"Hello"

I started an Israeli Sign Language (isl) course today, that's been arranged by a non-profit and volunteer organisation called Pay it Forward ISL (Hebrew), where there is an attempt to bridge the gap between the Deaf community and the hearing mainstream.
I know there is crap access in Israel, but much to my chagrin I never knew or noticed the outright prejudice against deaf people, our teacher (a very cute 21 year old deaf girl) told us she'd been shooed out of post-offices because the clerk couldn't bother to deal with her.

I was shocked. I suppose I shouldn't have been.

I have a page with the alphabet and a page of words we'll be learning next week.

It was amazing. First we all introduced ourselves and our teacher with the help of a instant translator who won't be with us for the next five lessons (it's only six lessons) helped us think of Signs that is our name in ISL. For me it's easy, 'cause I can just spell out my diminutive name - which is what I'm called mostly any way - but our teacher insisted we have something personal, so now I'm "Book" - 'cause I like reading.

We learned the alphabet, which I need to memorise by next Monday and I also know "How are you?", "What is your name?", "I'm fine" and "My name is..."

Not bad, eh?

I'll keep y'all updated, because one of the things we're meant to do is also raise awareness about deaf issues and accessibility.

I hope I become proficient enough and pass the knowledge on.