Foreign Volunteers Japan

Take Part in Rebuilding an Island Community

foreignvolunteersjapan — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:00:34 +0000

Habitat for Humanity Japan has begun open recruiting of volunteers for their next Fishing Community Community/Work space project on Izushima. Building will take place in two sessions 1) Dec 7th to Dec 9th and 2) December 10th to 12th. Participating for the entire build is also an option. There is a participation fee to cover food/lodging/ferry/gas/etc, but it’s a great experience, and a good chance to learn about life on a hard-hit fishery-focused island from the locals directly. The facility will be built all by hand, with the help of locals, volunteers, and a professional to oversee the process.

Recruiting page in English:
http://www.habitatjp.org/enblog/2012/11/ApplyDR12Miyagi_izushima_en.html

Recruiting page in Japanese:
http://www.habitatjp.org/jpblog/2012/11/ApplyDR12Miyagi-izushima.html

For more details on the building process, please visit the links above, or also visit the home page of project partner, the Kasetsumura Project ( http://www.kasetsumura.com/ )

Kizuna International: A Meiji University-based Student Volunteer Group’s Experiences in Tohoku

foreignvolunteersjapan — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:20:56 +0000

A break from weeding around a tsunami-damaged home - time for a debate about the TPP! (with thanks to Hai Huynh for permission to reproduce this photo here)

Where are the Students?

While volunteering with Meiji University students in Ishinomaki City in August of last year, I experienced a rite of passage for Ishinomaki volunteers: the early morning tour of the seafront district of Kadonowaki, demolished by tsunami waves and fire on 03/11. The tsunami sludge and debris piles were still deep then, and I took every sight in. The thick litter of artifacts testifying to the advanced age of many former owners – a Bach concerto record, geta sandals, the Showa era photo albums; a bunch of flowers and a message left on the foundations of a vanished house, imploring missing family members to come home; another bunch of flowers left by a mother outside the scorched shell of Kadonowaki Elementary School, with a message asking her child to “live happily in Heaven”; a big empty lot where a resident said whole families had once lived, now almost all gone; a car perched high in a tree, tumbled grave stones, and dried tsunami sludge permeating everything.

I’d only got halfway through this and I was already choking back tears. The two men I was with were “otokorashii” (manly) types, so I walked ahead of them until I’d brought myself under control. Still, I couldn’t hold back my anger. “There should be a student volunteer army here to clean this all up!” I fumed as I gazed over Kadonowaki’s vast debris fields. “Where are they all?” For all I could think of was, I’d come to Ishinomaki with only 12 students and one other teacher. I’d seen some other student volunteers from the local Senshu University campus, and a couple from Keio University. They didn’t seem to count for much amongst the many volunteers I’d seen in Ishinomaki. Why weren’t more coming, from my university or from others? After the Christchurch Earthquake in February 2011, a student volunteer army of 10,000 mobilized itself from New Zealand’s universities within a month, in a country whose population is the size of Osaka’s. I didn’t blurt that comparison out, but my companions were silent anyway, embarrassed by my emotional outburst.

There are probably others who’ve asked the same question: “where are all the students?” I now realise that for many reasons too complicated to discuss here – inconsistencies between different universities’ policies on student volunteering, parental fears about radioactive fallout in Tohoku, inflexible part-time job bosses, the gloomy economic outlook and the structural rigidities in Japan’s job market which drive 3rd and 4th year Japanese students to focus so single-mindedly on job hunting – my judgement was too harsh. My impression is that student volunteer mobilizing has been mostly localized to particular campuses, is on a modest scale, and that it’s unfair to expect more in the circumstances. That in any case is how student volunteering can be characterized at Meiji University.

Kizuna International’s Volunteer Experience

Kizuna International was formed in April 2011 out of some discussions between my colleague Robert Hamilton, myself and two third year students in our department, Dustin Seo and Isozaki Kaname. We agreed that teachers would take a background advisory role in the group, while participating in its activities. From the outset we used Facebook to advertise and recruit for members. We realized early on that we had the support of Meiji University, which refunded half of volunteer-related travel costs and allowed students to take time off from classes for volunteer activities. We are lucky to have a strong advocate in Ms Kondo Makiko at the Izumi Campus Volunteer Center, who has lobbied strongly on our behalf to ensure that university support for our activities has continued into 2012.

We are also lucky to have a dedicated group of core members who have maintained high motivation and spirits throughout the past year: in particular our leader Dustin Seo, as well as Harlene Tupaz, Mengxiang Tang, Hidaka Masato, Hwan Lee, Aida Chie, Simon Eve, Takada Keisuke, Fujimoto Sohei and Junsu Yeo. Since April of last year we have grown to a group of 100 members, about 70 of whom have volunteered at least once in Tohoku. Some 40 of our members are overseas students.

Since June of last year we have sent 5 large groups to Ishinomaki City, each numbering between 12 to 25 students. Most of them have been Meiji University students, but a few have been from Nihon, Dokkyo and Rikkyo Universities. Three teachers including myself have been involved in these trips as well. Our members have also undertaken a number of smaller group or solo trips on their own initiative.

Our first large group trips, in early June and July-August 2011 were with the NPO Peaceboat. On these occasions we were involved in cleaning out tsunami sludge from drains, roadsides and private businesses. Our July-August trip coincided with the Kawabiraki Festival and our members helped with festival preparations, as well as manning food and information stalls during the festival. Seeing fireworks shooting bravely over toppled buildings and cheering crowds only four months after 03/11 was one of the highlights of our Ishinomaki experience.

Peaceboat provided a cheap and well organized volunteer experience – which was also top-heavy with paternalistic rules. Since some of us found this paternalism a little disagreeable, we looked round for a different organization to work with. After a chance meeting with Jamie El-Banna at the Kawabiraki Festival and some online chat afterwards, we decided to switch to his group, It’s Not Just Mud, and we’ve been working with INJM since October of last year. We took at once to INJM’s relaxed but professional outlook, and to the home-like atmosphere of the two tsunami-damaged houses in Watanoha that it has renovated and turned into an HQ.

Our activities with INJM have been varied, and have included tsunami sludge removal, tsunami-damaged home renovation work, gardening, furniture making for evacuees in temporary housing, and assisting local fisheries workers with seaweed harvests.

The Future

At one of our campus meetings, when the topic of becoming a university circle came up, one of our members asked – “So we need to think, what will have become of this group 10 years in the future?” If we think of ourselves as only a “helping” volunteer group, then we will have a short shelf life. In a way this is good news, because the job of volunteers in a disaster zone, after all, is to help its people recover their lives, and the sooner they can get up on their own feet and continue their lives without such assistance, the better. Of course that time hasn’t come yet, so we’ll continue to send groups up to Ishinomaki to work with NPO’s such as INJM.

