A story of hope for a deaf child and her mother

Stories Of Hope : Dreaming the Impossible Dream Imagine this. Home is a shack in Khayelitsha. A seriously ill seven-month-old baby girl. Panado given at the clinic. A fever that would not break. A mother who loaned a car to take her baby with a lolling head and a weak cry to Red Cross Children’s Hospital, where drips and medication took over. And for three days, she expected a sheet to be pulled over her baby’s head. Meningitis was the word the doctors used as they shrugged their shoulders and could give no promises. To her isiXhosa ears it was a foreign medical term for this virus that would re-route their lives. A virus that had stolen their sleep and their hope, and their baby’s hearing. This is the true story of Singathwa and Mbalentle. When the doctor said that her baby was deaf, Singathwa did not know what it meant and did not want to tell her husband. “How long,” she thought, “how long will my baby have this deaf-ness.” And then they were referred to Carel du Toit Centre. She nervously took a taxi with her baby and entered the CHAT Centre. Despite her fear for the unknown they comforted her, in English, and gave her hope, in English. Singathwa couldn’t believe that she had never heard of Carel du Toit, little knowing that this place held the key, not only to her daughter’s future, but her own. Mbali, as she was quickly nicknamed, waddled into CHAT every week, stealing everyone’s hearts with her bright eyes and adorable smile. Her mama soon realised that this place, that she had been so afraid of, was a place of hope. A place where she would learn how to teach her daughter to listen and where they would celebrate her first words together. The hearing aids whistled, flopped and fell out, but Singath-wa persevered, and at two years Mbali had her Cochlear Implant surgery, and thrived once she was able to hear again. Thrived because her mother attended sessions and applied what she was learning, at home. Thrived because she wore her cochlear implant the whole day. Thrived because she was able to go to the Carel du Toit School. A very special school far from home, but a school that provided what she needed - small classes, individual attention, a language- enriched program, rooms acoustically adapted to make listening easier, audiolo-gists on call and CHAT sessions weekly where her mother continued to be coached on how to teach her daughter, who is deaf, to speak. And CHAT was the very place that Singathwa’s dreams started changing. Leaving her previous job,where she worked long hours and on weekends, she now joined the CHAT family. At the CHAT Centre she became an assistant housekeeper and more, much more. As a parent who had walked-the-walk she was able to provide support for the new isiXhosa families, who anxiously waited for their first appoint-ments, uncertain of what the future would hold. She talked-the-talk, parent-to-parent in their mother tongue, gave them comfort and hope in isiXhosa. And her role grew… she became the interpreter for families in their CHAT sessions; she attended FAMSA counselling courses; she interprets during meetings and communications with school parents; and today also leads a support group for isiXhosa parents in collaboration with the Carel du Toit Social Worker. And as she grew, so her daughter grew, astounding commuters on the taxi ride to school, this little girl with her cochlear implant, chatting away to her mother, the one with the laughing heart. Mbali is now in Grade One, a ballet dancer who received distinction for her first ballet exam in Grade R. And her mother dreams now, not only for her children but for herself. She dreams of becoming a nurse and in this tale of impossibilities that became possible, why not. Mariette Nosworthy CHAT Early Interventionist