IQALUIT - Laban Awa returned to a world of noise when he got his hearing aid reinstalled and it gave him a headache.

Not that he minds.

The rush of sound when the device was switched on for the first time in two years was almost overwhelming.

Laban Awa can hear again. Despite a sometimes troubled history, the Iqaluit man is once again optimistic about the future. - Chris Windeyer/NNSL photo

"I really wanted to turn it off but I couldn't," he said. "It was like being a newborn again."

Awa said he lost his hearing five years ago when a drunk guy bounced his head off a door. He's had hearing aids before but they broke.

Awa's had some brushes with the law and one of them turned especially ugly in 2005, when Awa says he was roughed up and pepper sprayed by RCMP officers. He filed a formal complaint, but investigators found no wrongdoing. Awa said the police yelled at him instead of using their notepads and that inflamed the situation.

Awa is an ace with computers, but working at a local Internet company was a challenge since he had to use notepads to communicate with clients.

Now he has plans to take a management studies course at Nunavut Arctic College in Rankin Inlet. In long run he wants to start his own business.

"Since I can hear again, all this information is going into my head and I like it," he said. "There's no limit on education now."

In the meantime he writes about his experiences as a deaf person on the Internet at the aptly-named website http://deaf-person.bebo.com.

And Awa said he's going to take better care of the new hearing aid, especially since they cost $1,750.

"I couldn't afford new ones if they broke."