Worked this weekend on Saturday and attended the launch event for the UN Day for Persons with Disabilities. It was a busy event with booths of organizations, speeches, entertainment provided by persons with disabilities, even a marching band showed up. This was the first year that Kenya has had such an event and was a great way to get persons with disabilities together and inform them of the various forms of help they can receive from local organizations as well as understand what the day is for.
It was when the bus full of deaf persons showed up that my day got really interesting. Two gentlemen talked to me about sign language…I thought it’d be great if I could learn. Well, one guy grabs me and puts me in front of about 50 of the kids and proceeds to have them ask me questions…quick way to learn some sign language I guess. Starts off with the usual…where are you from?…what are your skills?…etc. Then I got a great one…where’s your wife? Ha…yep. I don’t have one yet was my response. So it then goes into him asking the girls if they are interested and embarrassing each of them. It was pretty funny and good fun.
I felt that the event was a success except for one minor hiccup. It would have been great if my organization, UDPK, had a booth at the event considering we’re the umbrella organization for over 200 disability organizations around the country…there’s always next year I guess.