OSAKA--When renowned doctor and humanitarian Tetsu Nakamura was gunned down and killed in an ambush in Afghanistan in 2019, photographer Hiroki Nakayama attended the funeral in Fukuoka for his former boss.

Nakayama, 46, spent five years in Afghanistan two decades ago assisting Nakamura, who devoted his life to humanitarian activities in the nation. He was 73 when he died. 

Nakayama showed photos of Nakamura he had taken to the doctor’s staff members at the crematory. They told Nakayama that they would like them “to be exhibited for people,” urging him to make his images publicly accessible.

Nakayama decided to publish a collection featuring 60 works carefully selected out of his 6,000 images.

Nakayama spent an entire year choosing the images that show Nakamura’s work to provide irrigation for Afghans. The photo book, titled “Mizu o Maneku” (Lead the Water), was released in June this year.

“Water channels and wells are believed to have been built by Dr. Nakamura alone, but they could be completed only because each of his colleagues working with him did what they could do,” said Nakayama. “I want people to learn about their efforts to create an affluent nation.”

Nakayama’s hope is, through his publication, showing people what Nakamura was like in the distant country and how staffers helped him.

Nakayama, a resident of Katano, who currently serves as an associate professor of photography at the Kyoto University of the Arts, became part of Nakamura’s team comprised of six Japanese when he was 25.

Meeting with Nakamura in Afghanistan, Nakayama was welcomed by the doctor’s dark humor in his first utterance. Nakamura told Nakayama: “Hello. I hear that you are a slave.”

Around that time, Nakamura had started digging wells to provide desperately needed water for Afghans amid droughts along with offering medical support in 2001.

Hearing Nakayama, who had just graduated from the predecessor of the Kyoto University of the Arts, reply that he wanted to “take on a range of experiences till I turn 30,” Nakamura grinned and said, “You must be thinking nothing."

Nakamura, however, did not hesitate to show his appreciation for Nakayama when he proved to be a hard worker. Nakayama quoted Nakamura as saying he “apparently is something though people in society often denounce young people today.”

For Nakayama, Nakamura was a mixture of gentleness, childishness and cynicalness.

Acting on his belief that introducing irrigation canals would be more efficient than digging wells for agricultural reconstruction, Nakamura developed a method to draw in water from a river running through the mountains.

In doing so, Nakamura muttered to himself that “this is a matter of sine, cosine and tangent,” showing off his unique sense of humor.

Nakamura worked with local residents to set up water conduits, utilizing a Japanese traditional construction method dating to the Edo Period (1603-1867).

“Ideas of Dr. Nakamura were always simple, such as offering treatment by himself when no other doctors were present and supplying water on their own even if there were no irrigation equipment,” said Nakayama. “He could heighten his concentration to a stunningly high level in order to realize those plans.”

Nakayama took photos of Nakamura operating an excavator car and immersed in water up to his waist.

Although he won Nakamura’s trust so much that he was allowed to handle accounting affairs, Nakayama returned to Japan to live with his wife, Tomoko, now 47, in 2006. Staff members were saddened when he returned to his homeland.

After his return to Japan, Nakayama continued providing assistance for Nakamura’s activities in Afghanistan as a member of the Fukuoka-based nongovernmental organization Peshawar-kai.

In August in Afghanistan, the Taliban seized power again and established an interim government of the Islamic group.

According to Peshawar-kai, a suspended irrigation project restarted in October, but it is still a difficult balancing act to forge ahead with the program given that withdrawing funds from accounts is difficult due to Washington freezing Afghanistan assets.

“There are people’s lives as long as citizens are living there,” said Nakayama about the issue. “I want that fact to never be forgotten.”

Two years following Nakamura’s passing, his former Afghan colleagues who had worked with Nakayama to build wells are leading local projects.

The finished irrigation canals total 27 kilometers long, while more than a million trees have been planted in local areas.

“His (Nakamura’s) dream of rendering his activities sustainable without him being there has come true,” said Nakayama.

Nakayama’s 128-page, A5-size photo collection from Akaaka Art Publishing Inc. is available for 2,970 yen ($26) after tax.