aquart
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Tue Mar-29-11 07:52 PM
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Bringing aid to Sendai, firsthand account: |
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A Japanese friend in Berlin forwarded this email containing the account of an Egyptian in Japan. Very small world these days. (I removed the names and email addresses.)
Date: 2011/3/29 Subject: transfew a mail from Egyptian in Earthquake disaster To: and em
Dear friends, (this mail is sent by Bcc ) This is TANAKA, How are you doing, I want you to read a mail from one Egyptian studying Hiroshima univ.. He couldn't help going to Tohoku area where was damaged so much by earthquake and tsunami when he knew the disaster. ==============following is pasted his mail ==============================
In 25 early morning I get up at 5:30 am. I did my prayer then moved to the sendai mosque. I found Pakistani people there preparing for going to find needy shelter. The mosque provides them a guide and provides us another guide. It was Friday. I moved with the guide, he showed us the destruction in the city. The high way separates sendai into two parts. It was able to stop tsunami. The city behind the high way was safe but the city before it was completely removed. You can see only houses wood and damaged cars. We went to the shelters around the city. They mainly use schools. These shelters contain around 1000 in every shelter. The people just sleep in open space. The manager told us that most of family here is not complete. Some family lost the kids or the mother or the father. He himself lost 14 people of his family relatives. The shelter in the city have enough food and electricity. Many people bring them food and life needs. Our guide who lost his company told us that his brother was behide the high way just 30 seconds driving brought him away of death area. We have to went back to the mosque because it is Friday we have to o our prayer. After the prayer, the guide was unable to join us because he have to arrange another work. He provides us a Japanese woman to guide us to remote area near to sendai to find needy shelters. After driving around 40 Km we saw what the eye cannot imagine. Massive destruction. I do not know what power can make this. The entire city has been removed. Nothing is remaining but some houses were just behind the mountain. It was safe. In this area we find 3 shelters. Two of them was tents and the third one was a temple. You cannot imagine how people are happy when they see you. The children, women and men are happy to see you. But me so sad to see them. The people dress is so rusty because they cannot wash. Childern face is cracked because of cold. I can imagine how happy life they were just few days ago. I wish I could speak Japanese to tell them to believe in allah, he is the only one who can protect them. They told us one week ago no one come to bring them food. When I enter the place they store the food. It was only water there. One person can get only 1 meal per day. The people in this area love each other so much. When we go one shelter, they reject to take all the food. They take some and ask us to go to the second shelter because they know that the second shelter also has no food. This is a manner of islam. Nothing in the life better than the people loves each other. I wish I had enough money to bring them food everyday. I wish I could live with them. Although the life is very poor but it is very happy because people love each other. If you want to go there. You can take the following things with you. Gasoline tanks Rice (the most important) Nodules and ramin Caned foods Water Juice Bread Milk Skim milk Children milk Biscuits and cookies Potatoes cheeps Cold medicine Painkiller the trip using a van full of food costs from 40 to 50 man yen.
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lbrtbell
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Tue Mar-29-11 08:19 PM
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1. One part of that e-mail disturbed me greatly |
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Edited on Tue Mar-29-11 08:22 PM by lbrtbell
"I wish I could speak Japanese to tell them to believe in allah, he is the only one who can protect them."
Allah, God, or whatever, it makes me sick when people want to proselytize during disasters. The Japanese believe in Kami-sama, thank you very much, and don't need anybody converting them to Islam, Christianity, or anything else.
Besides, Allah didn't do a great job of protecting them from the quake, tsunami, or the crippled nuke plant, so why would he do any better now?
The caring, cooperative attitude of the Japanese people is something all these religious zealots would do well to emulate. Nobody there is trying to convince gaijin aid workers to convert to Shinto.
And that's as it should be.
On a lighter note, I think it's cute how the survivors are requesting "cheeps" to eat. Some things are universal. :)
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aquart
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Tue Mar-29-11 08:28 PM
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2. People always think their own god is great. BUT... |
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Think what you saw there. An Egyptian student went to a Pakistani mosque in Sendai and then went with them to distribute the supplies they had gathered. Without speaking Japanese, without being able to proselytize in any way, they made their way through that horror and found the people in need.
Don't take a youthful ego's impulse to convert the world as the only thing of importance. No matter what his religion, he did good. Frankly, that's all I ask of anyone.
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Mon May 13th 2024, 07:51 AM
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