Between the Air and the Stillness

Kazuki Taira – Cycling for Peace

October 28th, 2006

Kazuki Taira boarded the 54th voyage in Honolulu, Hawai’i as the last guest speaker until Yokohama. An environmentalist, he spoke about how to become more environmentally conscious and responsible in our daily lives.

Originally from Okinawa, he decided to move to Canada to study Recreation, Fish & Wildlife Tech., after working as a computer programmer for 12 years in Tokyo. After his graduation, he joined the NGO OTESHA (www.otesha.ca) on a cycling trip across Canada. Along the way, the group held workshops in community centers and schools to raise awareness about environmental issues.

Since then, Mr. Taira has returned to his home in Okinawa and has continued his promotion of six categories for responsible lifestyle that OTESHA proposes; water, clothing, food, coffee (fair trade), transportation, and media.

Onboard Mr. Taira also created a booklet on how everyone can make their lives more eco-friendly, and gave workshops on the Mandal-art technique, which helps participants effectively reflect on their three-month global voyage for peace by summarizing significant influences during their journey.

Atsushi Yoshioka – Healing the environment by slowing down

October 9th, 2006

(Right to left) Atsushi Yoshioka, Allen Nelson, Norio Kaifu and Rika Watanabe (staff) discuss Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution

Mr. Atsushi Yoshioka came onboard the 54th voyage from Acapulco, Mexico until San Francisco, USA. He held a series of lectures to introduce World Heritage sites to the audience. There are four categories that make these places World Heritage. 1. Cultural Sites 2. Industrial Sites (for example “Iron Bridge” in England, the first bridge made of metal) 3. Negative legacy - Places that symbolize humanity’s atrocities (for example, Auschwitz). 4. Natural landscapes (the coexistence of nature and humans).

His first presentation was on Yakushima, a southern Japanese island famous for its ancient cedar trees. On Yakushima is one tree in particular that attracts 3,000 people every year during the Golden Week holiday, the “Jomonsugi”. Dating back about 7,200 years, it is part of the reason that Yakushima has become a World Heritage site.

Mr. Yoshioka worked with UNESCO for 30 years and now works with NHK (the national broadcasting station of Japan) on this project of introducing Japanese people to the importance of the World Heritage sites. His main work now revolves around Café Slow in Tokyo, which he has been running for six years.

Café Slow is working to educate people about how to have less of a negative impact on the environment. The food is organic, and the Café sells a variety of fair trade goods. The interior of the Café is made of natural materials, mostly strawbale. It provides information about other organizations and about sustainable lifestyle. They hold regular seminars, workshops, and events that celebrate conscious music and art. You can visit their website at www.cafeslow.com (in Japanese).

Former US Marine Fights for Demilitarization - Allen Nelson

October 10th, 2006

Allen Nelson was first invited onboard the Peace Boat as a guest educator in July, 2005. Participants of that 49th voyage were privileged to share his very personal experience as he returned to Vietnam for the first time, 38 years after he had been there as a US Marine, to apologize to the Vietnamese people for the violence he had brought to their land during the Vietnam War.

Allen Nelson

“I did not go to Vietnam to ask for forgiveness,” he told his audience during his lecture. “I went to apologize. Only I can forgive myself.”

As a peace activist in so many aspects of his life and work, he has been traveling to Japan for half of almost every year since 1996 to protest against the threat that American military bases bring to the people of Japan, to speak with Japanese youth about the importance of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, and to speak with American soldiers and Marines about their options for leaving the military. He works to motivate people to be critical of their government when harm is done to their people or others, and is a great advocate of peace through reconciliation.

Allen Nelson at a panel discussion onboard concerning Article 9 of the Japanese constitution. From left to right: Rika Watanabe (staff), Norio Kaifu (guest educator), Allen Nelson, Atsushi Yoshioka (guest educator)

Among his many talents, he is a blues musician and the haunting sound of his guitar and voice were sometimes heard drifting through the ship, welcoming people to stop and listen for a moment, just as he always had time to stop and chat with anyone who had a moment to share with him.

During his time on Peace Boat, from Acapulco, Mexico until Honolulu, U.S.A., he held a series of lectures, and joined participants for a tour in San Francisco that visited the non-government organizations (NGOs) Code Pink and Global Exchange, and a tour in Hawai’i with Global University students to meet with Hawai’ian activists working for an independent and demilitarized Hawai’i.

Peter Berg – Bioregionalism for a Sustainable Future

October 10th, 2006

Peter Berg, an ecologist and founder of the Planet Drum Foundation (founded in 1973), came onboard Peace Boat from Acapulco, Mexico until San Francisco, USA. He explained “bioregionalism” to participants, a term he coined in the early 1970s. He described this concept as follows.

