Tournie

Katie had an all-day volleyball tournament in Frederick Saturday.  Jenna and I decided to go along, and it was quite an experience.  The host school was Maryland School for the Deaf, and one of the best teams there was the MSD team.  Wow!  Those girls can really play!

So, we really enjoyed watching the volleyball, but it was also fascinating to experience the deaf culture.  Obviously, the MSD team was hearing impaired, and so were about half of the fans.  The officials were all bilingual. :)  We all know that deafness has got to really be hard for them in some situations, but, at least in this situation, it was terribly handy.  They could easily speak to each other across the gym, with all that volleyball noise.  We saw the ref up on the ladder signing to the people across the court at the score table. 

You might think it would hurt the volleyball team to not be able to talk to each other during a play, but it didn't seem to hurt the MSD team a bit!  They were fantastic, and I never saw them goof because they couldn't communicate.  Between plays, they would communicate tons.  Just wave their hand to get the person's attention and then sign away. 

The concession stand and ticket table, etc were all manned by hearing impaired people, so it felt a bit like being in a foreign country, just a really quiet one.  We did some gestures and pointing and they did some pointing and lip-reading.  Kinda funny to watch the girl ahead of us in line ask for a fork.  :)

From what we could see on Saturday, they seem to have a great school environment.  Katie even said, "I wish I could go to this school!"  Fans and players obviously were having fun the whole day.

It got REALLY long, tho, so Jenna's enjoyment decreased steadily near the end. : ) We left home at 7am and got back at 10pm.  And we didn't even stay for the championship game.