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Choi Soo Jong is a seasoned actor with more than a few decades of acting career, and he also enjoys wide popularity for his charity work that is done behind the scenes. Going on his 25th year of acting, he has not rusted in his acting talent and his handsome look has also garnered him fans in Japan too.
Serving as a goodwill ambassador at Heart to Heart Foundation, Choi has been making donations for a long time. He has visited Tanzania two years in a row and met with local people who received his care and enjoyed communication with him.
Choi’s own “Happy Diary” will be published in series to look into his warm inner heart, hear him on the true meaning of volunteer work, and how it helps reaching happiness to communicate with others.
As soon as I finished filming my last movie, I left for Tanzania on April 7. It was my second visit to the country as a goodwill ambassador of Heart to Heart Foundation. One visit to Africa is a rare experience for most Koreans. My second visit to the same African country was enough to raise surprise among my friends. I am going back to Tanzania but not to the same town. This trip was to Mtwara in southern Tanzania.
I was excited and very much looking forward to visiting the new place, but part of me felt very sorry. I went back to Tanzania expecting to see some small change from last year. I flew out of the Incheon Airport to Doha, Qatar to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and then there got on a domestic connection flight to arrive in Mtwara only to discover the same Tanzania from my memory of last year.
Betraying the awe-inspiring natural environment, the lives of local people still continued to be at the mercy of the harsh real world and oppressed by absolute poverty. Mtwara was especially a poor region in Tanzania, rarely visited by Tanzanians living in other regions.
I was on my way to share love and hope. My wish was the same. For a five-night and seven-day journey, I wished to be able to communicate and share each other’s heart with the language of love and communicate to them that there is reason for each person’s life, even though I cannot change their circumstances. That was it.
A 9-year boy at the quarry; Ayoubu is responsible for his family.
As soon as I unpacked, I went to meet Ayoubu. I saw boys at one side of the quarry pushing carts to carry rocks bigger than themselves under the blazing sun. Barely 9 years old, but a breadwinner for his family, Ayoubu was found among the boys carrying rocks. All I could do at the moment to help Ayoubu was carry the rocks, and they were way too heavy even for me, a grown-up. The rocks felt as heavy as the weight of the young boy’s life. My heart wrenched.
There was a pit in the middle of the quarry where the rain fell, and there I washed Ayoubu’s small hands never without scars and feet hardened with calluses. I felt like a bad father washing his hands and feet and couldn’t help dropping my head. I felt so sorry that that was all I could do for him.
Ayoubu lives in a dingy room receiving no light even during daytime with his visually impaired grandmother and a half brother. The house was too full even to make room to sit down when I entered. I couldn’t believe that this little boy and his family are living in this tiny place shut from the sunlight.
How dare I say that I know their suffering? My heart was wrenching, and I mustered my voice to ask him where his mother was. The boy’s mother died and father lives elsewhere with two other women. He said ever so clearly without flinching. My heart wrenched once more.
At least for the brief moment, I wanted to be a good father for this boy. I tried hard to make a bright smile and asked, “Ayoubu, what would you like to do with your father?” only to be replied another heart-sinking remark, “What about grandmother if I take time to play even briefly?” I could not lift my head.
To take care of his family’s livelihood, this boy hasn’t so much set his foot in school but sells potatoes in the early morning and digs up rocks in the afternoon. I wanted to lift up the weight of life put on the boy’s shoulders now.
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Heart Story | Press/Media
