Blind Spaniards lead the way in euro conversion

Among those Spaniards best prepared for the arrival of the euro are those who will never see it. Unlike most of their compatriots, more than 23,000 blind lottery sellers have attended courses to learn how to reckon the exchange rates in their head and recognise the new currency by touch.

Soledad Luengo, co-ordinator of training for Spain's National Organisation for the Blind (Once), said: "Our task was both to familiarise our lottery sellers with the euro, and to teach them how to inform their clients. Most people who buy lottery tickets are elderly and will need guidance themselves in the early days."

The influential group's biggest problem was to obtain replica euro notes well in advance of the changeover for members to practise with. "It was very important for us to have these replicas because if a blind person cannot touch and feel the new money it might as well not exist," Ms Luengo says.

Maria Luisa Fidalgo, 34, has been selling lottery tickets for seven years in central Madrid. She feels happier about e-day after having taken the six-hour crash course that involved maths, European history and games of rummaging in a bag containing francs, escudos and lire to fish out the euro.

But she still has worries. "The coins are fine. I can recognise them easily. Look, you can see they have different edges. But the small notes don't have distinguishing marks, they differ only in size. The marks on the big notes will soon get rubbed away with use, and it'll be hard to identify them."

The European Union was advised on the design of the euro by Once, which has made efforts to ensure all its 70,000 visually impaired members are prepared for the currency switch. It has urged them to memorise conversion rates with the help of braille conversion tables and, as an extra safety net, developed a talking calculator. Ms Fidalgo whips one from her bag to show me. It cackles faintly. "They're not very loud, and with all the noise around, it's a bit of a last resort," she says.

Ms Luengo says the blind always risk being palmed off with forged notes. In Spain these tend to be worthless South American currencies cut to size. Once has long campaigned for speaking forgery-detectors. Such a device was never thought worth the expense just for national currencies, but with a single currency circulating throughout Europe a speaking anti-forgery device is now a real possibility.

Peseta-denominated lottery tickets will be replaced with 1 euro and 2 euro tickets on 1 January, but for two months you will be able to cash in peseta tickets for euro prizes. Once funds its entire operation of the education, rehabilitation and social welfare of Spain's visually impaired, plus the salaries of its 58,000 employees, from lottery sales.

Ms Fidalgo believes the first few weeks will be the most difficult, when the euro coexists with the peseta. She knows she may have to persuade her clients to accept euros in change for pesetas. "The sooner we deal in euros alone the better. I'll have to explain how I'm rounding up so people don't feel I'm cheating them. When there are a lot of people I'll just have to brace myself and take it slowly."