Hearing loss in the village of Bani Maalla … genetic disease or environmental curse?
Hearing is the tendon on which life is carried out, so we get to know the world through its voices: wind whispers, the dandelion of mothers, the stages of his loved ones, all the details that may seem intuitive for some; But it is in the village of Bani Mulla has been absent for generations.
An isolated village in the depths of Morocco, its inhabitants live in an applied silence, not a choice, but a spell. There, children lose their audience for no clear reason. Is it a mysterious disease? An inheritance curse? Or a silent environment that conspires in the sense of hearing?
Silent village
Hespress visited the village of Bani Maalt Tawarter, where a large percentage of its population is suffering from it. A village carries in its silence a tale overwhelmed with pain and challenge, as if destiny had chosen to surround them with a voiceless world, where the noise of life was absent, and communication remains dependent on the eyes and signs, on a buried meaning that does not need words.
Hespress Masoud, Sheikh Steini, met us with the state of the village which has not changed over the years: “We are lost here, 73 km from Taouert, surrounded by the mountains, nothing of us around us, the water is far away, as if we are like the frogs on which the fountain does not hear our complaints.”
He added: “I’m deaf, my wife does not hear and five of my children too. This deaf came from God, we have no thing. Here in the village, there are those who do not hear, and there are those who do not speak and there are those who suffer from both.
He continued: “Time has hardened, and many left, they left their homes in search of a better life, and only those who do not have the opportunity to leave.”
The state of this sheikh is no different from the conditions of the vast majority of residents of Bani Malla. Even those who were born with the grace of hearing, their ears are not clear to drop them with the passage of the days, as if the silence sneaks them slowly without warning. They do not know reason, and they ignore the secret that steals the sounds of life.
The ancestor curse
We met Yahya, residents of the roundabout, who told us about the way I became deaf years ago: “I lost my hearing about twenty years ago, which did not happen suddenly;
He continued: “The problem is not only, there are young children who were born gradually by losing, as we spent with us and with our ancestors. Each generation suffers from the same fate, until our number is like that. Everyone suffers from deafness.
Yahya stressed that “men, women, children … no difference, everyone suffers from deafness. No one can explain this, and no one gives us an answer. God alone knows the secret of what happens to us.”
Many questions remain unanswered, while the inhabitants of the village continue to live in the walls of silence, in search of hope which could return to them the voices of the world that fades.
Rashid al -Yazidi, one of the dizzy, said: “I was born here, and when I started to be aware of the world, I found that the people around me all suffered from deafness, from the grandfather to the new generations. This affair is repeated with each generation, as if there was something that makes us lose, we have heard over time. ”
He continued: “Some people say that the reason is that people here marry each other and do not bring the wives from the outside of the roundabout. Others believe that the problem can be in the water we drink. But in fact, no one knows the real reason, is it hereditary, or because of the environment, or is it just a magistrate and a destiny.”
Al -Yazidi stressed that “even young children who go to school, some of them are normal;
“Esters” is a name in the name
Hespress struck a group of schools, the Berber name, which leads to a sign of deafness, as if the language, in turn, realized the reality of this village before its people realized it.
There, children start their academic life; But their expectations quickly collided with a mysterious quantity, because hearing loss becomes an expected spell, a familiar reality that young people inherit as if it were a heavy heritage which is not disappointed.
Yahya Yaqoubi, director of the Daradar school group of the territorial community, Sidi Lahcen, in the province of Taouert, told Hespress, saying: “The phenomenon of deafness and stupidity, or what is locally called Esadar, is still present in the region in different ways. classroom.
Yaqoubi stressed that even when the parents are summoned, it is noticed that this phenomenon is distributed; This reflects the environment in which these children live.
He added: “What is worrying is that children are born with a natural hearing; but as they age, they begin to lose it gradually. This creates the feeling that their future can be similar to what they see around them, as if losing the hearing destiny was inevitable for them at some point in their lives.”
As for the influence on schooling, Al -Yaqoubi said: “We have noticed that sixth level students often do not go to preparation; And if that happens, the transferred men are only men and with a very small number.
Young children learn letters and words; But her voices fade with the days, she moved slowly until she was completely absent, leaving behind her silence which is fulfilled only in search of an explanation and unanswered questions.
Sakina Shakir, professor of primary education in a group of schools, told Hespress, saying: “Within the department, my relationship with students is normal, and I do not face major problems to communicate with them; effective.”
