I am Maria Gilda Quintua-Nakahara. I was born deaf but this did not stop me from succeeding in life and pursuing a career as a Deaf Entrepreneur.
I also run Nakahara Lodging & Travel Agency, a travel and tour business catering to Deaf clients around the world which I manage online and keeps me travelling from one place to another.
I was instrumental in establishing the Deaf organization in my province which paved the way for the unification of all the Deaf in five towns of Eastern Samar: Oras, San Julian, Borongan, Taft, Dolores.
I am currently in the process of putting up an organization that will provide funding an emergency assistance for the Deaf community in the Philippines.
How I Communicate
People usually wonder how I manage to communicate in my day to day activities for my businesses and organizations. I mainly communicate with my hands using Filipino Sign Language (FSL) but I always bring pen and paper for writing to communicate with hearing people.
For those who do not know FSL, I would appreciate if hearing people communicate with me in written English because I do not understand Tagalog.
Love in Any Language
I met my Japanese husband Koichi Nakahara at Glorietta Mall in May of 2000. He was a friend of one of my clients. He asked for my name, address and took a photo of me together with his two Deaf friends during our first meeting.
Since then, he would always contact me to act as his tour guide every time he went to the Philippines during his annual vacations.
We got engaged in May 2007 and had a simple but meaningful wedding in August 13, 2009 in the presence of our family, relatives and close friends.
