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An electrician turned sign language expert

Dr Sam Lutalo-Kiingi during the different interview intervals. He is a lecturer of UgSL in the Faculty of Special Needs and Rehabilitation at Kyambogo University. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI

What you need to know:

RISING AGAINST ODDS. Dr Sam Lutalo-Kiingi was born deaf but his life is a litany of overcoming that handicap to live a life of achievements. It all started with a mother who believed in her son’s abilities, as he told Gillian Nantume.

“With Doctor, every time is tea time,” Julius Buyinza, a sign language interpreter, says jokingly as Dr Sam Lutalo-Kiingi sends him to the tray on the other side of the office.


This is his second cup of tea during the interview. There is a half-eaten slice of cake on a saucer. When we enter the office which he shares with an interpreter, Dr Lutalo-Kiingi has earphones on as he stares at the screen of his Apple laptop.


Intrigued, we ask Buyinza to interpret our question. What is he listening to? “I love music and dancing, although I cannot hear the lyrics,” he says with a smile, adding, “I listen to the rhythm. It is all about the variations in the decibels.”
The comfortable level of noise a human ear can take, through earphones is 50 decibels. Anything higher can cause permanent ear damage. At decibels higher than 80, Dr Lutalo-Kiingi can feel the music. “I love listening to Rihanna, Juliana Kanyomozi, and David Lutalo,” he explains.


When he sees the confusion lingering on our faces, he adds, “When I’m driving, as long as the car following me is close enough, I can hear whatever noise it makes.” That is Dr Lutalo-Kiingi, a man who cracks the myth that deafness means being relegated to mediocrity. The 43-year-old was among the four scholars who published the Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL) dictionary. Currently, he is a lecturer of UgSL at the Faculty of Special Needs and Rehabilitation in Kyambogo University.


“I think I was born deaf because my late mother, Harriet Nakazaana, and other siblings told me they realised I could not hear when I was a premature seven-months-old.” Lutalo-Kiingi was born at seven months, and he believes this might have caused his deafness.


“My family quickly came to terms with my condition. My mother was inquisitive about how to make my life normal and she pushed me to advance to higher levels.”
His mother became a member of the Uganda Society for the Deaf and realising that deaf students only studied up to Primary Four, at the time (1977), she enrolled the young boy in Mumias Primary School for the Deaf in western Kenya, where he studied from nursery to Standard Eight.

The challenge at school
“From the beginning, communication was a barrier. We were deaf children using signs but the teachers could hear but did not know sign language. Basically, they communicated through spoken language. They would write notes and instructions on the blackboard and we would copy.”


Sometimes, though, the explanations were not clear. “I would raise my hand and ask for a better explanation of a word but since the teacher could not understand the Kenyan Sign Language I was using, they said I was stubborn.”
In 1987, he joined St Joseph’s Nyang’oma Technical School for the Deaf in Bondo, in Nyanza, Kenya where he studied electrical installation for three years. He returned to Kampala in 1989 and worked as a volunteer at the Directorate of Industrial Training before joining a private company, UKASCO.
“I was a volunteer because my pay was very minimal. My bosses said my Kenyan qualifications were no equivalent to Ugandan standards and needed to be converted to UNEB standards.”

Developing a passion for UgSL
“From 1992, even though I was working privately as an electrician, I became involved in UgSL and deaf community programmes, part-timing with Uganda National Association of the Deaf (UNAD).”
Together with colleagues, Lutalo-Kiingi formed the Deaf Development Association. When the Danish Deaf Association (DDL) partnered with UNAD, he worked with them to mobilise deaf people and identify their communication challenges.


“My interest was in developing UgSL. We started a project to teach UgSL to parents, teachers, deaf children, and sign language interpreters. For instance, at a party, while other people laughed at a joke, you would wait for the interpreter to find the right translation to UgSL to communicate the joke.”

Training others
His quest to teach UgSL saw him begin training people in Kyambogo and Makerere universities. In 1997, he travelled to Denmark for further studies in teaching sign language. “UgSL is the first language of deaf persons. Writing English or Luganda is really considered our second language. When making signs, we do not follow the grammar of spoken languages. UgSL is a bona fide language with its own grammar.”
Lutalo-Kiingi explains that deaf education in the UK is bilingual, concentrating on British sign language and English, while Uganda is multilingual, with many spoken languages.


