The immersion program we ran in Rwanda is over, though we hope to go back and do it again, bigger and better, next summer. The songs we taught – from Bob Marley to “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” to ones written by the teachers we trained, still echo in my head. Here are thoughts while observing one of the morning classes.
After the morning break, Mari and Kate invite teachers into their classroom. Mari prefaces the lesson with a question about sign language. Is there a version in Rwanda? Do the teachers know? One of the teachers says that there is indeed a version here in Rwanda, and a quick Google search brings up lots of resources – something to check out later.
Mari is going to use Louis Armstrong to help her teach some signs. The music fills the room. “I think to myself … what a wonderful world.” What an amazing voice. Mari shows a picture of Armstrong on her iPad, moving around the semi-circle of teachers.
The words to the song are on the board, this isn’t the first time teachers have seen the text. The signs get a little difficult, however. There are lots of them. They’ll use this half hour to learn them a little better. I didn’t know that colors in American Sign Language are the first letter of the color with a bit of a wiggle. I knew that water is the sign for W put under the mouth, and I just learned that world (it’s a wonderful world!) is a W with both hands, and that the right hand circles and then lands on top of the left hand.
When my own kids were young, like many parents, we taught a few signs. Conway was good at communicating “done!” or “enough!” well before she could actually speak. On her first birthday she was quite clear that she didn’t want any birthday cake, vigorously signing done! done! But grandma had made a special cake in the form of a lamb, so we ignored Conway as she signed over and over that she didn’t want any. Finally, exasperated, she swiped the cake from the high chair tray with the back of her hand.
When I was working at the University of Minnesota I ran across a woman who had created a company called Signbridge. The signs, also from ASL, functioned as the bridge between English and Spanish. She did lots of experimenting with her daughter and then began putting the materials together online, with videos and songs. I loved the idea, but unlike the sites that come up for Rwandan sign language, there are no hits on Google for Signbridge, the company.
After Mari reviews the signs for the first verse, the teachers listen to Louie Armstrong again and sign along for the whole first verse. The second verse starts. Mari explains the signs one by one: “I see skies blue.” Do adjectives always follow the nouns in ASL? Is there a plural marker or is sky and skies the same word? I really need to learn more about sign language.
Now in the second week of the program I see, when I look at the faces of the teachers who have come to our training, their personalities, too, at least a little. I scan the semi-circle now as they concentrate on moving their hands around. Like in any crowd, some folks are quite serious, others playful. Some are willing to make mistakes, others like to hold back until they are sure. Some of the teachers have two or three years experience, which puts them in their early twenties, just one teacher has more than a decade of experience, at least as far as I know. I’ve learned to count on her when the teachers are doing group work and the group needs a leader. When one of her colleagues gets even slightly out of line, she is the first to set things straight. I bet she is a no-nonsense disciplinarian with her primary students.
“… The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night …” sings Amrstrong as the group signs along to the music, watching Mari closely. That’s the end of the second verse. The third starts with the word “colors,” which is fingers wiggling in front of your month. So no letter this time, but a general wagging. I think there must be a fascinating logic behind ASL signs. And I bet that, like any language, signs evolve over time, that there are dialects and slang. How I would love to know more about that!
“Do you know what a rainbow is?” asks Mari. I think to myself (hey, just like Louie!) that they do indeed, but they might not have a link between what they know as a rainbow and this particular linguistic sign in English (“rainbow,”; check out Saussure for more on signs in linguistics, if that’s your thing). No one reacts much to the word rainbow, so Mari explains and you can see when recognition hits. Ah, that thing, their eyes and faces seem to say as they connect the unique sound “rainbow” with that colorful arc, when conditions are right, that appears up in the sky. It could be any sound or combination of sounds, of course, as long as we all agree what it means. Saussure was big on the arbitrariness of the sign. I wonder how you say rainbow in Kinyarwanda?
Class is wrapping up. What the heck, let’s go find out. I look up the word for rainbow.
Umukororombya. How cool is that? What a wonderful world!