Deaf Tour Guides In Nicaragua

Jul - 03 | By: Seek Geo | 28 comments.

Filed under : Blog, Nicaragua Trip, Travel

As many of you know, we will be going to Nicaragua in Central America for one week where I plan to teach American Sign Language (ASL) this coming Saturday. I’d like to introduce you all to Craig, he is the one who invited us down to Nicaragua. He works in the tourism industry specifically for people with disabilities and his goal is to make tours accessible for deaf people. While there, the plan for us to teach a small group of locals some ASL which can then be useful for tours. That will be big plus when Deaf Americans come down to Nicaragua and can use that kind of service since they will know ASL rather than trying to find translators. Craig recently announced our Nicaraguan trip in his blog, Accessible Everything, check it out, there you can read more about the goal and purpose of this trip. We are definitely look forward to it!

This Saturday, we will be leaving from Portland, Oregon at 6am and there will be a long layover in Houston before we finally depart for Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua in the evening.

You can bet that I will post a few updates daily of pictures and some videos. So it is all going to be very exciting!

-SG

Buy me a cup of coffee

28 Responses to “Deaf Tour Guides In Nicaragua”

Alex says:

July 3, 2008 at 1:48 am

I am very very excited for both of you guys to be doing this for those down there!

This is a new country, and most certainly a new adventure as well for both of you guys, that you can cherish for years to come!

Good luck down there, most importantly have fun and a blast and LEARN as much as you TEACH! :)

Good Luck on your flights, pray it isn’t like Abbie’s flying trip and have a safe time!

Alex
White Ghost says:

July 3, 2008 at 4:53 am

Hey Seek Geo!

Lucky you!

Have fun on your unthinkable trip!

I’m tired of staying in America. I wanna to get out of here and doing something differently, right?

Stay fun!

Updating us as much as you can.

Hugs!
karla64 says:

July 3, 2008 at 6:14 am

Hi.. Hope have safe trip and have fun, smile…take care
karla64
Abbie says:

July 3, 2008 at 8:38 am

This is so exciting! You are going to have a blast :) and I pray that your flight is nothing like mine although my flight involved Houston airport :) You are doing a great thing here Geo!
Craig says:

July 3, 2008 at 9:52 am

Hi Everyone,

This is Craig that’s working with Geo on the project in Nicaragua. I certainly hope that some of you will come down to Nicaragua later this year and in 2009 to support the project.

Support from ASL users is vitally important for the project to work and for it to expand to other areas of the world. The idea is that if Geo and I can make it a success here we will be able to replicate the course in other developing countries in Latin America and eventaully world wide, giving ASL users much more opportunities to travel. If Nicaragua works the next course will probably be in Costa Rica…..

If anyone maybe interested in a trip to Nicaragua please contact me on accessiblenicaragua@gmail.com For more information about Nicaragua please see:

http://www.craiggrimes.com/category/nicaragua/

Deaf people in Nicaragua need our support and this is one of the ways we can do it, by providing them with good employment opportunities in sustainable tourism.

Thanks

Craig
Scott Rains says:

July 3, 2008 at 10:28 am

So, if you like doing this training we’ll have to send you to Mongolia next!

Scott
Craig says:

July 3, 2008 at 10:31 am

I hope so Scott!
Seek Geo says:

July 3, 2008 at 10:50 am

Thanks, everybody! I sure look forward to this great experience and share with you all!

Hey Craig,

I wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to bring me down there to teach and I look forward to finally meet you in person this Saturday!!

Hey Scott,

Ohh.. that’d be fun going to Mongolia and even Costa Rica if it ever come to this. I look forward to have this great opportunity to meet people, etc. Too bad, you won’t be there in Nicaragua but I am pretty sure we will meet one of these days for sure.

Thanks for everything!

-SG
Deb from Illinois says:

July 3, 2008 at 1:04 pm

SG – Have a SAFE trip and enjoy it everyday. Be sure you video and take a coupla of pictures.

Hugs!
Misha says:

July 3, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Hey, Geo and Jes,

I’m excited for you guys to go on the trip to Nicaragua and Geo’s great opportunity to teach ASL. I’m sure it would be awesome experience for you both. Jes, do try to make lots of ass kicking pictures because I really do love your photography work!

Also, I’d like to wish you both have a fun and safe flight in both ways. We’ll miss you both. I know, I know, I know you’ll be posting here but still……you know.

Misha :D
tim says:

July 3, 2008 at 4:40 pm

I am so happy for you and Jes are on way to Nicaragua and teach them ASL. I think it is so wonderful
to have share with all kinds of International Sign Language on way..Wonderful to know that Craig find you and knew you would be enable teaaching them..Bless to all of you and the people in Nicaragua…
Roberto says:

July 3, 2008 at 10:20 pm

Gook luck on your trip guys!!
don’t forget to charge up all the cam batteries and hold on to that hat Geo, hell sleep with on lol
Tassielady says:

July 4, 2008 at 2:41 am

Have a wonderful trip down south and take lots of pictures also please drink plenty of water as its very hot down there
Lisa C. says:

July 4, 2008 at 3:56 am

How exciting. I wish you would have a long layover at Dallas/Fort Worth airport only 19 miles from my home so I could visit with you.
Have a good trip and have fun.
Lisa C. says:

July 4, 2008 at 4:00 am

Who will baby sit your cats?
Seek Geo says:

July 4, 2008 at 9:22 am

Thanks, Seekies!!

