Kenya's deaf basketball team joins Nairobi league

From The Daily Nation in Kenya. Picturef are the Deaf Queens, from left: head coach, Juma Kent, Calvin Musalia, Mathew Muisyo and Miriam Opondo. Seated: Victor Ogunga.

"My name is Miriam Opondo and I am deaf,” says 24-year-old Opondo. Only she doesn’t utter it, she signs it - communicates with with her hands what she would normally say in words, so that all the hearing-impaired folks will understand. Looking at the five foot spectacled girl, she would pass for any person with normal hearing and on the court, it’s her shot outside the three point arc that’s way above average.

Opondo is a wonderful three-point shooter and part of the only deaf team in the Nairobi Bastketball Association (NBA). Last week, Opondo was part of history as her 12 points helped her side, the Deaf Queens, to record an impressive 33-58 against World Hope, a team with players who don’t suffer hearing impairment.

“It was a very tough match for us since we have just joined the Nairobi league. We were playing with only five players through out the entire match but I believe that we will have a better show next time,” she says through the team’s translator, Mathew Muisyo.

It was over a 20-minute period before the game, however, that Opondo especially distinguished herself - meeting and signing her willowy arms off with a large group of starry-eyed kids who visibly were bursting with both happiness and pride that one of their hearing-disabled own had not only become a sports celebrity but would give so much of her time to them.

“When I was growing up, I really never had a role model,” Opondo says. “That person to come up and say: ‘I have been through this, this is how you work it out, and this is what you have to do.” Opondo was barely 18 months old when she contracted a fever that for three days, nearly cost her life. It cost her hearing instead. Then came the real hardship - peer pressure.

“I was angry and upset because everybody would laugh and stare at me, saying some remarks about my condition. It really made me cry and I didn’t want to go to school. It made me feel like I didn’t belong,” Opondo recalls.

Along came Juma Kent, Sports personality of the Year Award (SOYA) Community Hero winner and discovered basketball in her. Having finally learnt to play using sign language, Opondo, who is the captain of her team can’t wait for the opportunity to lead her team to the forthcoming Deaflympics- as the deaf games are referred to.

Despite their loss, the Queens left many amazed, and not even the referees would be spared in the bewilderment. They put up such a spirited fight through out the entire minutes of the match, even to manage a win in the last quarter. “It was a moment to savour. At the final whistle, everyone couldn’t believe that deaf players had displayed such an entertaining match,” remembers Kent.

Despite the fact that basketball is a sport that has too many whistles due to its “no contact” nature of play, the players have adopted well to reading the flow of the game and can easily tell when a foul is committed. “Yes, we don’t hear the whistle, but we can see that the play has stopped at a particular time, by looking at our opponents. When they stop, then we know that there’s a foul or something,” she says.

“Opondo and the rest of the players are heroes in this (hearing-impaired) community,” says Kent. “So often kids are told that they can’t play basketball because they are deaf or can’t do this or that. And Opondo basically says to them: No, that’s not right. I did it and you can, too.”

But as for now Kent’s main concern, he says, is money to pay for the league fees. “This is my headache now. I am appealing for sponsors to help us make the payments as I would not like NBA to kick us out,” he pleads. The teams, he notes, are determined and rearing to go all the way to the end of the league in November as he continues to scout for more players.