During the Summer vacation we also plant to sponsor a small number of students in month-long volunteer internships with some NPO’s working in Miyagi Prefecture. We’ve come to realize the importance of our members engaging in long-term volunteer work, because of the depth of skill and experience that they can acquire, and because it provides enough time for building lasting relationships with members of local communities.

The key to the longer-term future of our group lies, I believe, in the building of such deep ties with people in the Tohoku region. When I think of the hard work and sacrifice put in by full time Japanese and foreign volunteers in Tohoku since 03/11, the contributions of student volunteer groups like Kizuna International look rather modest. However, almost all of its members are very young, with long working lives ahead of them. The recovery of Tohoku is not going to be completed any time soon. There is still a massive amount of rebuilding to be done, and there is he equally hard task of undertaking reforms and cultural changes to reverse decades of economic and demographic decline in the region. It is my hope that members of Kizuna International will hold onto the ties they have built with one another and with Tohoku’s people, whether they continue living in Japan or return to their home countries. I hope that in the future they can make valuable contributions to the life of the region, as business people, as tourists, and as friends of Tohoku.

In Ishinomaki with Peaceboat, June 2011

Clearing tsunami sludge from an Ishinomaki street, June 2011

Kawabiraki Festival, July 31st 2011. Thousands of lanterns are released onto the Kita River, one for each of the souls lost on 03/11

Meiji University teacher and students at Kawabiraki Festival, August 2011

Kawabiraki Festival Crowds, August 2011

Digging sludge out of a narrow drain, August 2011

With It's Not Just Mud, November 2011. Leveling ground for a temporary bathhouse

Student jamming with local abalone fisherman and part-time rocker, Suenaga Hideki

Relaxing with Jamie El-Banna at INJM HQ, November 2011

Hidaka Masato as volunteer Santa, Fukushima City, December 24th 2011

Another Meiji University team at INJM HQ, December 2011

Tearing drywall out of a tsunami damaged home, December 2011

Ishinomaki, 12/03/11

With the mayor of Ishinomaki after giving a presentation at the Sea Japan Maritime Exhibition, April 2012

Dustin Seo at a recruiting session for Kizuna International, at the Meiji University Volunteer Center, May 2012

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Shaun O’Dwyer is a research associate professor in the School of Global Japanese Studies, Meiji University, Tokyo. He has a DPhil in philosophy and womens studies, University of New South Wales, Sydney. He has been added to the FVJ blog as a guest editor, so please feel to write questions directly to him.

Playground of Hope Project

foreignvolunteersjapan — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:54:28 +0000

Today was an exciting day. The first round of play-sets were officially opened in Ishinomaki, courtesy Michael Anop’s phenomenal Playground of Hope initiative. Big thanks to Jamie El-Banna and the NPO It’s Not Just Mud for assembling the Miyagi sets! The project addresses a very real need for kids stuck in temporary housing to just be kids again.

Over the coming months and years to come, the Playground of Hope project organizers, members, volunteers and supporters will be working hard to fund-raise, draw interest, and put in countless hours of sweat and tears into providing these sets for the children living in Temporary Housing across Tohoku.

To give an idea of the time, effort, skills and sheer determination that went into this project, here is a quick walk through about the process of assembling these sets.

: Playground of Hope – in Warehouse

Warehouse: Day 1

The first batch of wood and supplies for building the initial play-sets arrives at the Warehouse in Chiba. Michael Anop is carefully counting and confirming each of the parts for the first complete set.

: Playground of Hope – Parts Assembled

On site in Ishinomaki: Day 2

“This how we had to start” posts volunteer Angelo Favaron, who was part of the INJM test-building team.

: Playground of Hope Wood Chips

On site in Ishinomaki: Day 3

Nearly 2 tons of wood chips are assembled. The wood chips are an essential element for setting-up the play set. With a depth of 15cm, the wood chips will dramatically soften the fall of any children who might lose their balance when playing on the sets.

: Building in the Rain

Building in the Rain: Days 4 and 5

: Digging the Wood Chip Pit – Day 6

Digging the Pit: Day 6

Day 6 and 7 involved digging up, collecting and sorting heavy gravel into large piles. The gravel is to be used as a base layer that will then covered in 15cm of soft wood chips. This stage was conducted on the morning of March 11th. In the afternoon, INJM members attended a local memorial ceremony in the district to pay respects to those lost in the disaster.

: Day 20: Jamie and Michael in front of completed set #1

Nearly 20 days later the first set has been completely assembled, with plenty of time to go before the official opening ceremony.

These play sets will certainly brighten the day of local children across the Tsunami-affected region. As one member of INJM puts it “Just yesterday I saw some kids playing on a vacant lot of land in front of their house, which used to be someones home. This will be a much nicer place for them to play!

: Playground of Hope – First Round completed.

Day 25: After nearly a month, the first round of play sets are officially opened to the public. Seriously thanks are due to Michael Anop for being inspired to make a tangible difference in the lives of the disaster-affected children, and tirelessly working towards realizing that dream courtesy the Playground of Hope project. Thanks as well to Jamie El-Banna for committing the volunteer staff of the It’s Not Just Mud project towards providing local logitics and building the sets. Huge thanks as well to the individual project sponsors as well. Without whom, this project would not be able to expand to the scope of reaching as many disaster-affected communities as possible.

Thane Camus introduces the Playground of Hope project, and its aims to provide outdoor play equipment to children in the disaster-hit communities of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.

The Playground of Hope The Playground of Hope is a non-profit project project run by Side by Side International for the purposes of remedying a critical shortage critical shortage of play parks for children living in disaster-affected areas areasareas of Fukushima, Iwate and Miyage prefectures. Side by Side International is a nonprofit organization established in 1985 and and was granted special was granted special “Nintei” NPO tax exempt status by Japanese National Tax Agency in 2010

Photos courtesty: Angelo Favaron, Michael Anop, Jamie El-Banna, Michael Connolly, Sabine Taras-Thompson

Things that are still happening

foreignvolunteersjapan — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:29:25 +0000

(image courtesy Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

I really didn’t know what to say about the one-year anniversary of the quake and tsunami.

At 2:46 on March 11th the entirety of Japan apparently came to a standstill. From Shibuya crossing to Rikuzentakata, everybody just stopped what they were doing, whether they were in a grocery store or on a boat, and prayed, or just stayed quiet for a minute.

I didn’t. I was with good friends at brunch. I didn’t make a conscious effort not to commemorate the anniversary, it just didn’t happen.

