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I'm sitting on a bench in Singapore. There is the life full of colors blossoms around me. There is a woman with a child going across the street. She wears a bright pink skirt and her child is dressed in white and blue. There are trees around me - their trunks are dark brown with lush and so bright green leaves. The ice cream shop nearby is decorated with balloons of every possible shape and color. I catch a smell of food from a nearby stall selling food. I feel the roughness of the road under my foots. I feel myself as if someone just turned on all of my senses on the full mode and I am able to see, feel, smell, hear the way I have never experienced before.
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It is such a contrast to what I had just 15 minutes ago when the same world existed but I wouldn’t be able to experience it this way. I would be able to feel it - in a different manner but I wouldn’t be able to enjoy all of the colors I am looking at now. In that same minute, I realized how lucky I am that I am able to do it now, that my experiment had been over and I emerged from the darkness. To a certain extent, I had always been lucky to have it yet unable to value it to the extent I did sitting on that small white bench here in Singapore. I need to stop for a second, my brain needs time to try to get a full sense and the depth of the experience I just left behind.
I glance at the clock and smile remembering that just a few minutes ago in order to find out what is the time I needed to do few actions. First, the clock - I was not able to see it. Second - I did not know what to do when I have handled an object with small buttons on it. I did not know how to operate it, which button to press. So it took me several minutes to get what I wanted. I almost jumped with joy when the electronic voice told me the information I wanted.
El-ev-en ho-urs- twe-nty-fi-ve mi-nu-tes- declared unfamiliar voice sounding as a robot.
It put my mind to further thoughts that that must be the completely different world.
For more than an hour I was trying to establish my own dialogue between myself and the world I purposely put myself in. It was the same world we all live yet with a slight difference - it was covered in only one color - black.
That hour I learned to see the world in a new way while playing the blind and going through the set of dark rooms created by Dialogue in the Dark in Singapore.
Dialogue in the Dark is an international network with presence in more than 41 countries. It is one of the world’s most exciting life-changing experiences where visitors are guided by blind guides in absolute darkness. You get a chance to experience daily environments of life in specially designed darkened rooms. Daily routines become exciting and a reversal of role is created where sighted become blind and Blind become sighted.(c) words Dialogue in the Dark
-3-
Did I know what I'm going to get when I booked the program? The answer is no. I think I had a certain idea of how this would all go, but what I actually got was not even close to my expectations. Darkness had more secrets to reveal to me than I initially thought.
Looking back, I think the whole world in this dark space was upside down. From the fear that arose in the beginning, when I stepped in absolute darkness to the amazing sensations that I got when my body adjusted and started to use my other senses than vision. I felt as Alice in Wonderland who just got into a new world where everything so differed.
What did shock me most? Was it the fact that I was not able to see? Was it the difficulties I got trying to find my way through it? No.
What shocked me most was my own ignorance.
Did I see the special markings before the pedestrian crossings?
Yes.
Have I wondered why they exist?
No.
Did I think that the annoying sound of some traffic lights and elevators was created in order for some of the people who are not blessed with vision would be able to I find their way in this world?
No.
I saw people moving with white canes, but I did not think much about them, I knew nothing about them, they were part of the landscape of my life. But this time, in the relative safeness of Dialog in the Dark premises I was the part of the decorations they live every day and that was me who they supported and guided the whole way.
I needed to get into absolute darkness in order to start seeing and asking questions.
Questions ranged from simple to more complex.
-How do blind or visually impaired people find their way?
After standing in the middle of the darkness all that I felt was a terrible FEAR. I do not know where to step, I do not know what and who is next to me, I do not know where the exit and the entrance. The only thing I knew was that I was surrounded by darkness, and there were other things in it.
- How can you eat when you do not see?
I did not immediately find my glass. In order to open the cookies, which will take me a few seconds in ordinary life, it took me about a minute because I could not figure out which edge to start with?I did not see it.
More complex questions would be
- Can they run and if so, how?
- How about to ride a bicycle? Do they do it?
- And how about going to a trip? Do they travel at all?
I drove half the world and saw! so many things!*
- If they travel, what does this mean for them?
- How do they distinguish money?
Questions arose literally at every step of my movement through the dark space. To my own luck, I had a pleasure to be accompanied by Theresa, a visually impaired guide, who is employed by Dialogue in the Dark. With a smile on her face (in a very strange way even in complete darkness I knew she was smiling )responded to each of them and walked me through the program with ease and fun.
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What can I say for sure is that while sitting on a bench in Singapore, I had little idea that this experience will forever change my perception of the world.
I got up, leaving this bench and carried on with my own life. I would get up and do my routine the way I used to do it, I would fly to a new country and after it another country. Someone might say that little has changed in my life.
But not for me a lot of things has changed. I "suddenly" began to see people with limited vision, passing by the crossroads of roads to notice special markings for them, taking off money and in the ATM to notice small dots on the keys. They all were reminders that this there are people who need help sometimes. Suddenly they became the part of the world I lived in.
Now I knew that I share with this world with people who every day operate in the darkness and I knew how it felt.
Moreover, I knew that I want to pay back their kindness - they showed me the world in the way I never thought. They used their dignity and their knowledge and abilities to help me on the way. Now it is my turn to help them where I can.
But moreover I felt that is my time to help them on their way to get other people to "SEE ANEW”.
With love,
PS: And I hope that this short article will help many of you who read it to think that blind or visually impaired people live in a completely special world - a world that is difficult for us to imagine, but it is possible to feel through such programs as Dialogue in the Dark The program has branches in many countries (more info on the locations is here. You can also help blind or visually impaired people to guide them using Be My Eyes app
I support @ecotrain project, which also use #ecotrain. I want to believe that more and more people will start to think about things that help to make the world a better place. (с)
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