Along with ten other diverse young adults with varying disabilities, I departed the United States for a three-week exchange program in Japan with the intent to learn about the Japanese culture and to share a little of our own. I embarked on a journey that changed my life.

Our first assignment was as a volunteer at the Tokyo Bay Wild Bird Park, where we worked side-by-side with other international volunteers from Korea, Scotland, Japan and the Philippines making bamboo shades for the nature center and helping to landscape the park.  Clearly, this was not an ideal living or working situation for those in our group who, like me, use a wheelchair, or for my fellow exchange participants who were deaf or blind.  Yet our Japanese hosts made us feel right at home with their hospitality and eagerness to exchange cultures.  They built portable ramps, offered to provide guided assistance, and used drawings and verbal descriptions of the work at hand.  Each of us contributed to the project in different ways and to the very best of our diverse abilities. 

On our last evening at the bird park, our Japanese hosts planned a grand party. We all had a great time eating, conversing, playing games and sharing our various talents at an impromptu talent show. The women in our group were honored with the invitation to wear a yukata, a traditional Japanese robe, to the event. Through our work at the park, we had overcome the physical and cultural barriers that existed, made new relationships and contributed to the park through our volunteer work.

While visiting Tokyo, I was amazed to find how innovative Japanese society is when it comes to disability access. Our dormitory-style lodging included Braille signs, wheelchair accessible bathrooms and adaptive hearing equipment. In Tokyo, I found that everyday experiences were new and exciting adventures. For example, all four lanes of traffic stop, and hundreds of people cross the street at one time from four different directions. People were coming toward me because I was rolling on the right side of the crosswalk, as I was accustomed to, rather than on the left side.  

During our numerous workshops and meetings, I realized just how complex our communication needs were. We had sign language interpreters in English and Japanese as well as translators for both languages. I often sat back in awe at the variation in communication used  -- hands were flying in sign language, running over Braille, or holding pens over paper and voices were loud in multiple languages.  Somehow it all worked and everyone’s “voice” was heard. I still have scraps of paper on which I had scribbled notes to a deaf participant, notes that made us both laugh.

In group discussions I learned that Japanese people with disabilities face many of the same structural and attitudinal barriers that we face in the U.S.  People with disabilities are not encouraged to attend school with non-disabled people in Japan. They reported that it is also difficult to find employment.

However, it was during a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, that I learned the greatest lesson of the trip. Each of us was given a piece of Japanese writing that said, "Treasure every meeting for it may never occur again.”  I did treasure each moment and I will continue to seek opportunities that allow me to reach out and experience the world – whether in downtown Baltimore or in Katmandu, Nepal.