Thank you

My home this week was the little conference center hotel at Gallaudet University. 

   
 
The campus is beautiful, situated behind a tall fence in a neighborhood that is just beginning a period of gentrification. 

The little breakfast restaurant was nice, staffed by deaf people as is only to be expected. I communicate a lot, and I felt really alone being so utterly unable to talk to these folks. They understood me pretty well… I was clueless. 

But that’s why we invented the Internet. It turns out that Thank You is even easier to sign than to say… and so I tried it and it worked! One phrase made a big difference, to me at least, even though I think my accent was off.