by Kirby Lindsay Laney, posted 2 April 2015
On April 9th, 10th & 11th, Seattle Blind Café returns to Fremont, bringing the same unique, unforgettable experience too few people have had a chance to taste, in a new location – and with a Keynote Speaker that past attendees may not have met, yet.
Rick Hammond will give the Keynote to this extraordinary sensory tasting, where audiences enjoy a vegetarian meal, served by a blind wait staff, accompanied by original music by Rosh & The Blind Café Orchestra, all in the complete dark.
The evening will conclude with an honest, no-holds-barred question and answer period, where Hammond and the other blind volunteers will giving attendees a glimpse into their world.
Opening People’s Eyes
Legally blind since birth, Hammond actually has some vision. He struggles, like the majority of The Blind Café staff and volunteers, to navigate the world of the sighted, every day. He welcomes the courageous sighted souls who take a plunge into a Blind Café – here, or in Austin, Boulder, San Francisco, or Portland (where Hammond now lives.)
Hammond became involved with Blind Café in the beginning, helping its founder, Brian ‘Rosh’ Rosheleau, after meeting him through friends. “There’s a lot of cool experiences associated with it,” Hammond recently said of his history with Blind Café, “No pun intended, but it opens people’s eyes.”
“A lot of times people are scared to go,” Hammond acknowledged, “but it is a safe learning experience. No one’s going to laugh.” Attendees purchase tickets (sold on a sliding scale) for the meal, and the music, and the experience of the dark room, where they get assistance with sitting and eating from the blind servers. They will also find themselves working with their tablemates to find food, utensils and drinks, just like a blind person might. “The plan is always to make it as dark as possible,” Hammond said of the ‘dining room’ (this time at NalandaWest.)
The servers do practice ahead of time, so they can ‘show’ people into the dining room, and lead them to their chairs, “but we get practice all the time,” Hammond said of finding chairs, holding onto napkins and placing utensils on plates in the dark. “By the time we open the space,” he observed, “We know the room.” Part of the primary mission of Blind Café is to give jobs, even just part-time, to blind people – in the perceived disadvantage of darkness.
Bring Awareness
“What I do,” Hammond said, of his job as Keynote, “I open up with a little speech about the things that have come up in my life because of my involvement in Blind Café.” In 2010, Hammond met Rosheleau while at school in Colorado. Rocheleau wanted to learn more about the blind experience, and about how he could use his talents – as an organizer and musician – to bring awareness to challenges and achievements of everyday blind people.
“I really like the educational aspect,” of the evening, Hammond said. Through Blind Café, he’s been able to talk with sighted people about his life – but also with other blind people, who often have different experiences from his own. “The media are always talking about ‘eco-location’,” he said, “and I always thought it was a thing for the media, but [at Blind Café] I have met blind people that use it.”
For Hammond, who runs an Adult Adventure Camp for people who are blind, and conducts seminars about how to accommodate, and gain from hiring, blind people, the chance to share his experience is an important part of Blind Café.
A Taste Of Another World
Music plays an important part of Blind Café too, and as a musician Hammond embraces that part although he doesn’t play at these events. “I prefer to do poetry,” he explained. Hammond plans to share a piece at Seattle Blind Café that comments on the need for equal wages for the blind, and on some daily challenges the blind face – quiet electric cars, for one.
Hammond also praises the participation by diners in the question and answer period. Attendees are welcomed (and encouraged) to ask whatever they want to know about the blind experience. “It’s nice to be asked,” Hammond said, “I wish people asked more.”
One question has come up over and over – ‘What are your dreams like?’ – and while it is a good one, Hammond has grown tired of answering. His personal experience isn’t the same as that of others on the wait staff. “I have pretty vivid dreams, but I have some sight,” he explained, “Because they don’t use visual cues in their real life,” he said of other blind people, “they don’t pay attention to visual cues in their dreams.”
One answer he likes to share at every Blind Café are about positives going forward. Technology continues to advance rapidly for the blind, usually making life easier. SmartPhone accessibility (a phone screen reader,) electronic (reader) books, and websites with screen readers have made more basic material available to the blind.
As to things like self-driving cars, “I’m optimistic with a touch of cynicism,” Hammond said about promises of future self-transport for the blind. And some new technology, like quiet electronic cars and SmartPhones without screen readers, actually set back the efforts of blind people to navigate the sighted world.
Consider stepping inside the Seattle Blind Café on April 9th, 10th, or 11th, and bringing friends to ‘see’ this enlightened evening of connectedness with a community few of us ever acknowledge much less experience.
Purchase tickets through Brown Paper Tickets for a place at the table, in the dark, at NalandaWest. Also, visit The Blind Café website for more information on what you can expect when you take this positive step toward social change.
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