Or maybe I didn’t want to commemorate it. In the past few months I’ve avoided thinking about it. It’s still hard to process everything that happened, and when I watch too much news or read too many stories I tend to have bad dreams and feel anxious a lot of the time. I haven’t been north, at least partially because I’m afraid of being so close to everything. I feel guilty about that, feel like it makes me an emotional coward.

These are confusing times. Unlike the people up north, life is 99% great for me, and I have very little to really complain about. But the confusion and the anxiety are still there, and for me one way to try to make sense of them is just to make a list of Things That Are Still Happening.

1. Quakes are still happening. I suppose you wouldn’t call them aftershocks anymore, though they seem to happen a lot more frequently than they used to. They freak me out a lot more than they used to, too. In a way you get used to them, but my adrenaline definitely surges in a way that it never did before, because I know that a quake that starts small can quickly turn into something terrifying.

2. I’m still not 100% sure to think about Fukushima, radiation, and everything that surrounds that whole mess. I stand by most of what I said a year ago, especially the “don’t panic” part. But we know a lot more now. Like the fact that the situation was a heartbeat away from catastrophic, and 30 million people almost had to be evacuated from the greater Tokyo area. The government and TEPCO have done more than their fair share of lying and blaming. At the same time, articles like this one reassure me, and remind me that even though there’s a lot to be angry about, panic is not the answer.

3. The debris is still there. More than 20 million tons of it. It’s mostly been moved into piles, but it hasn’t gone anywhere, partly because the rest of Japan is afraid of nuclear contamination. Just a little over 6% of it has been removed.

4. When I walk into a restaurant, a train station, or a person’s home, I casually take note of where the best place to crouch during a tremor would be.

5. Walking in the city, I notice the construction of buildings and roads and try to imagine how much force they could withstand.

6. More than 300,000 people are still living in temporary housing. This might not seem like such a big deal–it’s better than living in a communal shelter, and it’s better than having no home at all. But the homes are poorly insulated (though volunteer groups have made an effort to insulate them better), and the families who live in them are separated from the communities they’ve known for their whole lives, many of them with few prospects for employment or self-sufficiency.

7. The government is still bickering. Many in the north, watching factional politics take priority over real action, despair of the government ever making real strides in reconstruction and rebuilding plans. NGOs and volunteer groups are doing their best to pick up the slack, but the scale of the work to be done is overwhelming.

8. Volunteers are still digging, hauling, delivering, and doing what they can to boost morale. Really, the sheer variety of what people from so many different countries and backgrounds have done for Tohoku is pretty awesome. Christmas parties for orphans with Santa. Musicals. Barbecues. Tons of relief goods delivered. Mud shoveling. Collecting photos and restoring them for people who have nothing but photos left. Making films. Creating photo essays. Pen pal programs. Foreign Volunteers Japan updates their blog regularly if you want to find out more.

A year later I don’t really have any grand insights or neatly packaged take-away wisdom. I just know that I’m grateful to be alive.

Lindsay Nelson has lived in Tokyo for eight years. She is currently completing a PhD dissertation on modern Japanese literature and horror films.

Senninburo Public Bath

Michael.Connolly.Tokyo — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 05:29:23 +0000

Senninburo - "the Bath for 1000 People"

As a long-term volunteer in Ishinomaki, I felt that it was time to pay some respects to an incredibly helpful local initiative that has made a considerable difference in the lives of the thousands of people who have been working towards the recovery of Ishinomaki, 5 people at a time.

During the last visit, I learned that municipal financial support for the Senninburo (literally “bath for 1000 people”) was going to be cut-off at the end of March, 2012. The reason for this is that the local government has decided that the free public bath has served out its initial purpose for existing, which was to provide a bathing space for the thousands of refugees stranded in shelters around the city’s core. While this observation is admittedly true, Senninburo has begun to serve larger purpose, and serve another core of community rebuilders, and does deserve some support to continue its operation.

To start off, I’d like to talk about the general details of Senninburo. The general concept began as a free communal bathhouse to be available from 3:00pm to 5:00pm for women to bath, and 5:00pm to 7:00pm for men. The bathhouse was originally set up for local residents who had not been able to bathe properly for days and even weeks following the disaster. It consists of a tiny wooden structure accommodating not 1000 people, but rather only five or six at a time—with locals of course getting first priority.

According to their official page at 1000furo.com the Senninburo Project (Project to Bathe 1000 people) was established in response to activist Dr. Minoru Kawata’s reporting on constant requests for a warm place to bathe by Tsunami victims living in ramshackle and crowded refugee shelters.

The public back was organized and assembled by a team from from NGO JIM-NET (Medical Support Network for Iraq and Tohoku, Japan) and built on the parking lot for the local Iwao Temple parking lot in central Ishinomaki.The bath was completed and ready to begin operations on April 6th, 2011, and has served as a regular bathing service for at least 5000 people so far. Soon after the disaster, the Japanese Self-Defence Forces had set up a temporary bath for refugee shelter residents as well, but those baths were disassembled in July.

On August 18th, 2011, Seninburo was moved to the current location in Ishinomaki, with the addition of a community space provided by the municipal government. This community space takes the form of a container building, which hosts a relaxation space for people to receive a paper cup of hot tea, and to converse with others before entering the baths.

Alongside originally serving the bathing needs of the tsunami refugees, Senninburo has also generously played host to the thousands of volunteers who have come to Ishinomaki to help remove tsunami mud, gut broken houses, clean up rubble and debris, run Soup Kitchens, rebuild local shops, and provide several other valuable services that have contributed towards the recovery of the town.

Once most of the refugees had been resettled into Temporary Housing on the outer fringes of the downtown area, the bulk of the customers of Senninburo are now the people working to revive the downtown area. This includes not just the volunteers, but also the shopkeepers who have decided to focus on rebuilding and renovating their tsunami-hit shops, and the construction workers and carpenters who are involved in a push-and-pull dance of both tearing down structures and also building up new ones.

As you can see from the amount of kerosene that is used to heat the pool, and the amount wood used to warm the communal space, you can begin to see that costs of running the bath are actually quite considerable. This partly explains why commercial bathing houses charge between 500 to 1200 for a single entry.

– Tentative End of Part 1 (Part 2 will be appended later today.)

