Japan courts Africa with a volunteer's gentle touch
Barney Jopson | Saturday, 14 June 2008
EVELYN Nzioki positions a thumb on Edward Mwangi's lower back and hoists her knee up on to the treatment table. Leaning forward to channel her body weight into one knot of tensed-up muscle, she asks gently: "Do you feel pain?"
From Mr Mwangi, who suffers chronic back ache, comes a muffled groan. A minute or so later he is drifting into slumber. "I can feel it ease and ease," he says dreamily, as Ms Nzioki kneads her way across his back.
The shiatsu school in Kenya where she trained opened last January and owes its existence to the Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica), a government aid outlet and a diplomatic asset that has assumed new importance as Japan vies with China and India for African mineral resources and trade.
For Ms Nzioki, shiatsu offers a way to consign years of neglect, isolation and derision to the past. The reason: she is blind. Her disability carries challenges everywhere, but life in Africa adds the extra burdens of poverty, poor healthcare, uninterested governments and ignorance.
The massage clinic, a narrow plywood room overlooking the bus station in a small town, offers her the possibility of a career and financial independence.
She got her break from the Machakos Technical Institute for the Blind, a school 70km east of Nairobi, which for Ks6,000 ($96,
From Mr Mwangi, who suffers chronic back ache, comes a muffled groan. A minute or so later he is drifting into slumber. "I can feel it ease and ease," he says dreamily, as Ms Nzioki kneads her way across his back.
The shiatsu school in Kenya where she trained opened last January and owes its existence to the Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica), a government aid outlet and a diplomatic asset that has assumed new importance as Japan vies with China and India for African mineral resources and trade.
For Ms Nzioki, shiatsu offers a way to consign years of neglect, isolation and derision to the past. The reason: she is blind. Her disability carries challenges everywhere, but life in Africa adds the extra burdens of poverty, poor healthcare, uninterested governments and ignorance.
The massage clinic, a narrow plywood room overlooking the bus station in a small town, offers her the possibility of a career and financial independence.
She got her break from the Machakos Technical Institute for the Blind, a school 70km east of Nairobi, which for Ks6,000 ($96,