An inspiring story for children

Reviewed by Husna Inayathullah

Samaya, the story of the deaf baby elephant is written by Tineke de Silva Nijkamp with drawings of Ingrid Maters. It is a Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha publication.

The book is a first hand experience of the writer. Tineke de Silva -Nijkamp who visited Sri Lanka for the first time in 1974 with her Sri Lankan born husband Susiri de Silva. At that time she was a teacher at a Deaf School in the Netherlands her home country.

She was shocked to see that most of the deaf children in the remote villages of Sri Lanka did not attend school. Tineke had a dream to help the underprivileged deaf children to get an education.

She settled down with her husband in Sri Lanka and started the Dr. Reijntjes School for Deaf in Moratuwa. Her husband started the Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha Printing Press in Ratmalana.

Deafness in infants and children is a major issue. In children it may affect the development of language and can cause work related difficulties for adults.

Handicap

The harmful effects of childhood deafness are given little thought by many people today as it is an invisible handicap.

The writer Tineke de Silva is the founder and principal of Dr. Reijntjes School for the Deaf. She has written this story to make children and adults aware of this invisible handicap in a creative manner.

She has used animals living in the forest as her characters to convey the message. She uses elephants as her main characters. The way a baby elephant suffers from deafness in an elephant family and the way the father and mother elephant are worried is beautifully portrayed.

It is a heart-breaking short story. It makes us feel for those with a hearing impairment. The book is not only meant for children but also for adults.

Through the character of a deaf baby elephant called Samaya, Tineke portrays the problems faced by a deaf child. A deaf child has communication problems and that is shown beautifully in the story when the baby elephant gets lost in the jungle and when the other animals kept on searching for him. All the other animals in the jungle scream and shout but nothing is heard by Samaya.

Speech therapy

As soon as the deafness is found out in Samaya, the other animals help him. They start doing a speech therapy for him. This shows us that a deaf child should get speech therapy at an early stage.

It is necessary to learn the sign language when a child is born deaf. All animals in the jungle learn the sign language to communicate with the deaf baby elephant.

They did not want to make Samaya feel lonely and isolated. They wanted to understand Samaya and make him understand them to express their thoughts and communicate with each other well.

The love shown to one another in the animal world is marvellous. They are like one big family. It shows us that a deaf child can develop its skills and can get educated if the people around are helpful.

Lonely

"If Samaya cannot talk to you and you cannot understand what he wants to tell, he will become very lonely." This is indeed the emotional words of the wise owl to the other animals in the jungle when he was explaining the importance of learning the sign language to communicate with the deaf Samaya.

This shows how friendly, lovable and helpful that they are to a handicapped. Even human beings should learn this particular quality. We should show extra care and love to a handicapped so that they will not feel different and lonely. We should make them feel as other human beings.

"And do you know who is the happiest of all? Yes of course our little Samaya... He thinks life is wonderful!" Making a handicapped feel happy is something great. Little Samaya does not feel that he is handicapped instead he feels that life is wonderful due to his friends in the jungle.

This story gives a message to both adults and children. It makes us pause and think a while about the handicapped. Good qualities such as kindness, caring and sharing are shown in the story.

"The handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind," said Marlee Matlin.