For access to Senninburo,

石巻市中央1丁目7-13 JR石巻駅より徒歩10分

Ishinomaki-shi, Chuo 1-choume, 7-13

About a 10 minute walk from the JR Ishinomaki station

Map to Senninburo in Ishinomaki

Scholarship Fund has reached its GOAL!!!

foreignvolunteersjapan — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 02:35:54 +0000

Update: March 21st 2012

!!!GREAT NEWS!!! We are happy to announce that the volunteerAKITA Scholarship Fund has reached its GOAL!!! This past week has been amazing, with donations coming in from all over Japan and the world! We want to thank everyone for the support because without your help, this wouldn’t have been possible. Minami and I will meet with the orphanage director and Masaya this coming weekend, and are excited to share the news with them. A BIG THANK YOU to everyone! and a very special thank you to the Anderson family and The Taylor Anderson Memorial Fund for their never ending love and support.

- Paul Yoo,

Co-founder of volunteerAKITA and The Fruit Tree Project (www.volunteerakita.org).

Updated March 6th 2012: Please help us continue to spread the word!

volunteerAKITA is NOW accepting online donations for our scholarship fund thanks to Andy Anderson and The Taylor Anderson Memorial Gift Fund!

Just write in “volunteerAKITA Scholarship Fund” in the comments section of the giving page

Donate now!

Taylor Anderson 1986 - 2011 Taylor was the first American casualty of the March 11, 2011 tsunami in Japan.

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Below is our volunteerAKITA bank account information for those living in Japan who wish to donate through a furikomi bank transfer.

ゆうちょ銀行 Japan Postal Savings Bank

【口座名義/name】volunteerAKITA
【店名/store name】八六八(ハチロクハチ/hachirokuhachi)
【店番/store number】８６８
【貯金種目/type】普通預金 (futsuuyokin)
【口座番号/account number】1930873

※この口座はvolunteerAKITA専用の口座です。

If you have any questions regarding this please feel free to contact us at any time at 080-3337-5436 (English) and 080-5563-3547 (日本語)

_________________________________

Details of the original post are below:

volunteerAKITA Scholarship Fund

Hi my name is Paul Yoo, Co-founder of volunteerAKITA and The Fruit Tree Project (www.volunteerakita.org). Along with our on-going activities, we are also involved in the “Smiles & Dreams:Tohoku Kids Project” led by Living Dreams/SmileKidsJapan (www.livingdreams.jp and www.smilekidsjapan.org). Right now, we are working as Home Communication Managers (HCMs) to two orphanages in the Sendai area. Our role is to act as contacts for the orphanages, and relay any needs they may have.

What we need right now: A boy, in his 3rd year of high school (his final year), at one of the orphanages we are in contact with, has become the first orphan there to ever express interest in going to college. He wants to attend Yamaguchi Hukushi Bunka Daigaku (University of Human Welfare and Culture) and study hoiku ka (child care). It is a four year program and the university will cover tuition for the first 2 years of the program, along with 50% of the 3rd and 4th years. Our goal is to raise￥1,154,000 which includes ￥970,000 in tuition costs for the 3rd and 4th years, along with an ￥184,000 mandatory insurance cost over 4 years.

We are currently accepting donations for the scholarship fund we have set up. After collecting the sufficient funds, we will then transfer the money to an account that will be handled by the orphanage.

We welcome any grants, scholarships, or personal donations to get this young man to college, and most importantly doing it without leaving him in debt after he finishes school, since in most cases, once an orphan has finished high school, he is on his own.

It is truly inspiring that he plans to go to college and is the first from his orphanage to show interest in doing so. Successfully sending him to college would be such an amazing gift, and would inspire other orphans to follow in his footsteps, knowing that they too can receive a college education, and strive to become whatever they want to be in the future.

If you have any questions regarding this proposal or can help us out, please contact me.

Much Love,

Paul Yoo and Minami Ishikawa

*volunteerAKITA is NOW accepting online donations for our scholarship fund thanks to Andy Anderson and The Taylor Anderson Memorial Gift Fund! Just write in “volunteerAKITA Scholarship Fund” in the comments section of the giving page

https://www.st.catherines.org/onlinegiving?rc=1

One-year commemoration of 3.11 disaster spans range of human emotion in disaster-hit region

foreignvolunteersjapan — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:46:40 +0000

Tsunami-devastated area near Soma City, Fukushima prefecture (March 10, 2012)

Guest post from Kimberly Hughes and Sheila Souza, courtesy the TenThousandThingsFromKyoto blog.

After having traveled to the heavily tsunami-damaged city of Ishinomaki this past November, and then again in January, my partner Sheila and I decided to head up again this past weekend for our third volunteering stint since the disaster struck last March. This time we would be there for the one-year 3.11 commemoration, and frankly speaking, I had somewhat mixed feelings about our decision to visit the city at this time. Even though we had begun forging relationships with local people during our past visits, I felt that as outsiders—those who had neither experienced the disaster firsthand, nor been there to volunteer during the initial weeks and months when the situation was at its rawest—we might be better off participating in a 3.11 remembrance ceremony elsewhere. Still, I reasoned, the volunteer work was carrying on, just as it had every single day over the past year. And so, as our overnight bus pulled away from Tokyo, I pushed the thought out of my mind.

We had hooked up during both of our previous visits with an international volunteer group known as It’s Not Just Mud (INJM), but since their house was completely full for the weekend, we decided to stay elsewhere and then meet up with them for daily project assignments. As it turns out, we were lucky to end up finding any accommodation in the city at all, as the first six or seven places that I contacted had all been completely booked. Clearly, if our presence as outsiders was going to be inappropriate in any way, we were at least not going to be alone in that respect.

Just prior to boarding the bus, I had gotten a phone call from one of the INJM coordinators asking if we would join the team traveling to Minamisoma City in Fukushima prefecture to help deliver food, water and other necessary supplies to local residents. The city, which straddles the 20km nuclear power plant exclusion zone, has basically existed in state of oblivion during the past year, with nearly two-thirds of its 70,000-some residents fleeing shortly after the accident, and those staying behind having to face the anxiety of potential long-term radiation effects.

Truthfully speaking, I had been wary about visiting Fukushima myself, given my desire to have a baby within the next year or two, and having been cautioned by several activist friends to stay away due to potential exposure. With the voice on the other end of the line asking if we would join the Minamisoma team, however, I found myself agreeing without even stopping to hesitate. Surely a one-day trip would not do much harm, and radiation levels in Minamisoma were in fact lower than certain other regions of Fukushima. How could I not do my part to help these residents who were living there, day in and day out, uncertain of their future, and many with children themselves?

Our INJM team picked us up shortly after 6:30 AM just after our bus arrived in Ishinomaki, and the van was already filled with a lively group of people from all around the world. The conversation was warm and animated, and as we made our way south amidst deepening snow and gradually frostier temperatures, I found myself thinking that there was actually nowhere I would rather be at that moment.

