BAGUIO CITY ? A healthy meal in a quiet spot of a bustling food court in one of the busiest shopping malls of this holiday city is literally what the restaurant offers. The healthy option is the assurance that all the ingredients that go into the Dieta Verde cuisine are organically grown. And the silence ? always a welcome treat for frenzied vacationers ? is needed for the food servers to ?hear? and heed their customers? orders.

The ladies who serve meals at Dieta Verde, at the food court of Porta Vaga on Session Road, are deaf. But they are well able to ?speak? with their eyes and hands in sign language to explain to diners the health values of the food they carry from the kitchen to their tables.

There is Amy, for one, who instantly recognizes regular customers and is quick to remember their favorite orders. Diners watch Amy as she expertly tosses vegetables together in a bowl that she serves as a salad delight.

Clare San Diego, Dieta Verde?s proprietor and manager, personally trained Amy and the rest of her staff on food preparation. The menu includes Ceasar?s Salad, Baked Macaroni, Pesto Pasta, Flavored Potato Marbles, Baked Macaroni and yogurt, all prepared from organically grown fruits and vegetables. Cheese used in their recipes is made from pure cow?s milk.

While acknowledging that her female food servers do really catch the attention of clients, San Diego said that the idea of hiring a deaf staff was not at all aimed primarily at increasing sales.

Having a deaf daughter of her own, San Diego knows better than to take advantage of differently-abled persons. She also knows the difficulties involved in training them for work requiring special skills. Not surprisingly, it was her daughter, 26-year old Joanna Virginia Neri, who convinced her to hire her friends for Dieta Verde.

Neri, who presently works as a data encoder for Aurora Tower of the Araneta Group of Companies in Quezon City, met Amy and the other Dieta Verde staff at the San Lorenzo Ruiz Institute (SLRI) in Bakakeng, Baguio City, a special school for the deaf which they attended.

?After she was able to land a job of her own, Joanna asked me to find a way to help her friends,? San Diego explained. ?A way to empower them in spite of their disabilities,? she added.

The hearing-impaired, Neri well knew from experience, have very limited chances for employment. One reason she was able to break into the ?real world? or mainstream labor force, San Diego says of her daughter, is that she?s tough and determined. But because she also has a big heart for the deaf, she wanted her friends to be given the same opportunities.

Neri admitted that it has often been frustrating because many people do not understand the hardships that people like her undergo. ?For four years I was jobless. I had sent out probably a hundred applications but was always rejected because of my disability. It?s tiring at times, but I keep trying to look at the brighter side of life,? Neri shared in an email to this writer.

?Because I can?t hear and talk, I work harder to communicate with people, I learned my way through computers. Now I can converse on paper, through Internet chat and e-mail, and by using my eyes and hands with those who know sign language,? she added.

Neri aims to be financially independent to help her parents, who have always been supportive of her. ?My father is especially worried that I?m alone here in Manila, but I want to prove to them that I can be independent,? Neri said.

Neri is deeply grateful to her parents, who did not give up when they were told of her condition while she was in her mother?s womb. Her mother contracted measles early on in her pregnancy and was advised to undergo therapeutic abortion because the child would surely have defects.

?But [abortion] was not an option. Every baby is a blessing, and we accepted her in the family,? said San Diego. Now a single mother after separating from her husband, San Diego said she prepared herself in the early years by learning sign language.

Sharing her daughter?s vision to create opportunities for her deaf friends, San Diego, a financial consultant, put up Dieta Verde. The restaurant was intended to be part of an envisioned retirement village in Tuba, Benguet, a project she started with friends, where they were to grow fruit trees and vegetables to supply the needs of the store. But due to the vast amount of money needed to realize this, San Diego decided on just opening Dieta Verde first.

Determined that it would not be like the usual food stall with predictable servings, San Diego chose to serve health foods as a long term response to many illnesses caused by too much processed food. She said she found it interesting that components of organically grown plants were incorporated in commercially-prepared medication.

?We thought, why not take these ingredients in their raw form and offer them in the most natural way,? San Diego said. ?We want to help people make the most out of their hard-earned money by offering them healthy food, rather than finding themselves spending so much to cure illnesses acquired after a lifetime of consuming junk food,? she said.

San Diego herself suffered from diabetes and hypertension in the past. But a healthy diet eventually replaced medication in maintaining her health ?With organic and natural foods, we can avoid expensive treatments,? she added.

Dieta Verde is not just about healthy food and a unique staff of deaf ladies. It is also a place where dreams are nurtured. Dieta Verde reflects the indomitable spirit of Neri whose passion for life has not been ?silenced? by her being deaf. Instead, spared of the noise of the world, she has quietly nurtured her own dreams, and hopes to inspire her friends at Dieta Verde and others like her to just keep moving on in life. Women?s Feature Service

Dieta Verde is located at the 3rd floor extension of Porta Vaga Mall, Session Road, Baguio City.