Visiting the Louis Braille Museum: a touch tour AND smell tour!

Jump to heading#Descriptive Transcript

Haben Girma sits at a picnic table with four small white, cylindrical containers. Their colorful lids (yellow, blue, green, and green) have a word written in print on top and Braille along the side. Behind her stand eucalyptus trees and scattered logs in a California park.

Haben: I can't see videos, so how do I anchor memories from my travels? The Louis Braille Museum has a brilliant solution! Louis Braille invented the tactile reading system named after him: "brayl" in English and "bry" in French.

Photo: A portrait of a man with light skin, short reddish-brown wavy hair, and a serene expression with his eyes closed. He wears a dark, formal coat over a high-collared top with buttons down the front.

Haben: His house in Coupvray, France is now the Louis Braille Museum. The museum has a gorgeous model of the house that you can open up to feel the interior layout. All the rooms have Braille labels and you can feel…the spiral staircase!

The video shows a large model of a three-story wooden house. The outside walls are modest. The hands of museum guide Stéphane Mary lift up the gabled roof, then the front and back walls. Haben explores its design. The compact rooms have Braille labels, and one on the lowest level says cave, meaning cellar in French. A narrow spiral staircase winds up from the ground floor to the floor above that (second floor), and then up to one wing of the attic. The other wing of the attic requires a ladder. Louis slept in the attic.

The video returns to Haben sitting at the picnic table with four small containers.

Haben: They gave me fragrance capsules, so containers with Braille labels.

She picks up a container and runs a finger over the Braille label.

Haben: This one says…leather! It actually says that in French, but my pronunciation is not very good.

The French word cuir is written on top. She twists the lid open, brings the container toward her nose, and smiles.

Haben: Oh, my goodness! That was one of my first stops at the museum! Louis Braille's father worked as a saddle maker and his workshop is where young Louis Braille had an accident that resulted in blindness. I was able to sit down at his father's table, feel some of the tools of the trade.

The video slowly pans around a small, rustic room. There is an antique lamp, a leather horse collar, framed diagrams of harness and saddle making, wicker baskets, leather saddle bags, leather straps, various tools such as large metal shears, and heavy machinery that appears to be for binding or twisting. Sunlight streams through a window, illuminating a sculpture of Louis Braille.

Back at the picnic table, Haben reads the label of a different container.

Haben: This one says…potée. I'm smelling onions and garlic and black pepper! Food is a big part of French culture, and definitely part of Louis Braille's life.

The camera pans across a small room, starting with the circular brick oven. Inside is a loaf of bread sitting on a wooden baker’s peel. Then the camera shows the large stone fireplace. The mantle has wooden and ceramic bowls, a candle, and on the wall just above the mantle is a nineteenth century long gun. A cast iron cooking pot sits in the middle of the hearth, and beside it is a wheel for spinning yarn. Standing between the fireplace and the kitchen table is Mr. Mary, a man with long white hair who is listening to someone off screen. The long wooden kitchen table has an empty wine bottle, a candle, plates, and a foot stove. The far wall has a tall grandfather clock beside a mannequin wearing a bonnet, long shawl over a blouse, ankle-length skirt, and an apron.

Back at the park, Haben reads the label of a different container.

Haben: This one says…rose. They have an enchanting Garden of Five Senses.

Photo: Seven people stand smiling under a leafy trellis sprinkled with purple flowers, framing a paved trail that continues through the garden. From left to right we have: director of the Louis Braille Museum Public Interest Group Maëliss Ruffin, museum guide Stéphane Mary, Haben Girma with Seeing Eye dog Mylo, director general of the French Federation of the Blind and Visually Impaired Nicolas Blineau, Christine Hardy, Voir Ensemble board member Sylvie Thézé, Joël Hardy, and Mayor of Coupvray Thierry Cerri. Christine and Joël Hardy advocate for Braille’s recognition as an UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.

The video returns to Haben sitting at the picnic table with a row of colorful containers in front of her.

Haben: Fragrance capsules are a really creative way to help people capture the memories of their experiences at museums.