In Reply to: Can you find out more posted by lynelliston on Saturday, 1. April 2006 at 16:35 Bali Time:
From ELT News January 24, 2004. Library, ELT Helps Heal a Broken Heart
On Saturday, The Age Web site carried a tragic love story about Australian Glen Goulds and the library he built in Indonesia in memory of his Japanese wife-to-be, Natsuko. The couple met in Indonesia in 1996 and a couple of years later were planning to marry. They returned to their respective countries to break the news to their families. While at her home alone, Natsuko was killed when the house was crushed by a huge pile-driver from a building site next door. It was August 31, 1997, the same day that the world was shocked by Princess Diana's death. A grief-stricken Goulds became an EFL teacher, moved close to Natsuko's family in Sapporo, and taught there for three years. He got to know more about his fiancee, her family and her culture. With the family, he decided to build the library in the place where the couple had met. It is now a center for adults and children near the town of Yogyakarta. In Gould words, "It's 61/2 years now and I am continually faced with the dilemma of wanting to remember and needing to forget. She was like sunshine, she was my soulmate."