Member of Parliament

Want to hear a funny story? So way back in January when I started researching for this trip, I read about Alex Ndeezi, the first deaf Member of Parliament in Uganda. He is quoted in multiple articles discussing the dangerous results of not educating the deaf about HIV/AIDS. He compared the lowering HIV/AIDS rates among the general population due to national education programs to the deaf community that remained at risk due to lack of effective communication with health educators. His urgency is part of why I chose Uganda as the site for my summer of research.

Important side note necessary to understand the rest of the story: Mr. Ndeezi is technically the executive director of UNAD, so his picture his on the website, but he is not in the office on a day to day basis.

So last Monday, I e-mailed Mr. Ndeezi to ask if we could have a meeting. On Tuesday, I went to UNAD and was waiting for the staff’s all day meeting to break for lunch. A man walked through the lobby and into one of the offices. It took me a second to place him, but I suspected it was Mr. Ndeezi. So here’s the first funny part (aka Sarah doing something dumb): I didn’t want him to know that I was talking about him so I signed to a woman nearby asking if that was indeed him. But he’s deaf and could not have heard me AND I chose to speak in the language he does know, so he would have understood me if he came back in the room AND the woman is hearing and knows English so I could have asked out loud.

So I went up to him and introduced myself as the researcher who e-mailed him the previous day. He grabbed an interpreter and asked me about my project, work with UNAD, etc. I asked if we could meet and he said he would e-mail me by Friday and we would meet the following Tuesday or Wednesday.

So Friday came and went and so did the days he said we would meet without hearing from him. This afternoon, I was hanging out at UNAD, working on wrapping up my research. Mr. Ndeezi walked into the room and stopped and looked at me. I smiled normally, but he smiled so slowly and gave me the guiltiest look I have ever seen. So we are meeting this next Tuesday at 8:30 am in the UNAD building. I never knew that guilt was such a powerful scheduling tool.

Sarah