“Culture is important when understanding sign language. For example, in English all types of bananas have one name. However, in Uganda we have gonja, kisubi, ndizi, bogoya, and matooke and each of them has a different sign. UgSL is rich in vocabulary and grammatical construction.”


In 1999, Dr Lutalo-Kiingi was part of the project team that collaborated with Kyambogo University and the University of Stockholm to begin researching on the UgSL Dictionary. The project also developed programmes for a diploma in UgSL interpreting in 2002.

Facing discrimination
In 2002, he decided to upgrade his electrical qualifications and joined Lugogo Vocational Training Centre. He immediately stepped into a different world. “When the principal discovered I was deaf he refused to admit me even when I explained that I would have an interpreter in the lecture room.”
A hot argument ensued until the principal conceded that in order not to distract the other students; Lutalo-Kiingi would have a special room for his lectures. He would also pay Shs 25,000 daily, for two hours of instruction.
“This arrangement was costly and unfair. On top of that payment I had to pay tuition, and an interpreter. Fortunately, a lecturer, Namutebi, who knew me from my days at the directorate, saw my plight and engaged with the principal.”
Eventually, his interpreter was warned never to confuse the class, he would not hesitate to expel Lutalo-Kiingi. Namutebi had to explain his condition to his classmates.


“After two years, I performed better than some of my peers in Level II but the principal said it is impossible for a deaf person to lead people who can hear. He said my interpreter must have cheated for me.”
During Lutalo-Kiingi’s Level III examinations, the lecturers barred his interpreter from the examination room. “I looked at the lecturer’s mouth as he was giving the exam instructions, trying to understand them; though I could not. My classmates demanded that my interpreter be returned.”


The principal was adamant – no interpreters. Lutalo-Kiingi’s classmates wrote down the lecturer’s instructions for him to read. “When the invigilators realised I was deaf, they went out of their way to help me understand the instructions because the students would not allow them to continue until they made sure I was comfortable.”
He passed the examinations and on graduation day in 2006, the principal, embarrassed of his conduct, apologised for all the challenges he had thrown up in his way. In the same year, the dictionary of UgSL was published, after an intensive six-year research period, of which Lutalo-Kiingi was a part.


In 2006, he travelled to the UK, on scholarship for a postgraduate diploma in Deaf Studies at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), where he also worked as a research assistant investigating grammatical constructions of UgSL and Tanzanian sign language. In 2008, he enrolled for a PhD programme at the same university.
After his PhD, in 2014, he married his fiancée, Milly Nambolanyi, whom he had met in 2004 after she completed her diploma course in UgSL interpreting.


“Ten years was a good time to know each other and besides, I had spent a long time studying abroad. At first, her family was sceptical about our union because she is not deaf but they later approved of our relationship.” The couple has three children; none of them is deaf.

ADVICE TO TEACHERS
Lutalo-Kiingi calls on parents to take on the responsibility to know their children’s condition for intervention at an early age.


“Some parents have no information and wait for their deaf child to first grow up, then they run to hospitals and schools seeking information. We now have nursery school programmes which are being developed for deaf children, giving them more opportunities when they enroll at an early age.”


He also advises teachers of deaf and hard-of-hearing children not to put emphasis on the order of the English language. “The deaf children’s mother-tongue is sign language. It is the first thing they learn. It is important to write children’s stories; however, teachers should first tell the children these stories in UgSL.”


Lutalo-Kiingi is disappointed that teachers often do not follow the grammar of UgSL because they try to follow the grammar of spoken English. As such, deaf students do not always gain a full understanding.
The lecturer, whose interest is reading newspapers, is also not happy with the fact that the deaf community is left behind when it comes to news dissemination.


He feels bad when he tells a colleague about a hot news item he has just read about, only to be told that it was all over the radio and television a few days ago.


“We miss 90 per cent of the information around. We only get news at night on mostly, UBC TV and at times Bukedde TV which have UgSL interpreters who provide information to deaf Ugandans. But that is only for 30 minutes because they do not interpret other programmes. I read newspapers and go on the Internet to catch-up, but how many have that privilege?” He calls on those in charge of distributing information of any kind to make provisions by hiring sign language interpreters.