As soon as we arrived at the first temporary housing unit, we joined the members of the fantastically dedicated Save Minamisoma Project organization in arranging and handing out supplies to each family: Carrots, potatoes, onions, coffee, juice, cereal, pasta, bottled water, cleaning supplies, and packets of candies for the children. One of the housing units was actually a previously abandoned apartment building, and we carried the boxes of supplies upstairs for those living on the upper floors. Some were families of seven or eight people spanning three-generations that were now living in one- or two-bedroom spaces, and although all were grateful to receive the donations and thanked us profusely, the stress on their faces was apparent.

Save Minamisoma Project
Photos: Michael Connolly

One mother with small children had a particularly worried expression, barely returning our smile or greeting. It was of course impossible to know what she might have been thinking, but with recent news reports about glowing blue tap water in Minamisoma, while the government continues to dismissively advise Fukushima residents to “be strong” even in the face of worries about the safety of air, food and water—even going so far as to release a pamphlet essentially telling pregnant women and parents of small children that there is absolutely no need to worry about radiation—it was not hard to guess what might have been weighing on her mind.

The monthly distribution that we were handing out, for example, included two bottles of water per adult and four per child—an allotment that would likely last only days when considering needs for both drinking and cooking. And for taking medicine, I also realized, when an elderly woman came over and quietly asked for another bottle of water as we were packing up to leave, which she said she needed to help her take her pills. One of the seasoned volunteers simply told her that we were not permitted to distribute anything beyond the allotment, and the woman nodded and went on her way. Once again, I felt strong sadness and anger toward the situation these people were facing, and helpless at not being able to do more.At the same time, however, I also found myself in somewhat of a different space than I had ever been previously as an anti-nuclear activist used to essentially attending demonstrations and writing about them. This time, by contrast, I was here not as a protester, but as someone having very human interactions with people in the here and now whose lives were being affected by nuclear policy. In this sense, I was reminded of photographer Jan Smith, who had spoken at the recent Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free Worldabout his experience from post-disaster Chernobyl, where he confirmed that in order to understand the true impact from a tragedy of this order, it is necessary to have real interactions with the affected individuals in order to capture the human element that media sensationalism often glosses over or leaves out altogether.

Left: Special wooden temporary housing units in Minamisoma City created by designers and architects in order to give residents a greater sense of “home”

Right: Our volunteer team in front of a tower at the same housing unit, where we were invited to share a ramen lunch together with residents

Similarly, the desire to express anger toward TEPCO and the government over the massive suffering caused by the disaster and Japan’s ongoing nuclear policy—vs. that of engaging in a more quiet, reflective remembrance—became a sensitive topic of discussion across the nation on the occasion of the one-year 3.11 commemoration. According to one news report I heard, some survivors called for angry demonstrations to be kept to a minimum or even cancelled altogether on this day out of respect for the dead. Nevertheless, various anti-nuclear protests did take place around the country, with anger at times indeed prevailing. A photo blog at Mkimpo, whose title was aptly translated as “Mourning and Militancy”, captured this tension excellently as it played out on Sunday in the nation’s capital, featuring images from a demonstration held at the offices of the Tokyo Electric Power Company side by side with those from another 3.11 event in Hibiya Park titled “Peace On Earth“.

Having chosen to spend the one-year anniversary of the disaster in Ishinomaki, where survivors were experiencing deep trauma of a different nature due to severe damage from the tsunami rather than immediate concerns regarding radiation, Sheila and I were most certainly going to follow the lead of local residents in commemorating the tragedy.

As soon as we left our motel the following morning, it was clear that both domestic and international media were all over the city. We ourselves were even stopped and interviewed while on our way to the It’s Not Just Mud house by Fuji TV, who asked for our reflections as part of the network’s 3.11 coverage. While I certainly didn’t mind sharing my thoughts, it did seem a bit as if the reporter was scoping for sound bites rather than looking for an honest and heartfelt assessment.After a quick reunion at INJM headquarters with friends whom we had not seen since earlier in the winter, we set off to our assignment for the day. Our job was to help do odd jobs at a kimono shop run by an elderly couple in the shopping arcade area near the train station, which had sustained severe damage from the tsunami. The shop had begun doubling as a community hub of sorts following the disaster, with individual- and group-based volunteers gathering to hold meetings and just share tea, snacks, and one another’s company.Leading the day’s volunteer work at the shop were the members of Ishinomaki 2.0, a dynamic initiative focused upon rebuilding the city through grassroots-level architectural and cultural projects including a design laboratory, a traveling arts market, a community guest house facility, a café powered by solar energy, a bar, a traveling restaurant event series, and more. Sheila and I were asked to paint some shelves and assemble some furniture that the project members had brought for the kimono shop’s community space, and while we worked, a steady stream of university students and other volunteers came in and out of the shop to work on other tasks.

Left: Blackboards for the community space at the kimono shop, which we were asked to paint

Right: Handcrafted wooden tables at the headquarters of the Ishinomaki 2.0 project, located across the street from the kimono shop

The staff at the kimono shop had no plans to attend any of the several memorials taking place around the city at 2:46 PM—the moment the earthquake struck—saying they would instead participate in a candlelight ceremony later that night to honor the souls of the departed. I also learned here that some local residents indeed felt skeptical toward the news media. During our lunch break, where a big group of us had gathered for delicious, steaming bowls of curry-flavored udon noodles, several people were commenting dryly on the sudden influx of hordes of media, with one resident noting the questionable taste of the reporter delivering a newscast while standing atop a mound of tsunami rubble.

Sheila and I had decided to join a call from members of the spiritual community to observe the one-year mark through meditative prayer, and so we excused ourselves at around 2:30 PM in order to find a quiet spot. We ended up in the public space in front of the train station, and as we sat in silent reflection, we heard the same siren ring throughout the city’s loudspeaker system at 2:46 PM that had warned residents of the coming tsunami one year earlier. It was a surreal feeling to say the least, particularly as the weather was warm and sunny in contrast to the cold and snowy temperatures that had tragically accompanied the tsunami the previous year. With people walking around, drinking and eating in cafés, in fact, it would have been easy to pretend that no tragedy had ever struck the city at all.

In front of Ishinomaki station, around 3:30 PM, March 11, 2012

When we stopped in a sporting goods store on our way back to the kimono shop to speak with an older couple we had met on one of our previous visits, I pointed out the good fortune of the shop not having sustained much visible damage. In response, the woman simply pointed toward her heart. “Yes, there is damage,” she said. “It’s here.”

