Claudia Gordon abruptly went deaf as a child in rural Jamaica, and lost much more than her hearing as a result.

She was pulled out of school and kept at home to perform chores. Neighbors shunned, and sometimes mocked her. Some of the people who took care of her periodically hauled her off to rituals where soothsayers would attempt to cure the medical condition, still mysterious to this day, that caused her deafness.