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Jul 14, 2010

"Listen a hundred times; ponder a thousand times; speak once." --Turkish Proverb

What Does the Rainforest Sound Like?

So many things. Katydids telling each other where to look for food, frogs bellowing for a mate and piranhas leaping out of the muddy brown Amazon. And this is how it sounds to a deaf person. Hear the World organization has partnered with Global Explorers to bring 50 mixed hearing students to the Amazon Rainforest to experience sound and empower the deaf. For a group of young adults, the expedition is strikingly still. "We're quiet because we're trying to listen," says 17-year old Jentry Taylor who was born deaf and now listens to the Amazon three times a day through the program's hearing devices. "Down here, you hear something every second," agrees Gary Quenzer. "None of the sounds are annoying. They all make you stop and turn and try to find what it actually is." Imagine what we could all hear and see, if we only take the time to listen.