One of the regular volunteers at It’s Not Just Mud whom we had met for the first time that morning, psychological nurse Anna Swain, is now working to address this sort of hidden pain that continues one year later among those who experienced the disaster. An American who was born and raised in Tokyo, Anna returned from the United States shortly after 3.11, and now travels around Ishinomaki on her bicycle offering counseling to local residents who ask for her support. “Sometimes, it’s just not enough to say “ganbatte!” (“hang in there!”) to a seven year-old who has just lost absolutely everything,” she observed. “Although it’s often not recognized here as such, post-traumatic stress disorder is certainly present among some survivors.”

After finishing up our afternoon volunteer work, we headed together with the kimono shop staff and volunteers to attend the evening candlelight ceremony. Everyone was invited to write messages on dove-shaped balloons, which would then be sent upward into the sky. “On this day one year ago, many of us were unable even to say goodbye to our loved ones,” the event organizer said softly just before the balloons were released. “With these balloons, we send the thoughts and words that we were never able to say to them.”

At this point, I had begun to once again feel that we truly did not belong here at this ceremony together with people who had experienced such profound loss and grief. Just then, however, the woman from the kimono shop came over and stood very close to us. Sheila and I both told each other later that it seemed she felt comforted by our presence, and that as all three of us cried, we both had to suppress the desire to hug her or at least put our arm around her. With physical touching rarely taking place in Japan, however, particularly among people of her generation, we had both held back and simply sent her strong thoughts of love and strength.

Below: Candles, before and after dusk, with messages received from residents of Yokohama City for the 3.11 remembrance ceremony

We made our way back to the shop after the ceremony to pick up our things, passing by several makeshift altars along the way that had been set out along the streets with candles and small canes of bamboo. A Buddhist monk was sitting in front of one of them lighting incense and chanting, presumably to comfort the souls of the dead. After being invited to pray, I joined others in pinching a fingerful of incense and bringing it to my forehead three times in succession, trying to send deep comfort to the souls of both the departed and the loved ones they had left behind. (Kanagawa-based blogger Ruthie Iida explores related topics in her deeply poignant essay “Tsunami Damage: Living with Ghosts and Spirits”).

Shortly thereafter, as we made our way to the bus to return to Tokyo, a light snow began to fall, gradually picking up and covering the ground with a freezing slush. I knew that this had to have been bringing people more painful memories, due to the snowfall that had compounded their suffering the previous year. As we pulled away from the city, it was this sense of deep empathy for their continuing sense of loss and pain, together with the warmth of the goodbye/see you again soon that we had just shared with everyone at the kimono shop, that settled in a strangely poignant combination inside my heart that would remain for days to come.

Text: Kimberly Hughes
Photos: Sheila Souza

Kimberly Hughes is a Tokyo-based freelance translator, writer, and university lecturer. She blogs at http://kimmiesunshine.wordpress.com and http://tenthousandthingsfromkyoto.blogspot.com

Kat, Kate and Crew distributing goods in Minamisoma

Thoughts on Leaving or Staying in Japan – One Year Later

foreignvolunteersjapan — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 15:37:51 +0000

by Shaun ODwyer on Sunday, 11 March 2012 at 10:17

A portable shrine made of tsunami debris, carried by On The Road NPO volunteers during the Kawabiraki Festival in Ishinomaki, August 1st 2011.

Almost a year ago, a few days after the tsunami hit Tohoku and the Fukushima Daiichi Plant started to go into meltdown, I quoted to my friends and family part of a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, written in Germany in the years following the First World War:

The sap is mounting back from that unseenness

Darkly renewing in the common deep

Back to the light and feeding that pure greenness

Hiding in rinds round which the winds still weep.

The inner side of nature is turning

Another sursum corda will resound;

Invisibly, a whole year’s youth is striving

To climb those limbs that looked so iron bound.

I first read that part of the poem as a student. Turning those words over in my mind in the days following 03/11, I felt I could keep at bay the horrifying images of destruction being broadcast from the north, and the frightening news from Fukushima. And I was even more moved by the poem’s message of hope and renewal after desolation. However, I knew there was one more stanza in that poem, and I have been thinking about it lately as well:

Preserving still that grey and cool expression,

The ancient walnut’s filling with event;

While the sapling trembles with repression

Under the perching bird’s presentiment.

Those last two enigmatic lines strike a discordant note, even souring the emotional tone of the poem. How to reconcile the growing exultation of its first two stanzas with the comedown of its last lines? Over the years I wondered what they meant. That even in nature’s renewal we have to expect suffering and loss? Or – and this was a more literal interpretation that occurred to me in the past year – that in the renewal of the old and firmly established, genuine youth can be overshadowed?

Like many foreigners and Japanese, I hoped a year ago that in the wake of the tsunami’s devastation there was a chance to reform Japan’s society and economy, beginning with the rebuilding of Tohoku. During my times as a volunteer in Ishinomaki City working alongside students from my university, I have been proud to play a small role in activities which will bring about local renewal. I have seen Japanese and international NPO’s working together with the citizens of devastated communities to clean and rebuild their towns, and to lay out strategies for their economic and civic future. And as long as I keep my thoughts fixed on the tremendous work being done by people I have come to know and respect, then I can believe “another sursum corda will resound”. But I can’t wish away the disconnect between those local activities and the lack of a national vision for reconstruction. The Japanese government is too weakened by factional troubles and a petty zero-sum struggle for power with the opposition to do much more than offer large sums of money for reconstruction. At the same time, prefectural and local governments cannot arrive at a consensus about where and how to spend that money rebuilding their communities. So for the foreseeable future, hundreds of thousands of Tohoku people will remain in cramped, uncomfortable temporary housing, often far from their home towns and friends.

One of the saddest dilemmas for reconstruction is presented by the traumatized, mostly elderly residents of the wrecked rural and fishing towns along the coast of Tohoku. Many quite naturally want to preserve as much as possible of their traditional way of life. They have had the numbers to vote down urban consolidation measures that would see dying villages abandoned and they oppose liberalizing reforms to the heavily protected but declining agriculture and fisheries sectors. The dilemma is that in exercising their democratic rights they are trying to restore a status quo that was already demographically and economically unviable before 03/11. Even worse, their choices will help speed up the migration of young people from Tohoku for better opportunities in the south. This is a microcosm of what some of my students have called Japan’s silver democracy: that the conservatism of elderly voters hoping to renew the “old and firmly established” will overshadow economic reforms needed to secure the future for Japanese youth. So yes, there are those words from that last stanza of Rilke’s poem turning over in my mind.

