Journalist leads 'Tour of Love' through battered Tohoku

 BY LOUIS TEMPLADO STAFF WRITER

On a mission to bring aid to battered areas from the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, singalongs, snowball fights, Persian rugs and a hilltop picnic may not seem part of the bargain.

Yet they were on the itinerary of a weekend trip to the Tohoku region organized by Afshin Valinejad early this month.

A Tokyo-based freelance journalist and a man of many connections, Valinejad scored an emergency vehicle permit in the first days following the Great East Japan Earthquake, and transported British and Dutch news crews throughout the tsunami-hit region.

When the foreign news crews left the country the Iranian returned to Tokyo, determined to deliver friends and supplies to the devastated areas, in what he calls a "Tour of Love."

"I felt so much love from the people of the quake-hit region and want to give them something back," says the 46-year-old, who filled a 10-seater bus for the voyage. "You can watch television and look at the Internet and still have no idea of the scale of destruction. To appreciate it you really have to see it with your own eyes."

Rugs and kilims -- donated by an Iranian dealer with many embroidered with a soccer ball and "2010" -- filled most of the trunk and sunk the tires. Valinejed would take no money from the participants, most of whom were fellow Iranians based in Tokyo. Each brought bagfuls of supplies to hand out at evacuation centers.

A spontaneous sing-along to the Beatles' "Yesterday" broke out soon after the group set off at midnight, bound first for the Miyagi Prefecture town of Kesennuma.

"Take a look around, but I tell this is nothing compared to what you are going to see," says Valinejad, as he pulled up the bus in front of the dusty city hall. The tsunami rode into the port and up main street, but left surrounding areas intact. "The next town you will see is amazing, I guarantee. Almost nothing is standing," he adds, referring to Rikuzentakata.

"I'm starting to have weird feelings about this and I hope we don't look too much like a safari tour," says Miguel Quintana, a freelance journalist from Switzerland who caught a ride on the bus. "It's as if we're here to see some destruction, have some fun, and then head off for 30 minutes more of destruction."

After a hilltop picnic set to music Valinejad piloted the bus to Rikuzentakata, to hand out supplies at an evacuation center just visited by Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Then the bus descended to the wreckage of the town itself, where Valinejad and compatriots pushed rugs and notebooks into the hands of passersby on the narrow road. Japan Self-Defense Force trucks waited patiently to pass.

Yet as night fell the bulk of the rugs still weighed down the trunk, with not an evacuee in sight. On the way to the onsen, however, one of the passengers spotted a dimly lit tennis dome, which turned out to be an emergency shelter. Within 15 minutes the bewildered but appreciative evacuees found themselves smothered in rugs.

"What did I tell you, my friends? I know some of you were losing hope, but I knew something would happen," says Valinejad, followed by a beep of the horn. "People say you must have a plan, you must be organized, but these aren't as important as the emotion, the spirit to bring yourself there to where you're needed. Once you get there, everything starts."

The next morning Valinejad stopped the bus for a snowball fight. Yet the group seemed subdued as it headed to Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, to look at where waves washed large ships a kilometer inland.

"I joined because I want to learn about myself, and do something in person," says participant Golmaryam Masood Ansari. She and her husband flew back to Tehran immediately after the quake, to appease their parents, but returned to Tokyo two weeks later. "We call this country our home, and it wouldn't have been right to do nothing."

Martin Gharachorlou, a 24-year-old footwear designer, snapped photos and also gathered waterlogged snapshots from among the ruins. He wanted them, he said, to make an artwork and as inspiration for haiku.

He struggled with a verse as the bus found the highway back to Tokyo. Meanwhile other passengers came up with a new name for the whirlwind tour: "The Magic Carpet Ride".

Iranian journalist Afshin Valinejad gives a guided tour of the Tohoku region. (Louis Templado)

Participants of the 'Tour of Love' taking photographs in the ruins. (Louis Templado)