And she continued: “In their daily life, students do not find a big problem in communication with their parents, because they depend not only on the signs; they also use the reading of the lips and the whispering. For example, when they meet me outside the school, I notice that they depend more on the movements of the lips than the signs to transfer information.”
Genetic factors?
Hespress struck at the door of a better association of tomorrow for the deaf in Turart, which supervised successive visits to the reasons for deafness in Bani Mualla.
Those who are in charge of this association have stressed that there are those who speak of inherited genes, a hidden blade which is repeated in generations, as if deafness was part of the identity of the rotor, children are born while carrying it in their blood, as a heritage which is not fruitful.
Ali Lakhal, president of the “Better Tomorrow” Association for the Deaf Tourrat, said, in his interview with Hespress: “We worked to organize a medical convoy, and we also sought to extend the scope of research by involving specialists from outside Morocco, in particular the Netherlands, to study the reasons for the deep in the region.”
“We aspired to coordinate joint research with a similar institution on the eastern side, but this project was not carried out due to implementation difficulties. Consequently, we were limited to coordination with the goalkeeper sector, the Ministry of Health, which carried out blood tests for residents of Rondeau under the supervision of the Delegate of Health.
“Despite the efforts made, we have not yet obtained clear results or specific consequences for these analyzes; but official declarations always confirm that reason is due to genetic and genetic factors linked to residents of the roundabout.”
Although certain scientific explanations are due to genetic genetic reasons, there are those who believe that deafness in children of the relationship can be the result of other factors, hidden as it is influential. There are those who speak that the environment is the silent actor of this tragedy, or those who say that the water they drink, the air they breathe, or even the lifestyle that was imposed on them was a reason for this spell.
“There are many data that confirm that the phenomenon of deafness in the Bani Mualla roundabout is not only hereditary. The case is not limited to indigenous peoples; it is even to people who came from outside the touch and settled in it, like the lawyer who was in contact with him, while his audience began to decrease in time. hidden environmental which affects this phenomenon.
The same civil actor stressed: “There is also another indication, namely that families who have left Bani Malla and have settled in other places, such as Spain or other Moroccan cities, have not recorded any cases designed with their children, which improves the hypothesis that hearing loss is linked to the local environment.”
Suffering drought
In Bani Mualla, suffering is not only measured by the silence surrounding the inhabitants; They are rather lost in a cycle of ignorance and unanswered questions.
There, where hearing loss is not an exception but a rule, life becomes a daily challenge, communication becomes a burden, education is an obstacle and work is a distant dream.
Faced with this harsh reality, some of the residents of Bani Mualla found a choice other than immigration, looking for a life that is not silent, for opportunities that could give them a new hope far from the amount which besieged them in their village.
They leave, leaving memories of childhood and the walls of the houses that saved their signs, and we wonder if they will one day hear the votes of the cities in which they go.
Hespress Radwan Zaman, one of the young people who preferred to migrate from the village, met: “Over the years, this village has witnessed many challenges that have greatly affected the life of the population, especially young people and children. Although many families have left the village looking for better opportunities, continuous problems have made life very difficult. ”
The young man explained: “One of the most important challenges we face is the lack of water. Getting water has become a difficult thing, which forces many families to migrate to other places in search of a better life. In addition, the lack of employment opportunities has made many young people had to leave their village, to seek work in major cities or immigration abroad. ”
Ibn Bani Mualla continued: “As for me, which led me to get out of this village is the fear that I will lose my hearing. There are those who stayed there and who are no longer heard, and there are those who left the village and still heard, and there is someone who does not hear. ”
Bani Malla’s silence is not limited to hearing loss; Rather, it extends to other suffering, more serious, represented in the lack of water, drought and difficult living conditions.
In this village, where the earth is thirsty and the sky is rare, obtaining water is transformed into a daily struggle, the population moves between the few wells, waiting for a drop that tells their thirst and thirst for their fields which are unleashed under a warm sun.
Faced with this harsh reality, the requirements of Bani Malla residents are no longer a luxury, but rather an urgent necessity imposed by years of suffering.
They call for their right to health care, with medical examinations which reveal the truth of deafness which is prosecuted by generation after generation, and with development solutions which leave them from the circle of isolation imposed by poverty and drought. They need drinking water and an infrastructure that respects their humanity.