“Everybody lives in some naturally defined area and those areas have unique characteristics that harmonize with each other and I call that a ‘bioregion’. Bioregions can be small or large but you know you’re in one and not the other if there’s a difference in weather, geology, native plants and animals, and the way that people adapt to that bioregion. If you harmonize with the place in which you live, you are beneficial. If you don’t, you destroy it. It’s like walking into an antique store backwards. If you don’t know about the place where you live, you will start knocking everything over. I would like to see geopolitical borders gone. They are always destructive. It is very difficult for people to live in a political area defined by arbitrary borders.

The view from Twin Peaks, San Francisco

During the industrial era of the last 200 years, people have been disinhabited from the place that they live. In order to stop destroying these places, we have to reinhabit them, which is a conscious effort. And many people enjoy it. Most people feel a hole in their lives and they fill it by identifying with the place. Urban people can enrich their lives by seeing the city they live in as natural. We are all a part of nature all the time, even on this ship. It makes you feel complete, authentic, native. Gary Snyder said, ‘The most radical act you can commit is to not move’.”

After five days of lectures and workshops onboard, participants had the opportunity to go on tour with Peter in San Francisco, his home. First we visited Glen Canyon, an ecologically ancient reserve that is 10,000 years old and virtually unchanged. Peter showed participants native vegetation, a live creek, and geological characteristics particular to the San Francisco peninsula. The Planet Drum Foundation holds regular educational workshops there.

Next, we went up to Twin Peaks, a popular view-point for tourists. From this vista we were able to see the entire bay and learned what makes it a watershed by examining the 100-plus mile view. From Twin Peaks, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Berkley and Oakland are visible. We were blessed with a clear day.

Chrissy Field ecological restoration project

Finally we went to the Bay Shore to see Chrissy Field, a restoration site where a former military airstrip has been torn out and a marsh ecosystem restoration project has taken its place. The urban restoration project is considered the biggest in the US. “It is an incredible exhibition of how to take out a military thing and put something ultimately peaceful in its place,” Peter said to us during the tour. Full of native medicinal plants and a salt and fresh water mix that attracts a variety of animals and migrating birds, it is an extraordinary symbol of hope for a more ecologically sustainable future.

Group photo of Peace Boat participants and Peter Berg in Glen Canyon

You can contact Peter Berg at mail@planetdrum.org

Step out onto the Planet
Draw a circle 100 feet round
Within that circle are 300 things nobody understands very well
And maybe have never seen
How many can you find?

“Step out onto the Planet”

By Lew Welch
(Peter Berg’s favorite poem)

Cartagena – Afro-Colombian community

September 28, 2006

Cartagena is the second oldest town in Colombia. Founded by the colonizing Spanish military, it is enclosed by 11km of old fort walls that were built to keep out invading pirates. Its streets are lined with the painted walls of beautiful Spanish architecture dotted by quaint balconies overflowing with flowering ivy.

20km from downtown Cartagena, along a highway that passes fields being sectioned off for development and mangrove forests is the impoverished community of Arroyo de Piedra. There are 1600 people in the community of 385 families. Largely of African descent, it is like many of the minority communities in Colombia in its social and economic underdevelopment. They do not receive basic social services like running water from Cartagena. Electricity is also unreliable.

Most members in the community depend on fishing and agriculture for their income, but the development of hotels and resorts along the coast has virtually destroyed coastal eco-systems. The highway that Peace Boat participants traveled along has also created an obstacle; with a tollbooth that coasts $6 round trip, it is difficult for community members to go to the city to sell their produce.

Working with the organization Kontiki (based in Cartagena) and Peace Boat, the community has been developing its local resources to become more self-sustainable and independent through the building of an organic pond for growing and harvesting fish, the creation of a plant nursery for the community, the cultivation of fruits and vegetables in home gardens, ecological restoration projects, as well as social development in its schools and community.

These projects have been funded mainly by an institutional donation from Peace Boat, an individual donation from Peace Boat participants to Arroyo de Piedra Sports, cultural and study programs, and a donation from the travel agent working with Peace Boat during its visits to Cartagena.

On this visit, participants had the opportunity to talk with members of Kontiki and the community, and visiting some of the homes that have been involved in the project to look at their successful gardens.

For more information, please contact: Corporacion Ambiental Kontiki (Kontiki environmental group) at corpokontiki@hotmail.com

Jamaica – Montego Bay Boy’s and Girl’s Club

September 26, 2006

Jamaica has been met with a large number of difficulties since its independence in 1962, including the negative consequences that globalization has had on its local agricultural markets now dependent on exports and monopolized by foreign corporations. Social problems are especially relevant amongst the youth who are often cornered into a life of gangs and drugs.

