February 25th, 2006
The politeness is the commonality between Afghan and Japanese. At the greetings Afghan men look into each other’s eyes as they shake hands firmly. With their hands on their chest they say to you “As sala’amu alaikum”, you cannot stop feeling it in your heat. It gives me such a great feeling since we, Japanese, also value politeness to one another. The greetings continue with a series of questions, such as; “How are you?”, “How is your family? How about your brother?” Thus it would last for around a minute. Moreover their hospitality is never exhausted even though they may be poor, which gives me a sense of affinity for them. When I go to the shop, for instance to purchase materials, shopkeepers often offer me a cup of tea. If it were lunchtime they will bring you food without a word. There are many times I was moved by their genuine generosity. It was extraordinary that such attitude is wide spread in Afghanistan despite of geographical isolation due to the sea and upland areas of difficult terrain.
On 11th February 2006 JCCP Afghan Office has started running the landmine removal skills training supported by The Ministry of Foreign Affair of Japan’s Grant Assistance for Japanese NGO Projects scheme. Under highly experienced trainers the trainees have been preparing for forthcoming real landmine removal at Bagram, Parvan Province located 47 km north from Kabul. The trainees are ex-soldiers and have lost as many things as civilian have through the wartime. There was a male who has lost all of his relatives. He has pleaded with us to let him stay as a security guard when he was asked to go back to Mazar-i-Sharif after being failed to gain employment as a landmine removal officer. There were many trainees who have asked for advance payment or would have been starved otherwise. Everyone has suffered from the war more or less and yet they are still polite and have got tender eyes.
For those and for people in Bagram the landmine removal project should be accomplished, which gives them back the life free from the fear of landmines. The landmine removal will lead to not only eradicating the possible danger on human bodies but also enabling people to regain safety of their life in the areas contaminated by landmines. Rebuilding Afghanistan requires human resources, which can be obtained through securing the safety at irrigation canals and at crop lands allowing Afghan people to live. A safe land always attracts the return of refugees.
Reported by Kenta Aoki