Blind Girl Walkin'

Yesterday a coworker and I were walking to a local sub shop for lunch and noticed a blind girl (maybe 16 years old?) and a man (mid 30's) with a disposable camera crossing the street in front of us. We quickly caught up to them and overheard the man telling her which way the lights on the corner worked. We looked ahead and noticed that the sidewalk was closed, and the tape extended into the parking spaces on the street.

There's been a lot of construction, or destruction, of the street and sidewalk for the last week or so. I think they're doing plumbing, but I've not had a chance to look in the holes -- big holes, as wide as the sidewalk, which is about as wide as a car. Though they're usually covered with steel plates at lunch time, today they were covered with wet cement. We looked at the sidewalk closed signs and red tape, and at the street, and decided that we would have to walk in the street, on the far side of the parked cars (and wet cement), and thought we should say something to the blind girl.

We told her that the sidewalk ahead was closed, and that she would have to walk in the street to get by. I offered to lead her if she wanted, but there were a couple of conversations going on at the moment, so I don't know if she heard me. She stopped to think, then turned to the man and said that she would cross to the other side of the street. While this conversation was going on, he was taking a picture of the three of us (for a newsletter for the blind?). She turned around and headed back to the intersection, and we continued forward and onto the street. Looking across the street, we noticed that the sidewalk was closed on the other side of the street too!

Not a good day to be learning to navigate city sidewalks for the blind. Or maybe it was. It took us close to 10 minutes to get our sandwiches, and when we got back out we saw that the girl and man were stopped a few feet from the closed sidewalk section on the other side of the street. Obviously talking about something, she was nodding her head in agreement. (How to blind people know to nod their head when they agree with you? Is nodding in agreement instinctive?)

I'm guessing he was there to make sure she didn't get killed, but otherwise was just an observer. Interesting concept. I guess the world is a harsh place, so tough love training might be just what's needed.

I still wish that I could have helped her past the sidewalk and street construction. That seemed like the Boy Scout thing to do, but she might have rejected that because there's not always going to be a Boy Scout handy for every tough situation she's going to face.