April 20th, 2006 was Day 8 and began with an early morning rendezvous with Kumamoto
KKT’s television crew. On a tight schedule, whilst preparing my walking
equipment, including shoes, banner and water bottles, I answered a few
brief questions before getting straight into my walk at high speed, followed
by the camera crew. I had to admire their stamina, as they literally ran
behind me and ahead of me for the next two hours, to get video material
for the evening news. Ms Kawamura the reporter, even walked with me for
about 4km, becoming the first woman to do so.
After 12km of brisk walking I arrived with my camera crew entourage at
Kumamoto’s Kino Cardiac Hospital where I was completely overwhelmed and
humbled by the welcome I received. Walking towards the Hospital entrance,
the first thing to greet me was an Australian flag raised in my honour
flying alongside the usual Japanese flag. What followed was even more overwhelming,
as I was welcomed with a large round of applause by hospital director,
Dr Yonemitsu and about 100 other doctors, nurses and patients who had crowded
into the hospital foyer. I have never received such a large outpouring
of warmth and admiration towards myself and I actually felt quite embarrassed
as Reiko and I were ushered into the packed hospital auditorium and asked
to make an impromptu speech about my project and its anti-smoking message,
all the while being filmed by KKT.
One of the aims of this walk was to give something back to the Japanese
people for all their kindness to me over the last eight years of living
here. However, I seem to have only succeeded in receiving more of their
warmth and generosity as they respond to the effort I am making on this
walk. More gifts followed my speech, expertly translated by Reiko into
Japanese. These included two very useful boxes of water and sports drinks.
The whole event including a short touching speech by the Hospital Director
recounting his heavy smoking Father’s dying wish that his son, then a medical
student, should do an autopsy to witness the damage tobacco had done to
his body. The sight of all the internal organs mutilated by tobacco was
enough to make the Director a life-long advocate against smoking.
It is compelling stories like this which are becoming a highlight of the
walk, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to linger longer at this wonderful
no-smoking facility, as I had to continue with my walking schedule, thus
bidding farewell to the hospital, the Australian flag and the hard working
TV crew.
All I can say for the rest of the day is that the wind got stronger and
stronger forcing me to sheath my flag and remove my hat as I pushed into
a gale force head wind, finally earning a good nights rest just short of
Omuta Town, watching my days labours unfold on the evening news in my hotel
room and falling asleep content that our message had reached many more
of the people living in Kumamoto Prefecture.
The next morning an early wake up left me feeling tired though not in
a bad mood. However that would change through the morning as not a single
person cheered me on. Maybe I was expecting too much after the previous
days incredible response, however it left my spirits flagging and dreading
the further dreary hours of walking. That is until I was suddenly re-energized
by a bolt of lightning out of nowhere. The name of that bolt was Mr Funatake,
who suddenly drove up alongside me, frantically waving a copy of my Kagoshima
newspaper article out of his car window. He pulled over and told me he
had driven over a 100km up from Kagoshima, expressly to wish me good luck.
He was at the time a smoker trying to quit and wanted to use my walk as
the impetuous to stop smoking. So empowered, he u-turned to return to Kagoshima
with renewed purpose, whilst I returned to my long days walk with renewed
vigour and a new sense of purpose.-( In the month after the walk I was
again visited in Ehime by Mr Funatake and his wife, and I’m proud to report
that he has quit smoking and his son is also trying to quit. ) In fact
the meeting left me so buoyed that I continued through Kurume as far as
Kiyama for a total of 54km.
We awoke early the next day, greeted by grey skies and a steady rain but
with only a short 28km to walk along Highway 3 into Fukuoka City. We were
expected at the Fukuoka Medical Association at 1pm, which meant a fast
mornings walk. This succeeded in leaving me with a sore left ankle which
I spent the rest of the day nursing. Warmly received by the FMA president,
Dr Takeshima and reporter on hand, we spent the next hour conversing about
the tobacco problem and initiatives undertaken in Fukuoka. The afternoon
was spent relaxing out of the rain at a large outlet shopping mall; a reward
for Reiko for all the hard work behind the scenes she had been doing, organising
my schedule and liaising with people about events and home stays.
April 27th, saw almost perfect walking conditions as I set out from Fukuoka. The
swelling in my left ankle had persisted, so I decided to walk at a slower
pace, hoping to protect it from further damage. This seemed to work well
as I completed the days 42km in nine and a half hours, to be greeted by
our home stay host Professor Yamato of the University of Occupational and
Environmental Health, Japan. Arriving at his home at 6pm we were welcomed
not only by his lovely wife and family but by some of his fourth year medical
students, members of the University Anti-smoking group, who had been invited
to attend a small dinner party in our honour. The students were eager to
hear about my walk but I was even more eager to hear these committed young
people and their thoughts for curbing the tobacco problem in this country.
Its right that we old people tackle the tobacco problem, but I really believe
that we need to involve the younger generation in protecting their future,
so I applaud Dr Yamato’s anti-smoking circle.
Despite a delicious dinner and wonderful party my ankle was sending me
throbbing reminders to get some rest so we headed off to bed. Thankfully
the next day was a rest day and we spent it at the University campus, with
Dr Yamato and our new group of student friends, handing out anti-smoking
leaflets to the small minority of students who smoke on this campus, with
its very pro-active anti-tobacco policy, limited smoking areas and no tobacco
vending machines. In the late afternoon, with the anti-smoking circle students
we did an “emu-bob” of the campus, in particular picking up discarded cigarette
butts. Even on an almost smoke free campus we were able to collect about
300 butts between eight of us in one hour, and the group does this activity
every week. As a reward for our efforts, together we enjoyed a smoke free
dinner with Dr Yoshii and some of her 5th year medical students at a local restaurant.
April 25th was to be my last day in Kyushu and the morning was my last chance to
thank Dr Yamato for his hospitality and his gift of an industrial strength
breathing mask which I later put to good use in the traffic tunnels of
Honshu. Arriving later that day at Mekari Park with its view across the
narrow strait to Honshu I took a rather innocuous elevator under ground
to the 380m pedestrian tunnel and walked under the sea to Honshu. From
here another hours walking saw me arrive in Chofu before back tracking
by support vehicle to Shimonoseki and our home stay hosts, Dr and Mrs Ebihara,
who kindly fuelled our stomachs and our car ready for the next days walk
to Ogori.
On the next day the weather remained overcast, and unfortunately a small
town newspaper interview organised in Ube resulted in the day becoming
more overcast. The reporter seemed to miss the point of my walk and preferred
to complain to us about diesel fumes, asbestos and doctors profiteering
from smokers trying to quit. If I ever meet him again, I want to point
out that JT executives make far more money profiteering at the expense
of smokers health.
The interview had left Reiko in tears as it cast aspersions on the many
doctors who had cared for us over the past two weeks, so we stopped at
a family restaurant for some calm down time and some lunch. The whole exercise
had cost me an hour and a half of walking time. This was about the same
amount of time I had to walk in the rain in the early evening before our
rendezvous with our next host Dr Tsuha and driving to Yamaguchi City to
his house and his wife’s gourmet cooking which was certainly the silver
lining on a cloudy day. That night we went to bed unaware of the next days
amazing experience at the Yamaguchi Medical Association that was to restore
our spirits.
|
4月23日、24日、大和先生宅にホームステイ
産業医科大学でごみとモク拾い
学生さん達と夕食会
4月25日、関門トンネルを抜けて本州へ
海老原先生宅にホームステイ
4月26日、津波（つは）先生宅にホームステイ
|
