On September 6th, Mr. and Mrs. Kenzo Tsuda, Vice-Principal of Hachinohe Sei Ursula Gakuin Junior High School, visited Bell Gardia KUJIRAYAMA from Aomori Prefecture. His wife, Keiko, was a teacher at a regular school, but one year she applied for a transfer to a blind school and taught at a blind school for about two years. She says she studied Braille hard during that time. She then returned to regular school and she was retired.
She came up with the idea of Braille translation from the time the picture book “Kaze no Denwa” was published in 2014, and she finally completed it after many failures. She wanted to donate her Braille picture book to the library in the forest, and she took a train from Hachinohe and delivered it for more than four hours.
She talked about her own experience, saying, “Blind children are very spiritual.” She enjoyed talking with Mr. and Mrs. Tsuda, and it was soothing.
It is often the case that “The Phone of the Wind” that are not connected to each other seem to be connected in the minds of many people. On September 19, I received a phone call from Mr. Ogasawara, a visually impaired person in Kamaishi City (visited about a year ago), and on October 8th, I was informed that he would like to take a walk in the garden as an event for the visually impaired. On the day of the event, he said, “We will go with 10 visually impaired people and 10 healthy people with us, for a total of 20 people.”
I am looking forward to seeing who and what kind of encounters will be on the day. Anyone who is interested in meeting should participate and enjoy themselves.