"this is our cry. this is our prayer. to build peace in the world"

I have now had a few days, to collect myself, to pick up the pieces of my experience at Hiroshima city.

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As I approached the A-Bomb Dome, once getting of the street car, the feeling that came over me...perhaps I will never be able to articulate this to anyone. Or even make sense of my own thoughts. To know that the Peace Park, in which this monument is situated, was once complete devistation from the atomic bomb, one can only hope or pray to come to turms with this. At times, I felt myself closing my eyes wondering if this was really standing before me.

"As a historical witness that conveys the tragedy of suffering the first atomic bomb in human history as a symbol that vows to faithfully seek the abolition of nuclear weapons and everlasting world peace. Genbaku Dome (former Hiroshima Prefectures Industrial Promotion Hall), was added to the World Heritage List in accordance with the "Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natral Heritage." December 7, 1996, Hiroshima City.

The chill of seeing this sight, and the strange loudness of peace that filled the air, will always be in my mind. To have fallen in the shadow of such a monument, as the sun shone the day I visited the Peace Park...this memory, will never leave me. To know that a single, man made object, dropped from 600m in the air, wiped out basically everything within a 3km radius, and claimed 200 000 lives...its hard to even imagine such an event, when you step onto the grounds of the now Peace Park. Both devistation and peace now existing together.

Walking along the banks of the river, with the Dome in my view, I came to the Childrens Peace Monument. It still sends chills down my spine recalling what I saw. On the top of this peculiar shaped monument was the statue of Sadako (100o paper crane story), as she lifts a single crane entrusted with dreams for a peaceful future. And behind it, are colour upon colour of uncountable paper cranes. Sent from all around the world. I felt myself wondering...is this a dream. Am I really here? I saw a child and mother who came to pray underneath this structure and to ring the bell of peace, in hopes of a world without bombings or war.

Walking to the Peace Museum, later in the afternoon, listening to perhaps most haunting stories of the effects of the a-bomb over 60 years ago. Stories of children having lost their hair from the radiation; human skin being burned from a 3km radious of the hypocentre; hearing of a mother who caresses her son's head and his hair coming out in clumps; seeing the tattered clothing of young boys and girls; an old stop watch that reads 8:15- the exact time of the bombing; reading about a mother recieving her dead daughters bag and hat on her front door 3 days after the incident; viewing an old, tarnished, burnt bicycle of a three year old boy who was killed instantly from the bomb; a photograph of a woman who's kimono pattern was burned right onto her skin; photos of children wandering the streets with burnt skin and no family; bent, iron shutters from an old department store, as a result of the intense heat; seeing shards of glass in a stone wall; viewing a large panoramic photograph of the Hiroshima a few days after the bombing...everything in ashes...I could go on.

As I walked back out to the centre of the peace park, I somehow saw it differently now. I wept. Maybe for what I saw. Maybe for what I was feeling. Maybe for what I was thinking. Finally having to sit down. I looked up, saw the sun, and realized that hope and peace are what remains in this place. I remember reading a quote in the museum that said no plants were expected to grow after such an incident, but just a short time after the bombing, a small flower emerged out of the ground. Hiroshima is a lovely, majestic city, having now been rebuilt and is dedicated to promoting peace around the world.

As the sun set in Hiroshima, and I made my way back to the station to go back to Osaka that evening, I had no words. I was glad to be alone with my thoughts and my journal. I did leave Hiroshima with sadness, but with so much hope as well. I haven't been keeping track of my calender all that much, but Easter is soon approaching. A season that I see differently now. Where there is death, so there will also be new life. And this is what will remain: faith, hope and love.

While the greatest of these is love, Hiroshima has taught me hope.