics of discussion were savings, membership dues, and upcoming Deaf Ed conference in Costa Rica and New Years wishes.
Most of the members are over 30. One is like 90, a founding member of ASORGUA, who rides the bus for over an hour to get to meetings. It was great to meet so many members of the Deaf community. After the business meeting, people stay around to chat for like an hour and a half. Again I was surprised at how possible communication was--some people knew the ASL alphabet and could voice a little in Spanish which helped a lot. After a round of Deaf hugs (the best!) I went back to H and M´s care balancing my overflowing cup.