While not many alternatives exist for such youth, there is one prominent safe space in Montego Bay. Participants had the opportunity to visit the Montego Bay Boy’s & Girl’s Club, founded in 1942 by priests who felt a need to direct the energy of the youth into positive avenues of sports, music, and learning. Currently there are 150 members of the club, 40 of whom are girls. The club itself is a small building settled in the outskirts of downtown Montego Bay. Inside is reminiscent of a boxing club with walls filled with the dusty framed pictures of athletes (both world-renowned and the club’s own stars), wooden lockers, long benches, and a large blackboard with the scores from each of the club’s teams in a variety of sports including football, basketball, etc.

In the back of the club are three small rooms that house a wood shop (where we met a man crafting wooden trophies for the club’s teams), a home economics room, a preschool, and a basketball/soccer court. Every day students between the ages of six and twenty-six come to the Club after school to participate in activities until around 8:30pm or 9:00pm. The program is entirely funded by the directors and through the earnings the club’s marching band receives from performances at hotels in the area, three times per week.

Gladstone “Pop” Lawrence

Participants met Kumiko Terai, a Japanese woman who is married to Phillip Roane, a band member in the group T. Frenz (a reggae band that wrote Peace Boat’s departure song, “Believe”) and has had a friendship with Peace Boat for some years. She is now teaching computer science at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club. In 2005, Peace Boat started an exchange program with the Club and raised funds to donate computers. We also met Gladstone Lawrence (or “Pop”), now 73 years old, who has been with the club since he was nine years old. He is now director and a well-respected member of the Montego Bay community.

We enjoyed a few hours of games including a relay race, musical chairs, and soccer. Japanese participants shared their culture through traditional crafts like shouji (calligraphy), origami, and yukata. Afterwards we were treated to a Jamaican feast. In the evening we joined other participants for a reggae event on the beach, Sun Bash 2006, organized by Peace Boat and featuring T. Frenz, from which a portion of the amount raised went to the Club as support.

Global Kids

August 29, 2006

As a special program onboard the 54th voyage, eight American youth from the organization Global Kids in New York City joined us from Mombassa to Chivitaveccia. They consisted of two coordinators (Courtney Killingswoth and Tiffanie Lewis) and eight high school students (Dewayne Baker, Kashif Caldwell, Namita Chand, Aneka Hewitt, Ana Jaquez, Samora Mitchell, Shareef Swindell, and Ebanesha Williams).

Global Kids as an organization was founded in 1989 in New York City. It is a leadership program developed for a diverse group of New York City teenagers, many considered at-risk youth, to provide them with the tools to become globally aware citizens who can think critically and speak for themselves. All participants of the program respect three guidelines. The first is open mic – when someone is speaking, everyone else is attentive. The second is to provide a safe space – you agree to disagree. The third is participation – the more you put in the more you get out of it.

Onboard, Global Kids shared four workshops with participants. They included a workshop on American culture (and culture in general), the positive and negative effects of tourism, American Imperialism, and a conflict resolution workshop. They also gave a number of lectures including a discussion about their experiences as people of color in the United States and their impressions of post-9/11 US. They also joined a number of tours at ports of call.

While the high school students enjoyed the unique opportunity to lead lectures and presentations in front of a large group of participants, they particularly enjoyed their smaller workshops focused on cultural exhcange. Bringing their passion and knowledge from their lives in New York City, the kids lead participants in a series of lessons concerning their interests. Shareef led workshops on tap-dancing, a form of street dance that was started in Ireland by young people from low-income families trying to make money on the street. The dance is now popular with youth in New York. Ebanesha did a series on hair-braiding, an activity with an important stylistic and social role in the African-American community. Aneka performed and taught passengers a dance style known as "Steppin," a fast-paced rhythmic beat that is popular with African-American fraternities and sororities in the United States. Finally Dwayne and Samora led a "basketball camp", teaching other passengers of all ages some of their favorite moves on the court before organizing a small tournament on the deck.

The Global Kids reveled in all aspects of ship life, from conversations about US politics to dance competitions. Their creative final presentation was a collaborative performance piece including theatre, slide shows, video, dance, music, and poetry. Their skits represented their expectations before arriving, their experiences on the ship, and their thoughts and hopes for their lives when they returned home. One thing was certain: their lives had changed forever, and they had grown so much from the experience of interacting with new cultures and countries. They will miss their many Japanese friends on the boat, and look forward to bringing the messages of peace they encountered on their journey back to their communities in New York City.

