Dancing to the rhythm of a new drum

By Sr. Gwen Legault, O.L.M.
May/June 2011

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Students at the St. Francis School for the Deaf entertain with a traditional Tiv dance at the school’s 36th anniversary celebrations this year. Vandeikya, Nigeria.

Coming back to live in Canada again after my long years in Nigeria calls for a tremendous adjustment. The rhythm of life for me in Toronto is vastly different from that of my home in the village of Vandeikya and I will always cherish that African beat in my heart. But I meet so many people in my work as a volunteer at Providence Health Care and in my multicultural neighbourhood, I am led to appreciate a different rhythm.

Yet, it was an immense pleasure for me to recently receive a letter from Sister Eucharia Ugwu, the principal of St. Francis School for the Deaf, a school that I founded in Vandeikya in 1975. They had just celebrated the school’s 36th anniversary. The students provided the entertainment, performing a famous traditional Tiv dance called Tembe Duen to the beat of a deaf drummer, amazing the entire audience.

How could the deaf dance so faithfully to the beat and how could the drummer follow the rhythm without mistake? It remained a mystery to nearly everybody, although from my experience with the deaf I know they can feel the beat on the ground beneath their feet as the dancers swing their horse tails acrobatically to the rhythm of the drum.

Sister Eucharia, in an article about the occasion wrote, “St. Francis School for the Deaf has brought a drastic change to the way society looks at this category of people. What’s more, the school has given new life and sense of purpose to a great many physically challenged children in Nigeria.”

The beat of that drum and the dancing of those feet will always fill me with pride and joy.

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