one more old entry…
November 11, 2007
I think today is actually the first time in months where we actually stayed home for the most of the day (I had only went out to grocery shopping for less an hour while Susie stayed home all day long). I think it’s something we need for now as we have been going out of home on a daily basis.
Yesterday, we actually woke up simultaneously and had a nice bed chit chat like we usually do occasionally. Once I got out of the bed, I knew that I had to wash the clothes immediately before we started our day by going to Centreville to do some errands. Once I took a pail of soapy warm water out on the balcony, I was little startled with two men painting the balcony’s fence. I just realized that they had actually used a ladder outside to climb onto our balcony to paint the fence. Since the fence was wet in paint and the hanging wire had been unhooked, I asked Dimby’s sister to see if we can actually use their clothing wires to hang out wet clothes. She didn’t find it any problem at all. After a few washings of our clothes, I enjoyed hanging our clothes on their area because I got to encounter two large watermelon sized tortoises upclose. One was very active by walking around and taking a peep at me often. The other one was very still and probably sunbathing. After the hand-laundry, we set off to Centreville. Susie need to shop for her pants and maybe some shirts so we went to Chinatown where we found two malls that was actually run by the Chineses. I saw that behind many shops’ cash box sat many Chineses. I assumed that they are the owners of the shops. I could tell that they were Chinese fobsters for that they dressed like many local Chineses do. I think it’s actually the first time I’ve seen that many Chineses in one spot. We came to Chinatown here a while ago, but we ended up going to the wrong mall where we didn’t see many Chineses running the shops. Anyway, as Susie couldn’t find anything to her tastes, we went to a hotely where we had ate with Fanja and Dimby. We found the lunch there so delicious so we went there again only to order the wrong dishes. I don’t think Susie enjoyed her meal as we didn’t get our ‘Fraise’ drinks as they didn’t have it. We tried their passion fruit drinks and I thought it was delicious. After our lunch, we went to Dimby’s uncle and aunt’s pharmacy to get Actifed medicine for my month-long headache and sinus problem. Afterwards, we went to Shoprite to do a light grocery shopping. Then we went to Cookie Shop where we spoiled ourselves with American-style milkshakes and brownie that Susie craved for. The brownie was actually yummy that it was actually better than most cafes have in USA. After hanging out there for more than an hour due to a few magazines that they have, we went to a cybercafe where they were about to close until they saw us come in and we asked if it was closed… they said no and let us get in for half hour. I wanted to print the contract for the apartment listing for my condo, but the worker said that the printer was down and to come back tomorrow which disappointed me. So, I had immediately decided that I was done with the internet even though I had many things to do on the internet - book an air ticket to Johanesberg for Feb. 3rd, as well as look for a new itinerary for our December Malagasy trip. After the internet thing, we took a bus ride back home. We had prepped/cooked for one hour for our dinner which was just mashed potato and snow peas. But then since we had so much free time every evening, it was actually nice to prep/cook in old fashioned way instead of relying on frozen food often while back home. After dinner, Dimby stopped by and shared his experiences while growing up in a deaf school in Ansirabe. I could related his experiences to mine because we went through the same thing in a deaf institute. Susie admitted that she had some difficulty understanding Dimby. But I let her try to learn and be more receptive to him instead of me interrupting their conversation to interpret for her if needed. Sometimes, she’d have the conversations fly through her head without her conscious. It is like that she didn’t really care much about what Dimby said or so that she doesn’t really bother much to interrupt him and ask him to clarify what he was talking about. I don’t know if it is the way she grew up as she wasn’t exposed to deaf culture until she was 19. I know that I have to let her grow and learn more about herself when she is exposed to more new different environments. Sometimes I have to remind myself that she is merely oralist. That’s why I try to remind her not to use voice as well as mouthing that often since she tries to sign and speak at the same time which drives me crazy once in a while. Also, after Dimby left, Susie and I had a nice chit-chat on about how we are so different. We think differently. We do differently. We even write differently, too. I think being out in a new unfamiliar environment bring the true selves out of us to another level which could be both good and bad news for us 
Anyway, I think I’m going to stop here for now and do my homework! I think I’m starting to get the hang of being a teacher even though it’s very challenging because I have to come up with new ideas to motivate my pupils at Akama. If you have any ideas, feel free to fire them away here…
November 16th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I’m really enjoying reading about your adventures! The only thing I ask - more paragraph breaks - all that text really hurts the eyes!!
Would you mind if I linked you from my blog? I’ve put up a photo that you took in Dubai of me and would like to give you a proper credit!
Hope you and Suze are well.
Caroline xx
November 22nd, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Hi, Sure sound like you both having a great time there and new experience too. It me Vicky A. from NY.
OK Gabe, well not to nag on it, but yes. Suzie, as well my own life in grade school was alot different from what you had. Although there was a Deaf school in NYC. It was not really publish from mainstream like suzie and I. So we had to be very orally to get our needs. That is why even still today i personally have a hard time Signing and not doing any mouth moving. Think to be in our shoes. where twice a week some time three times a week being pulled out of our classes and have to show up for “speech class”. We had to learn to be pure oral. I don’t ever even recall back in time ask if we were interested in Sign language, it was just voice and that it. We were even criticized by our speech teacher to say so and so correctly even if we can’t hear it. Believe me, it was hard. I am sure suzie even says it. Our little goup (suzie, christina, lisa, and myself) where we all raise same way.. speech speech speech, not a word of sign, wish that we at least had known ASL through school age. To have proper interpreter and all to help us through rather then us asking each other “what did that person say?” We had it hard, but we made it.
Help with children and behavior? email me what kind of problem you having. If it basic behavior, like sit down and be quiet and listen. Humm, should be easy. Get, if you can there don’t know what you have there, but like small candy bars or piece of hard candy. If they listen and learned by the end of the day with out one trouble. Give them a candy for reward. Sometime just takes little bribe to get to the point, but it helps. Well like i said email me situations and i be more then happy to try to help with advice. Sometimes, it might be that a child feels there no point cause there no future. If you remind him/her, “they can make that change and if they really want to, they need to work it and prove that they are capable.”. Take it from our own “deaf ” experience back in USA. Before 1973, we were consider Deaf = DUMB” (oh how i really hate that line the most too)
but it was the truth back then of psychological thinking. Yet we forth for the rights and we made it happen. They just have to keep positive and take the bright side of it all.
Well i know you don’t have lots of ti me on the net so I’m going to cut it from here. Happy Thanksgiving ( that today in USA). Best of luck and enjoy your time while can..
oh BTW, Yes you and susie ARE different. Think how boring life would be if everything was the same.
it like a paper color in just ONE color.. boring 
So the two you is nothing more then just “NORMAL COUPLE” lol..
see yah .
November 25th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Hi,
This is just to let you know that I was Gabe’s classmate from an oral school (all Deaf students) in St. Louis for many years. He learned to talk and lipread. Yes, we have speech class and we had to talk in classrooms. No Sign Language were permitted while we were growing up. Yes, we saw some deaf individuals struggle to pronounce words and become frustrated. We all understand that because we have experienced it ourselves.
I think Gabe’s point was that maybe in order to interact with a variety of people will help Susie develop a wide range of communication method and self confidence. Maybe not. Some people can quickly learn and adapt while others don’t have the ability for different reasons. Each couple are allow to have different views. I see that Gabe really loves Susie and both give so much support to each other. Gabe supports Susie to be the best she could and that’s what we should do, encourage and support others to thrive to be the best in the best ability as possible.