Peace Boat - Sports Day

September 19th, 2006

Sports Day is an indispensable part of Japanese culture. Every year before summer vacation, schools from preschool to university across Japan take part in this tradition. It is a day when the entire community comes together to share in the festivity and to cheer on their children.

Participants onboard the 54th voyage spent many days preparing for this special event. They could be seen painting team flags, practicing some of the games or team cheers, and building team spirit.

Sunshine flooded the pool deck on the 19th and participants of all ages came dressed in their team colors; red, black, white, yellow or blue (depending on what part of Japan they are from).

The day was sated with a variety of games including the giant jump-rope competition, tug-of-war, beanbag toss, and an obstacle course. All teams presented their team cheers; some of them included colorful cross-dressing routines, while others were more regimented. All of them had been diligently practiced and revealed a team pride.

After a full day of laughter, sweat and tears, the blue team was announced the winning team and received a trophy and an all-you-can-drink ticket for Namihei (Peace Boat’s outdoor restaurant) for each member. All teams celebrated a job well done and that night team leaders gave speeches of

Photos courtesy of Stacy Hughes

Casablanca – Solidarite Femnine

September 13th, 2006

Solidarite Feminine, was dismissed by greater society as taboo when it started to help single mothers in Morocco twenty years ago. Started by two female counselors who worked in hospitals that catered to pregnant mothers, they answered to the widespread ostracism that young mothers were facing when their partners suddenly disappeared and they were forced to face their pregnancy and the birth of their child alone. Solidarite Feminine provided a safe space with counseling, legal aid, and skills training programs.

Today in Morocco the problem continues and babies are still found abandoned by their mothers. Single mothers are still hunted and sometimes killed by their families or partners, after which the law protects the “honor crime” and can send the mother to jail as a prostitute, although this law has not been enforced since the 90’s. Solidarite Feminine continues to work tirelessly to educate society about gender issues and to help single mothers through their difficult and often life-threatening struggle.

The Solidarite Feminine compound that the 54th Peace Boat Voyage participants visited houses a number of facilities where single mothers can receive skills training so that they may easily find work once they are ready to become independent. The women receive free training in the hamam (public bath), beauty salon, nursery, or at the reception desks by professionals who are also practiced counselors.

Participants in the tour had the opportunity to take an oriental dance class (aka belly dancing), and were treated to a full body massage and scrub in the hamam, after which there was an information session where members of Solidarite Feminine presented information about the development of the women’s movement in Morocco and about the organization’s activities, and Japanese PB participants shared information that they had prepared about the women’s movement in Japan.

You can visit Solidarite Feminine’s website at www.lamarocaine.com/solidaritefeminine

Rome – Women in Black

September 6th, 2006

Women in Black began their activities in Jerusalem in 1988, 20 years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza and one year after the first Intifada rose as the Palestinian resistance movement against the aggression. Israeli Jewish women began to organize silent vigils to show solidarity with the people of Palestine and to take a stand against the horrors of war that often most effect women and their children. As the movement grew, they initiated other activities, including visits to female Palestinians in Israeli prisons, and collaborations with Women in Black in Palestine.

In Italy that same year, a group of women came together to start a project called “Women Visiting Difficult Places”, with the purpose of promoting dialogue between all sides of a conflict in various areas around the world. After visiting Women in Black in Jerusalem, they returned to Italy to start their own Donne in Nero (Women in Black in Italian) and opened chapters in Rome, Milan, Bologna, Turin, Ravenna, Padova and Verona.

Peace Boat’s 54th voyage was the first to provide participants the chance to visit Donne in Nero’s Casa Internazionale delle Donne (International Women’s Center) in Rome, the main office for Women in Black activities in Italy. Here participants had a chance to talk with women who worked in different departments of the organization, including the archivist for the library, which holds an extensive collection of women’s testimonies, and chronicles the women’s movement around the world.

During the information exchange, members of Donne in Nero gave personal testimonies about their experiences with divorce, abortion, discrimination in the workplace, and feminists in art, as well as a presentation on the history of the development of women’s rights in Italy. In return Peace Boat participants gave a prepared presentation about the development of women’s rights in Japan, followed by a recital of feminist poems by Done in Nero member, Pilar Castel. Many participants, especially the elders, were surprised to find that they shared very similar experiences with the Italian women. In the evening we enjoyed a beautiful dinner in the courtyard of the Casa Internazionale delle Donne, prepared by their restaurant. Here women had the opportunity to exchange stories about their experiences over wine and a slow meal.