Happy Birthday to Panama!

Interviewed & written by Isao Tokuhashi Mail to: itokuhashi@myeyestokyo.com   Clara Nakazato (Venezuela) Venezuelan cuisine instructor (She’s been in Japan since ’95) The 4th interviewee of “MET × Niki’s Kitchen” is Clara Nakazato, a woman from Venezuela, South America. She is encompassing, envelopes her students in a warm hug. Her Japanese husband has a warm personality as well as Clara and the couple creates an aura of peace and harmony. Clara never builds a wall. She has no hesitation about anything. She tries any food even if it’s new to her. To people as well, she never distinguishes people by race,

Market in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. *Photo from Wikipedia May 20 is Cameroon’s National Day, creation of a unitary state in 1972. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões (“Shrimp River”), which became Cameroon in English. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884 known as Kamerun. After World War I, the territory was divided between France and the United Kingdom as League of Nations mandates. The Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) political party advocated independence, but was outlawed by France in the 1950s, leading to the Cameroonian Independence War.

Main street in the east end of Freetown, the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. *Photo from Wikipedia April 27 is the Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Sierra Leone from United Kingdom in 1961. Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north-east, Liberia to the south-east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south-west. The Afro-European colony was founded by a British organization for freed American slaves on March 11, 1792. There were about 1,192 African Americans who were relocated from Nova Scotia to Sierra