Saul's dream (rough draft.)

April 13, Hemet.

Saul Perez Maro, 25, is of medium height, strongly built. He's prompt to laugh and his laugh is especially contagious. He is one of the crew of tent workers at Circus Chimera, where he also works with the ponies.
Saul is deaf by birth. He was born and raised in Talapacoyan, a small town in the state of Veracruz, in southern Mexico. Of his three siblings two are hearing; an elder brother who died young of cancer and Fernando, his other brother, who is with him at Circus Chimera. His sister is deaf; she works as a seamstress in Mexico. Saul came to the United States thanks to a chance encounter with Jim Judkins, Circus Chimera's owner. He flourished there mainly as a result of Jim's dedication.
When Jim was visiting at the house of his recruiting liaison in Mexico he was asked if there could be a job for three deaf workers. "I said why not, they're like everybody else, they can work like anybody else," he recalled, adding his own comments while interpreting Saul's signing during an interview. Jim brought only two of the three youth to Circus Chimera with him that year, Arturo and Saul. The mother of the third one was scared, he said, of what would happen to her son. Agustin came a year later.
Saul and his deaf friends didn't know how to read and write, and they had their own sign language. There was no school for the deaf or other accommodations for deaf children in Talapacoyan, so there was no possibility for a school education.
Once they got the circus in the United States Jim looked for ways to help them learn. "We got children's books, pictures, dictionaries, we got on the internet and looked for sign language," Jim said as he told me how they went about to teach the youth to read, write and sign. "We would write down the English and Spanish word and then sign it. It took seven months before they would get it; they're smart but they had to get the idea. Once the light struck it was very rewarding." Saul, Arturo and Agustin learnt English sign language because it was the only one Jim could find on the internet.
Saul still can't read a book but he's got the basic concept of how to read and write. He's also become something of an artist: he's now drawing for the coloring books the circus sells at intermission. Jim was also proud to say that he got him his driver's license.
When asked if he dreamt of something for himself when he was growing up it was evident that the very notion was entirely foreign to him. I realized then how very specific to affluent societies that notion is. Talapacoyan is in the southern part of Mexico, a poor, underdeveloped region. It is an agricultural town. The only two jobs there are picking fruit or being a carpenter.
That's what Saul wanted to do until Jim came around. Saul's Dad left when he was three years old and his mother worked in a tortilla factory baking tortilla to support the family. Now he's sending money home to her so his family can have their own house. Only he sends money; his brother Fernando has his own family to support in Mexico. Saul's already bought the land and they're building a house on it. He's got a girlfriend too and is starting a family: she's now pregnant.
Saul doesn't need to have a dream; he has something better: for the first time in his life, a future on his own terms.