Hi, friends!
Spring is here, and we have gorgeous cherry blossom scenery here and there.
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| March, 2006 |
This month, I would like to introduce my friend Toshiko Ito.
Toshiko is my high-school class mate, and she is the chairman of a volunteer
group, named Ipil-Ipil Society in Tokyo. She and her friends of the society
have donated many things to various districts of the world. These three
or four years, they have endeavored to carry on the project to donate cherry
trees to Sarajevo.
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| Zetra Park Cemetery |
Why Sarajevo?
Because Toshiko saw the sufferings and the misery of the war scars in that
country. Zetra Park, once the soccer stadium, is now a huge cemetery where
thousands of gravestones make lines after the dispute of Bosnia and Herzegovina
in 1992-95.
Why cherry trees ?
Japanese people love cherry blossoms specially. Traditionally, under the
full bloom, we picnic and drink together. Then we feel how precious peace
is to us. Toshiko wants the three nations of Muslim. Croatia and Serbia,
leave their hatred against each other and drink together under the beautiful
blossom.
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| Growing young trees |
How do they make donations?
They sell their hand-made cakes at bazaars, or else, and fund money to buy young cherry trees.
Every year, Toshiko and some members of the group visit Sarajevo with hundreds
of those young trees. The trees are temporarily planted at the riverside
of the Milijacka until they get used to the new circumstances of cold Sarajevo.
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| Planting with Mayor |
Who plants?
Ipil-Ipil Society members together with the Sarajevo people, including
children.
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| Ipil-Ipil flower |
What is Ipil-Ipil ?
Ipil-Ipil is a tree which Toshiko liked when she was in the Philippines.
The tree grows very rapidly and is useful in many ways. Toshiko wants to
be helpful as the tree for other people. She works in a hospital in Tokyo
as a social worker to support sick people and the families. She is Ipil-ipil
to many suffering
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I am proud of Toshiko, 'Grandmother Cherry Blossom', and would like to
go to Sarajevo someday to see the grown-up cherry trees and the blossom
in full bloom. Why don't you join then and picnic under the trees?
Thank you, and I hope I can see you next month again. |
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