A Taste of Ethiopia

We attended an educational and fundraising event to benefit the Deaf community in Ethiopia tonight. The event was hosted by Nazareth College and we heard about the involvement of the Speech-Language Pathology faculty and students in outreach work in schools for the deaf in Ethiopia. There were many speeches, including one by our friend Solomon Yigzaw who dressed in traditional garb for the occasion. There was much great Ethiopian food and good company.

Kate, Solomon, and Afomia

I met some lovely young Deaf and hearing children from Ethiopia who was fascinated by how different American and Australian sign languages were and we spent a lot of time swapping signs and helping them to master the Australian two-handed fingerspelling.

Solomon had a great time being able to speak with people in his first language, Amharic, and be understood. We had an amazing time communicating where Solomon would speak in Amharic, Afomia (hearing, non-signer) would explain what was said in English and give her reply, and Dawn or I would sign her responses in ASL so that Solomon and our other Deaf friends could understand. It was an amazing experience in multilingualism.