This was my first time in Japan. When I stepped onto Japanese soil for the first time everything was new and wonderful to me. The Japanese language, the Japanese food and the Japanese weather made it difficult for me to find myself.

The Japanese class started in September. This class was very pleasant because we could practice speaking Japanese, and by now we could speak Japanese fluently, at least in the context of daily activities. After completing the Japanese lesson, we also had an opportunity to participate in Japanese language proficiency test, which I passed. In fact, I’m interested to learn about the Japanese language because I think that Japanese is a very warm language.

This class was very difficult for me because I just learnt the Japanese Braille system for the first time.

During first 3 months we visited several places of Japan. First, we visited the primary school in Tokyo. Then, we went to participate in the City Handi Marathon in Nagoya and in October I had the great opportunity to participate in a musical concert in Osaka! At that time I had the opportunity to teach Japanese friends about traditional Indonesian musical instruments. After that I was asked to sing and play the piano.

When we were in Kyoto, we also had an opportunity to visit several temples. This tour was very pleasant for me. Indonesia also had several famous temples like: Prambanan and Borobudur. The Kyoto temples reminded me of those in my home town in Indonesia.

In the Home-Stay Program I lived in the house of the family of Mr and Mrs Inaba in Gifu. At the time I touched snow for the first time and really enjoyed the New Year in Gifu and made many friends there.

All Duskin trainees and members of Duskin Ainowa Foundation and the staff of JSRPD went to Niigata for a ski trip. This was my first experience of playing in snow. It was unimaginably cold.

When I first studied Braille notation at Koyukai, it was much too difficult for me. However, on continually repeating the difficult exercises I found that I could master Braille notation very well.

When I was at Koyukai I was often invited to attend several parties, and it was very nice for me. I also had an opportunity to carry out the concert in Utsunomiya that was held by Duskin.

At Slash PC School, I learned about computer music software. By using this software, persons with visual impairment can easily perform musical composition and this software is very useful to us.

At Slash I also learned how to make a homepage using HTML. It was a very interesting course. During my individual training I had an opportunity perform in a concert organized by Koyukai, that was attended by more than 500 visitors, and where the money raised by the concert would be assigned to the victims of the tsunami disaster in Aceh ,Indoneshia.

I think that the Duskin leadership training is very beneficial for persons with disabilities. We were able to learn many things related to ourselves and we were able to improve our abilities, take ownership of our talents and be able to make useful contributions to our societies.

I would also like to say a grateful thanks to Duskin, the staff of JSRPD and all the wonderful people I met for their kindness and hospitality.