A Seed of Tampopo - Dandelion

JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) takes care of volunteers – JOCV (Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers) – very cordially, supportively and safely. Before we are officially assigned to developing countries, we have a pre-dispatch training for 65 days in Japan. And when we arrive in assignment countries, we spend a month for orientations, lectures, vaccination, courtesy calls and a homestay program in order to get used to a new environment, which is normally so different from one in Japan. During this period, we can readily get diarrhea, Malaria, homesick, depression, mad etc. without any anxieties before we start our duties. So we don’t get lot in the midst of adventurous environment. I would say that I am lucky because I was born in Japan by accident.

In the capital of Ghana, Accra, there is a supermarket called “Accra”. When we went to a courtesy call, JICA chartered a bus and we, all volunteers, were sitting on seats in frozen air-conditioned bus, watching scenes of people living life today from windows of the bus. When the bus stopped at traffic lights, we saw that people crowded to windows of vehicles to sell things. Vendors were carrying things on their heads, shoulders or hands expertly and all kinds of wares were sold like food and drink: water, juice, ice cream, fried banana, fruits, etc.; daily necessities: pen, notebook, cup, dish, bucket, dust cloth, etc.; even goods for hobby and amusement: toys, radio, books, souvenirs, T-shirts etc. In the book, “THREE CHEERS FOR GHANA!” by Robert Peprah-Gyamfi, the author calls this scene “Supermarket Accra”. When you go to supermarket, “you” normally walk around aisles, but here in Accra, “things” are going around on aisles between cars. However it’s a hard job for vendors to sell things under the burning sun with heat coming from cars. I was watching them being burned by the sun from the “cold”, imagining what if I was born under the start of the vendors. What if…

Let me continue “What if”. I was born in Japan far after the World War II, but what if I had been born before that… I was born in an ordinary family in Japan, but what it I had been born in a poor family… I was born without any disabilities, but what if I had been born under the star of Deaf… There are so many possibilities in life but I am Me as I am now. It is just “by accident”. I didn’t choose the star under which we are born. So who had decided it? Is that a decision of God? Well, maybe… I should like to extract some words of Kokuta Suda from a travel note: “Human beings are the same as ‘Tampopo – Dandelion’ indeed. We regard the soil where the seed fell on as paradise and live there. Even if we don't think it's paradise, we keep on living there bravely. That is the great thing of Human beings.” Do you know Tampopo? It’s a flower known as “Dandelion” in English. Do you know how its seeds are planted? The seeds are blown by Wind and spread out in the world, and then when they are landed on soil, they start living there, even if they don’t like that place… When you think about it, we can’t choose family, country, face, time to be born. We’re all seeds of Tampopo.

Last year, I made a video named “A Seed of Tampopo” for JHS-3 students as a graduation souvenir. And I put the message that every single person is a seed of Tampopo and whatever life is, we should live life with dignity as we are given. This is the essence of life. I’m just lucky to be born in Japan after the World War II under the star of ordinary family. It isn’t my ability, but it’s destined by the Wind that brought me onto the soil of my life. It is true that being deaf has so many obstacles in life yet it doesn’t mean that they’re either incapable nor unhappy automatically. It depends on them. All they need to do is to root deeply in their lives and pour water themselves like Tampopo around us.