Ayumi Oshita

Born in Kanagawa prefecture in 1996, she lost her sight in both eyes at the age of 2 due to Retinoblastoma. She graduated from International Christian University (ICU) after going through junior and senior high school for the visually impaired, attached to the University of Tsukuba. During her university years, she studied abroad in the Central American country of Costa Rica.  She is currently engaged in proofreading Braille books at the Nippon Lighthouse in Osaka Prefecture. She also writes articles about the countries of the world as a volunteer reporter for the web media site called ganas.

"... That was great!"
I opened the link sent by my editor-in-chief and sighed with relief. The headline of the page read, "There was a Japanese comedian actively performing in the Philippines! Turn the image of Japan into laughter." This is an article I wrote after interviewing a comedian who is actively performing in Manila. After three rewrites, it was finally published today.

It's been almost a year since I started working as a volunteer reporter for the web media site called ganas. This site deals with topics in so-called developing countries in locations such as Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Some of the articles I have written that have been posted on the ganas website so far are articles describing the activities of showing picture cards in order to tell a story to indigenous children in Colombia and an article about a livestock bank that lends cattle and goats to people in Cambodia.

Once a week I show an unfinished manuscript to my editor-in-chief and he gives me feedback. It's much harder than you might think to write an interesting article that is correct, easy to understand, and that readers will want to click on many times and continue to read until the end. The more I try to avoid ambiguous expressions, the more I notice my own lack of understanding and I keep saying to my editor-in-chief that I want to confirm the story. I also receive advice from fellow reporters while closely examining and rewriting each sentence. Finally, after all that, the article will be posted on the ganas website as a "new arrival" and seen by many people.

When it comes to relief and a sense of accomplishment at that time, it may feel similar to you manage to run your turn in a relay, passing a baton on to the next person. When I do an interview with someone, I feel that the person has passed me a baton, with the activities that the person is working on and their thoughts. By writing an article, I am passing the baton on to another person.

The reason I began volunteering as a reporter arose when I was a university student studying abroad in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a small country in Central America whose official language is Spanish. It is known for no standing army and as a treasure trove of rare creatures such as sloths.

For the first time in my life, I spent 10 months in a foreign country where I had no acquaintances. Every day was full of new encounters and experiences, which was when I realized that 'there are still many things in the world that I don't know.'

For example, chocolate. I made chocolate in the traditional way, which has been handed down to the indigenous people of Costa Rica. Ferment and dry cocoa seeds from the cocoa fruit for a week. Then, put the seeds into a hand-cranked crusher, kind of like an ice crusher, and crush them into small pieces. Place the seeds on a cutting board and grind them down with a warm, heavy stone stick. Then the oil from the ground-up seeds spreads throughout and becomes a chocolate paste with a wonderful smell.

By knowing this fun and painstaking process, I realized the wonder and gratitude for being able to eat chocolate anytime in Japan, where we cannot even get cocoa. Our lives would not be possible without the help of people we don’t know in distant countries. Even after returning to Japan, I began to think about the other side of the globe when entering restaurants, supermarkets, clothing stores, and many other places.

There are still many things I do not know in the world. I write articles in order to keep that obvious fact in mind. In a world where I can, if I so desire, get as much information as I want, or on the flip side, I can block out as much information as I want. Anyway, I want to open my heart to the world.

If one reads these things, one may think that I am doing something amazing, but in reality, the submission of articles is delayed, and the same words are mistakenly repeated. These things always trouble my editor-in-chief.Still, because I want to know more about the world and, above all, have fun, I will continue to write articles.