Life Onboard LAST UPDATE  February 5, 2009
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January 19, 2009 Cycling through Africa and Japan – Yamasaki Mio
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Yamasaki Mio signs her book for a Peace Boat participant after her lecture about cycling through Japan and Africa.
Yamasaki Mio is not like most other 26-year-old women. Interested in foreign cultures from an early age, she decided that she wanted to spend her time in university studying a new language. Naturally, most people assumed she would study English, the most popular foreign language to study in Japan. But Yamasaki surprised everyone when she decided to study Swahili. “My teacher told me not to,” she says, “but I wanted to.” When listening to Yamasaki tell her stories, “I just wanted to” comes up often as a reason behind her many accomplishments, which include cycling around Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, Africa, and the Middle East; founding “Cog Way,” a social action programme focusing on cycling; and promoting HIV and AIDS awareness.
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Showing off the smile she calls her “weapon” (Photo: Yamasaki Mio)
“Everyone asked me, ‘Why do you want to go to Africa?’ I didn’t have a reason, I just wanted to go! I didn’t need a reason. I felt like I could do whatever I wanted. I wanted to go through Africa smiling, and come back to Japan smiling,” she says. Despite her simple-sounding reason, Yamasaki didn’t just wake up one morning and fly to Africa. Her preparation was particular and thorough. To train for the trip through Africa, she first cycled from one end of Japan to the other. It took two months and, after she found companies to sponsor her by providing food and donations of 30,000 yen (about $300 US dollars), she personally spent only 20,000 yen (about $200 USD).
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Yamasaki with a woman in Kenya. Although the woman is dressed in traditional Maasai clothing, a mobile phone dangles from a string around her neck (Photo: Yamasaki Mio)
After she cycled through Japan, she began preparing for her trip through Africa. “I convinced my school to let me have time off, saying I was doing research for my thesis,” she says. “But then I had to convince my parents. They were so scared.” She researched the areas by going to the library, looking on the Internet, and spending time in Africa talking to people and asking for advice before she started cycling from Kenya to South Africa. Though many people thought she was crazy, she refused to be discouraged. “Many people said, ‘You’re so stupid! You’re going to get hurt!’ But even if someone said something negative, I took it as advice, something to consider. So I appreciated hearing even the negative things.”
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Before departing from Nairobi, Yamasaki shaved her head in order to look like a man (Photo: Yamasaki Mio)
Thinking Africa was a scary, dangerous place, people often asked Yamasaki what weapons she planned to take on her journey. “I said my weapons were friendship and a smile,” she says. “If people liked me, if they were my friends, they wouldn’t want to hurt me.” Yamasaki also took more concrete precautions: she shaved her head, sometimes wore a fake beard and mustache, and flattened her chest with cotton to look like a man. But Yamasaki never met personal danger on her six-month trip, instead making many new friends who she still keeps in contact with today. The biggest trouble she encountered was in Malawi, where her foot became swollen. “It was so painful,” she says. “I rode my bike to the doctor and he said it was infected with pus.” She assumes that the wound had started out as a small cut that had become infected in one of the village showers she used along the way, which were nothing more than a cup of water and her own towel. “The doctor cut open the infection with a rusty knife. There was no anesthesia. I was screaming the entire time.”
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This woman, who Yamasaki befriended in Malawi, died of AIDS shortly after Yamasaki’s visit. Half the Malawi population is infected with HIV. Yamasaki now compaigns to prevent HIV and AIDS through cycling activities (Photo: Yamasaki Mio)
“I was so angry, because I couldn’t continue on my bike trip,” Yamasaki says of the injury. “But then I realized, there are beautiful, brilliant things all around us, and you just have to stop and see. I met so many people because I had to stay in Malawi for so many days caring for my foot.” Yamasaki had the chance to attend a Malawian friend’s wedding, where she was celebrated with music and cheers when she gave the guests a gift of 1,000 yen (about $10 USD). It was during that time that she met a woman who worked as a telephone operator in the hotel where Yamasaki was staying. “She held my hand when I had the painful doctor’s visits, and she always encouraged me,” Yamasaki says. “After I came back home to Osaka (Japan), I got a phone call. I found out she had died from AIDS.”
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Yamasaki reaches her goal: the southernmost point of the African continent, the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The journey from Kenya to South Africa was 6,000 km long and took 6 months (Photo: Yamasaki Mio)
Yamasaki has now made AIDS one of the causes she raises money and awareness for by cycling. She has also become a Goodwill Ambassador to Eritrea, a country that Peace Boat visits often. Altogether, she has cycled through 15 countries, including taking part in “Follow the Women,” a cycling tour of women around four countries in the Middle East. She has published a book about her experiences in Africa, and now owns a shop that sells supplies and offers information on activism through cycling. At only 26 years old, Yamasaki inspired many of the young women on Peace Boat to follow their dreams, no matter what other people tell you. “The most important thing,” she says, “is to follow through with your decisions. Have determination. And have fun.”