That overshadowed future is what I worry about when I think of my daughter’s life in this country. A year ago I was preoccupied by other thoughts - that she would be poisoned in utero by iodine 131 blown out from Fukushima Daiichi. Given what we now know of Tokyo Electric’s unbelievable proposal to evacuate its staff from that plant on the 14th of March, and of then secret government fears of what was likely to happen following such an evacuation, my anxiety was not irrational. However, my fear for Japan’s society now is that, even after experiencing the terrible shocks of the tsunami and the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, it will remain too wedded to an inflexible economic nationalism to accept readily “foreign-looking” reform ideas; that its political classes are too factionalized to make a forceful case for such reforms; and that at a deeper level, habits of excessive loyalty and deference to authority will remain fixed in its civic, educational and business life.

In the next few decades this society might just waste its tremendous economic and intellectual capital, muddle through without taking on the risks of reform, and gradually expose its poor, its unemployed youth and its frail elderly to greater poverty and social isolation as it runs down the revenue needed to fund their welfare needs. Beginning, I am afraid, with Tohoku, where the tsunami shattered the community life of its elderly people and blighted the already narrow employment and life opportunities of its youth. In my volunteer work in Ishinomaki I have tried to give something back to a society which, for all the faults I have listed, has still been very good to me. I don’t feel confident that it will be as good for my daughter and her generation.

I don’t want to finish on such a negative note. I began with a quotation from Rainer Maria Rilke, and I will finish with some words from Maruyama Masao, Japan’s greatest post-war political thinker, who as it turns out was a lover of German poetry and literature.　A critic of Japan’s wartime political system and an advocate of individualism, his thought went out of fashion during the heyday of Japan’s economic nationalism after 1960. What he wrote in his essay “Being and Doing” just before 1960 still reads like a promise awaiting fulfillment, and points to the renewal of a civic activism that I believe is the way forward for Japan’s recovery: “The application of the standard of democratization as “doing” is, that leaders will provide unstinting service to citizens and society, and citizens will check their leaders for rights abuses and critically monitor their conduct”.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Distribution Issues in the Early Days

foreignvolunteersjapan — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:41:58 +0000

March 21st 2011 - FVJ Distribution to Ishinomaki

This is a post based on a recent conversation on the forum. There’s been a lot of conflicting information that has been passed around regarding the issue of aid distribution, and the matter that even the Tokyo Metropolitan Government stopped taking donations as of March 21st, there’ve been a few questions, and mixed feelings regarding the distribution of aid.

Here are a couple of the comments that stood out during this discussion:

1. I take issue with charities that require donations to be new items only. We live in an economy where normal working middle class families can’t even afford *new* coats for their own kids, let alone someone else’s. Plus it does not meet the necessary ecological principle of recycling, which I think all charities should promote, regardless of their specific mission.

2. I was somewhat frustrated after the disaster, having dedicated several weeks, with a little well meaning help from my young son, collecting, laundering, ironing, folding, packaging and labeling used clothes in good to excellent condition to send to Tohoku and being refused by every single member of the Foreign Volunteers Japan forum I contacted saying they would only take new goods. According to information from Caroline Pover it was not true that the recipients were only happy with new clothing, and that many were happy to receive mine and many other people’s collected *used* donations the following, ie: this year when it came to light how much stuff they were still lacking (which they could have received a whole year earlier had it not been for efforts to HALT people’s donations, by both FVJ and local town offices which I also contacted at the time).

3. Furthermore, charities requesting only either new items or monetary donations create a social inbalance whereby the average (=poor) working person is not in a position to be able to offer anything and only the wealthy are falsely given the impression of being generous.

Since these are similar to complaints that have appeared on various forums over the months, I thought it would be worth bringing some context towards the post-disaster donation, collection and distribution circumstances in March and April of 2011.

One of the largest issues when it came to aid runs in March and April had to do with fair distribution. This matter was insisted upon by town councils and the shelter community leaders themselves.

This matter added a huge logistics stickler for smaller groups. Instead of being able to do “air drop”-style distribution where we’d simply hand out everything we had brought to people directly, we had to put the goods into aid reception depots across Tohoku – where each type of goods would require enough quantity for fair distribution across an entire refugee shelter. For smaller shelters of 30-100 people, this was a little more manageable. But it became a massive logistics issue for the larger shelters of 200-800 people.

Dropping off aid at the Hebita #2 elementary school refugee shelter.

Frustratingly, a lot of aid at the Tohoku-based collection depots – ended up getting carted off to warehouses for “storage” because it was unable to be distributed fairly due to limited quantities.

In March as well, the other issue of course are goods that weren’t specifically needed at that time, goods that didn’t address a specific need, or goods that happen to have been distributed by another group a day earlier. Just of the trucks I went up with, we had to take certain goods back on many of the runs. One time it was 150kg of rice, because “there wasn’t enough clean water or electricity to cook it.” for groups that received a cast iron rice cooker from the military, they turned us down because they had “enough for the time being, and with 300 camping in a small building, there was no storage space available for putting the rice aside for a few days.”

Notice the plastic-wrapped bowls at this refugee shelter due to water-shortages.

The fair distribution of clothing on a large scale, used or not, is quite a huge task. As you said in your example, on the small scale it IS appreciated by refugees when it came to small-scale bazaar-based ‘pick-as-you-like’ style distributions. We tried a few of those during community supporting events, but only a portion of the used clothing would get picked up. The leftovers would have to get carted back to Tokyo.

Then the simple logistics of transportation was another thorn in the side of delivery missions. To access the Tohoku expressway in mid-March, we needed to apply as an aid delivery mission through the police HQ (then Ward Gov’t offices from late April). Gasoline was restricted to 2000yen/fill-up with several hour waits per truck. Up to 5000yen with the permit, thankfully.

Thankfully, with the emergency permit we could also cut in line at local stations… However, when it came to the Tohoku Expressway for the first 10 days following the disaster, it turns out that ALL of the vehicles on the highway were emergency vehicles. Compared to ambulances, police trucks, care trucks, etc, our FVJ trucks didn’t have priority. Adding gas-line time and transport logistics meant that we often needed to rent the two-ton trucks from Nippon or Toyota Rental for more than 24hours at a time. Most gas stations we encountered had “sold out” signs on them. This was due to a emergency law that forced gas stations to withhold 30% of their supply… Yeah – A law written to “help” in a “potential” emergency strangled distribution efforts during the real emergency immediate relief phase.

2000yen Limit for Gasoline in March 2011

Renting a two-ton cost between ¥20,000-35,000yen. Gas worked out to ¥10,000-20,000 depending on traffic jams and lengthy drives, purchases of specifically requested medicine/aid/supplies worked out to ¥130,000-300,000yen on most tuns, and the purchase of tarps and rope added more. Intermittent tolls added another ¥16,000 (it was hit/miss whether the highways would honor the permits during regularly changing regulations) and other logistics had to be taken into account as well.

