KEIKO KOMA net

3 Apl  2009

Spend a day meeting people 

My day started by meeting with the ambassador of Tanzania to Japan, The embassy was located in a residential area and I always dropped in at a cozy homemade pastry shop to buy a present for him and his colleagues. However, his term of service in Japan was almost over and he would go back to Tanzania quite soon. I have created for him a special mind-scape art work, passport holder and business card case as I knew they made everybody very happy, wherever I went in the world. When I showed them to him he looked more than happy, put on the mind-scape medal and said he would keep it forever as it would invite a lot of happiness. He made me happy too.. Then we could really enjoy intimate conversation about many subjects and we stayed for a long time. The Tanzania embassy used to encourage me enormously just by entering the building as its atmosphere represented dynamic nature such as Kilimanjaro mountain and safari natural park, where wild animals were living freely on mother earth. I could forget most of my daily concerns and become vigorous. I was grateful to have been able to keep a wonderful relationship with him for many years. And we mutually ascertained that our friendship would continue after his returning to Tanzania. To my great joy, we have started importing coffee beans cultivated at his home village on the foot of Kilimanjaro mountain and we were proud of their wonderful, natural aroma full of energy. He praised our business as a model to bridge building people to people through trade and creating new markets independent from a global pricing system that was in the hands of a very limited group of people. Though the price of a cup of coffee has been going up, that of beans has been quite low, and the farmer’s standard of life has never improved. Though the amount of sales was still very modest, I became confident of a great success in the long run, and felt proud of our principle that was to unite people’s hearts. I was determined to keep on promoting our coffee steadily in Japan. At night, I went to the Iranian new year festivity and dinner at the residence of the ambassador. Originally I was planning to go to Kyoto to finish the installation for my gallery exhibition, however, Mr. Idaki Shin suggested to me to put a priority on accepting the invitation. I was told that my volunteer staff have collaborated to make a wonderful exhibition.. I found the opportunity very precious as I acknowledged that we could achieve many things by working together. At the dinner, I met also the ambassador of Lebanon and he proposed to me to have dinner together within a month. This was another wonderful coincidence as I was about to finalize our plan to participate in the Tyre festival in Lebanon, in July. A person addressed me in English and he was very surprised to find out that I was Japanese. He said that I did not have any Japanese feature. By coincidence he used to live in Moscow and promised me to introduce his colleagues there when I would visit again to give a concert. Once we took actions for peace  everything started moving in our favor.