Hey Lisa C.,

Aw, too bad it’s not in Dallas!! Oh about cats, someone from Jes’ work will check on them regularly so it’s all good.

Hugs
-SG
Jac says:

July 4, 2008 at 10:18 am

Great! You guys have a good experience & opporunity!

Have a safe flight!

Looking forward to your trip video to share.

a waving bye! :byebye:
Roberto says:

July 4, 2008 at 7:20 pm

Viva la Milo! Senior Geo!!!! :ah:
Nkiki says:

July 26, 2008 at 11:58 am

Instead of imposing ASL on Nicaraguans, why don’t you learn their language? I think it is important for us Deaf Americans to respect other languages and learn the best we can. If we going to be visiting another country, we should pick up some of their language to make sure we are being understood. I am currently living in Costa Rica and I have improved my spoken and written Spanish. I am now able to communicate in LESCO(Lengua Espanol Signa de costaricanse). It is not hard to learn another language. I do not see Americans learning another language to communicate with foreigners who visit the USA.
Seek Geo says:

July 26, 2008 at 12:12 pm

Nkiki,

*sighs* I get the feeling that you did not follow the whole thing the point for Tour Guide so it’s my turn to say this.. why don’t you learn to read and watch everything before you start jumping on it, hmm?

There are thousand of people out there going overseas to learn about their history, going places, etc with a tour guide and there is ALWAYS a translator or an interpreter guiding them around. That goes the same thing for deaf groups, when I went to Spain and Portugal, we had a deaf person guiding us around but we also needed a translator for ASL so we can understand the whole thing to follow their history.

So, the point of this is to provide them jobs with paid since tour guide is far most popular positions everywhere. Rather to hire translators on every tour guide, we could have just provided deaf tour guides jobs to guide us and vice versa.

I know 5 different sign languages but doesn’t mean they can be picked up in within 24 hours before going on a tour. It is always involved a lot of explaining, etc about long history. Can you learn EVERYTHING in one day? I think not. Now that I know a bit of ISN so I can guide them here in America when they come to visit.

They are very motivated to guide deaf americans coming down and don’t forget, they will learn ISN along while they are at it like they taught me during the tour. Think twice before you start saying stupid things such as imposing.

-SG
Craig says:

July 26, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Hi Nikki,

I agree with Geo. Firstly, we’re not imposing anything. I have been very careful with the whole project in that I have asked the deaf people in Nicaragua if they would like to undertake such a course before I started planning it. I am very aware of foreigners imposing their beleifs in developing countries and on people with various types of disability around the world. So the first part of the planning was to find out if the participants wanted to learn ASL.

Secondly, deaf people cannot learn all the different sign languages of the places where they want to travel. As Geo points out if you go to Spain as a hearing person the guides will speak your language. We’re just trying to provide a similar service for ASL users. Of course we encourage interaction and cultural exchange between the deaf communities and I am hoping that one of the outcomes of this project will be that deaf Americans learn more about the deaf Nicaraguan culture and vice-versa.

I totally agree with you that if you are staying for a long period of time in a foreign country that you should learn the local language, whether it be spoken or sign.

It’s not a case of imposing anything on anyone, we are trying to teach the basics of ASL so that deaf foreign tour guides can communicate more effectively with ASL users. To give them a basis to learn more and to teach more of their own sign language. When I learnt Spanish it was helpful if a Spanish person spoke a little English to facilitate communication and help me learn more of their language.

We are hoping to run a similar course in Costa Rica at some point and I whole heartedly welcome you to join us so that we can displace any doubts that you may have a bout this project. In fact your knowledge of ASL and Lesco would be a great help to us!

I should be back in Costa Rica and I would love to meet you! Please feel free to drop me a line:

:emailme: accessiblenicaragua@gmail.com

Craig
Mongolian deaf tour says:

November 22, 2008 at 1:44 am

Welcome to mongolian deaf tour nice click here thanks.
http://www.deaftour.com
Steve Behncke says:

October 10, 2009 at 2:11 pm

Hi, Totally inspired by your project in Nicaragua. I read about it in the Tico Times in Costa Rica right while I was working on a similar project with our non profit Kindred Intertnational, INC. It really encouraged me. We are setting up a school for training Deaf Eco-guides with a lot of cross-cultural stuff in ASL and Lesco (lESCO is 70% ASL!)There are some incredible tours planned for 2010 and all profits go to the the Non-profit for training and apprenticing local deaf. If you are interested to joining us or working with us in any capacity please write me at kindredcorp@aol.com , keep up the good work and many, many blessings!! Steve