Ishinomaki Day 2

Like the first, my second night at the Samaritan's Purse base did not go well.  People who shall remain anonymous spent the night snoring very loudly.  At least they got a lot of rest.  With my lack of sleep and the soreness from the day before, I was not exactly in the best shape for working hard.  Thankfully, today was a bit lighter on work than the day before. 

That's because the relief volunteers would be holding a barbeque for the neighborhood of Shintate!  Pastor Dean had planned on only inviting a few families that they had helped, and were expecting about 70 people total, including us workers.  Somehow, though, word got out and over 90 people came!  Initially, we were afraid of running out of food, but thankfully some acquaintances of Dr. Mehn's brought some extra meat that we could cook.  Also, Nick (who I mentioned in my previous post) worked in the restaurant business for a while and knew how to spread the food out to make it last.  It ended up as a fish-and-loaves situation, because there was a fairly large amount left afterwords!

Before allowing the people to eat, Dean gave a speech about who we all were, that we were Christians, that we love the people of Shintate, and that God loves them also.  And that if any of them needed help, that we would gladly do so.  The response was enormous.  Dean and his team had spent many weeks trying to earn the trust of Shintate, and this seemed to be the payoff.  Before, people had been hesitant to accept help (this has a lot to do with the Japanese mindset), but, last I heard, there aren't enough workers to keep up with the requests!

After the barbeque, I helped clear out a few more bushes from Mr. Sugiyama's garden.  I also started a bit on clearing garbage and debris from a Mr. Andou's backyard.  If I understand it correctly, he was hesitant to let people clear it, and I think he was just frustrated and discouraged by how bad it was (and it was bad).  But after the BBQ, he allowed us in.  He said that all the volunteer's work had given him hope (the United Japan team that had cleared his neighbor's backyard had really done an amazing job.  I wish I had pictures).

When we were done with work, Dr. Mehn decided to take us to the city harbor to really see the damage done by the tsunami.  It still amazes me that it was able to flood houses in Shintate, at least a mile away from the ocean, but the areas closer to the sea were just devastated.  Here are a few pictures.  Keep in mind that this is three months after the disaster.

 A pile of metal debris that had been collected

 This is typically the kind of damage that houses got if they were not swept away.  The inside was definitely flooded.

 A residential area

 A typical Japanese cemetery with debris

 A lot of the smaller debris was already taken away, but the larger stuff is still lying around

There used to be a building here.  All that's left now is the foundation.

It's impossible to describe the scope of the effected area.  It is predicted to take three years just to clear all the debris.  Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it took even longer.  It was at this point that the sheer enormity of the disaster hit me.

Ishinomaki Day 1

Each day at the Samaritan's Purse base started early to fit in as much work as possible.  I hadn't slept well because the night was colder than I expected.  By 8AM, we had left for the area of Shintate, Ishinomaki and got our first real look at the disaster area.  I didn't bring my camera with me because we were cautioned not to take pictures.  Past teams from other relief groups had spent a long time gaining the trust of this neighborhood.  Taking pictures might make the people living there feel like victims, and we definitely did not want to offend.  However, here is a Youtube video of the area by Mr. Abe (whose church I went to that Sunday) from sometime in April.  People have been working really hard to clean up and the main street in the video was completely clean by the time we arrived.  It's an unlisted video, so I can't embed it, but here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mvl106xfxE

There were three groups working in the area with us: Pastor Dean, an acquaintance of Dr. Mehn, lead the overall operation; Samaritan's Purse; and Japan United, an organization made after the disaster by some Japanese churches.  Together, we went to work.

Although the roads had been cleared, there was still a lot of debris in people's yards.  For instance, the trailer from a semi somehow managed to get in between two houses without destroying them (and Japanese houses are close together!).  It's now stuck and will be really hard to get out.  It was strange seeing the destruction, but I had been bracing myself for a while.  It wouldn't be until after the trip that the emotional stress would get to me, actually.

Anyways, the first job I was given was to help clear the yard of an elderly gentleman named Mr. Sugiyama.  The leader of the Japan United team, Nick, explained that Mr. Sugiyama had allowed them to use his water supply, and they wanted to repay him.  He also talked about how Mr. Sugiyama had tried to save an elderly couple in the house across the road, but they ended up underestimating the power of the tsunami and were killed in their house.

Mr. Sugiyama's yard was mostly a large garden with a number of trees and bushes.  The tsunami had killed almost all of the bushes and a few of the trees, so I, along with my teammate Aaron and Nick, started pulling them up.  I have done landscaping once in my life, and that was probably the hardest physical work I had ever done up until I pulled out trees from Mr. Sugiyama's yard.  That first day was absolutely brutal.

Thankfully, Mr. Sugiyama would come out every once in a while and offer us coffee or soda.  My partner Aaron is a boisterous, amiable Hawaiian man, and would often try and engage Mr. Sugiyama in conversation, even if his Japanese needed more work.

Even though I didn't take pictures, Nick did.  There are even a few with me in them on his blog at http://unitedjapan.blogspot.com/.

The first day ended with me being tired, sore, and still a few more trees left to pull.  But I felt good to have put in a day's work, and Mr. Sugiyama seemed to appreciate what we did.  I was a bit worried, though.  The week had only just started and I was already exhausted!

Ishinomaki Day 0

I'm sorry I haven't updated in such a long time.  Even though I returned to Tokyo last week, between my normal responsibilities here, some sightseeing, the internet going out, and just plain procrastination, I haven't gotten to this blog until now.

Our team of seven left early Monday, May 30 for the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture.  We were told that Ishinomaki had been hit especially hard by the tsunami: almost 20% of all the deaths caused by the disaster were in that city alone.  One middle school had 74 of its 108 students die.  And in the area that we were working in, there are no churches at all.

The eight hour drive was a bit of an adventure.  One of the major roads was closed, so we had to drive through the city of Sendai instead of going on the highway.  There was a truck that crashed in the middle of a tunnel we went through. And at one of the rest stops, I saw some Japanese girls trying badly to hide their laughter as I failed at using chopsticks.

 The scenery was very pretty, though.

Eventually, though, we ended up arriving safely at the Samaritan's Purse base in Tome City, about a half-hour's drive from where we would work.

 

My home away from home away from home

It was actually very comfortable.  I had assumed that we would be roughing it in an evacuation center, but this place had cots, showers, running water, and even a cook!  Exhausted after being in a car the whole day, we ate and went to bed early.  The next day would start bright and early.

I'll devote one blog post to each day of my trip, so the next one will detail my first day working.  Thanks for reading!