Most of the requests coming in were for water (if it was tough to buy in Tokyo for locals, it was a LOT harder to source in bulk, and often required distant drives to pick up), specific foods, futons, flashlights, diapers, tampons, nearly endless calls for warm underwear and socks. Straight through until late-April, most sites did not have access to enough water, time or staff to handle laundry. So socks/underwear had to be redistributed every 4-5 days.

When it came to -
1 – the priority of immediate needs
2 – the costs of transport
3 – the difficulty of sorting, labeling, and boxing used clothes in quantities of similar items that could get fairly distributed,
4 – the inability to do any laundry in the disaster areas
5 – the fact of unneeded goods got sent back to Tokyo if not specifically requested, or not accepted…

… All were part of a larger puzzle of the arduous web of aid distribution.

Now, on top of that.

The above posts mention how many collection depots “stopped accepting” donations. This wasn’t a decision to cut-off aid. ALL of the depots we listed on FVJ ended up getting overwhelmed with donations that logistically could not get delivered up to Tohoku in a reasonable time period.

We had some local business that had much of their offices filled to the roof with baked beans and pineapple juice. Tokyo International School and Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office were some of the first to have to close their doors to unrequested donations.

One room filled with aid would take 4-5 trucks runs to move. Even with an average cost of¥50,000 to move one truck of aid, it wasn’t possible for these groups to muster ¥250,000 per small-room of aid just for sending up goods that had a reasonable chance of rejection.

Unloading AID into the DSP warehouse in Natori, Miyagi

When it comes to donations – yes – billions of dollars were donated… To the Red Cross – which sat on it for months, and continues to sit on the bulk of that. But little of that was directed towards smaller groups working on the ground who didn’t have access to the major donation collection networks.

Most of the FVJ runs’ costs were paid out of our volunteers’ pockets. Buying the emergency medicine on many of the early runs was handled by Scott, buying vegetables and fruit was often done by Timo, and buying nonperishables and diapers was often done by Garin. I personally have sunk 500,000 to 600,000 of money into FVJ projects. Unfortunately, we’ve got to admit that early projects to raise funds never really solidified, and we still technically owe a lot back to the volunteers who ran the early runs. Hopefully though, we can move forward in time for the March 11th memorial, and find a new momentum for bringing a new priority to FVJ projects.

I promise you that the decision to have to turn down used clothing donations in April was simply due to the sheer difficulty of the logistics of transportation, storage and distribution issues. If the refusal of the donation came across as rude, we do need to apologize for that. However, we hope that the members concerned about the distribution difficulties and complications in March accept that there were specific reasons for the decisions that were made along the line for these projects.

Hope that offers some clarification.

In peace and solidarity

- Mike

On behalf of FVJ

Rebuilding Local Businesses – Kotobukiya

foreignvolunteersjapan — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 05:47:30 +0000

This article is much belated, but I wanted look back on some of the local businesses that we’ve helped rebuild alongside the It’s Not Just Mud and On the Road NPOs.

Mr and Mrs Sato at the renovated Kotobukiya Sake Shop, Ishinomaki City

The following photo is one I took on March 22nd, during the third FVJ delivery of goods to Ishinomaki. The brown building behind the overturned van is the Kotobukiya sake shop. This shop is located only 1 block away from the Kitakami river, and only 1km inland from the ocean.

Kotobukiya Sake Shop on March 22nd 2011

Mr. and Mrs. Sato are now 74 and 71 years old, and the shop itself is 85 years old, started by Mr. Sato’s father. Mr. Sato told us that he started working at the shop when he was 15, so he’s invested just over 60 years of his life into this business.

Being so close to the river, the tsunami easily overwhelmed the small shop. Ripping through the first story, ripping off wall-panels, destroying their wares, damaging the walls, and leaving the building covered in bacteria-infested tsunami mud.

The Sato’s managed to escape the tsunami, by running across the street to the top of a 6-story car park, where they saw the tsunami not only rip through their small shop, but also overwhelm most of the downtown area of their beloved Ishinomaki.

Kotobukiya on the right, and the car park where the Sato's escaped on the left.

Following the disaster, they were moved into a refugee shelter for the first few months, and then into Temporary Housing starting in July. With their business serving not only as their main source of income, but also as their social hub and hobbies as well, Mr. and Mrs. Sato were determined to get Kotobukiya up and running again as soon as possible. Being 75 years old already, they were planning to retire by 80, so with a 5-year countdown, there wasn’t a moment to lose.

It’s Not Just Mud sent in a team in September to assist with the gutting and clearing of the shop premises. This involved tearing down the tsunami soaked walls, stripping out the insulation, as well as removing the floorboards and the tsunami sludge below. In October, the team returned to replace the insulation and put up new walls. In November, On the Road joined the project to paint the new premises, and rebuild some of the furniture.

Yannick from INJM surveying the gutting of Kotobukiya

Not to make this entry personal, but I received a call from my family in Canada in October while working on the Kotobukiya restoration that my own grandfather had passed away suddenly. As a full-time volunteer, I couldn’t afford to fly back for the funeral, and had a difficult time emotionally dealing with the news.

We were still working on the clean-out phase of the shop, and decided to focus on the scrubbing and cleaning of furniture that could potentially be re-used. Shortly after the call from Canada, I focused on cleaning off the caked mud from the mahogany Butsudan private family shrine that the Sato’s had originally set-up to honor their own parents. During this time, Mrs. Sato expressed a bit of surprise that I was cleaning the Butsudan, especially after pointing out that her parents and my grandparents would have been fighting on different sides of WWII.I didn’t mention the phone call, but somehow working on the shop, helping fix up the butsudan, and hearing her tales of WWII (during which my grandfather was a fighter pilot) provided some consolation.

She pointed out however, that unfortunately the Butsudan would have to be scrapped, since the wood was warped, and may contain bacterial traces. As a result, the local temple was scheduled to come by that afternoon to pick up wooden shrines from the neighborhood for a respectful burning ceremony. As a gesture of respect, I decided to continue to clean off the mud from the shrine, and I believe that Mrs. Sato appreciated that gesture.

Following the completion of Kotobukiya’s restoration, I’ve made sure to bring visitors to Ishinomaki to the shop for picking up locally produced sake. They have both surviving bottles from sake brewers that lost their factories in the tsunami, as well as newer first-run bottles from some of those same sake brewers that decided to rebuild new factories in Ichinonoseki.

If you visit Ishinomaki, please stop by Kotobukiya, and pick up a bottle or two from the Sato family.

Kotobukiya Liquor Shop is located in the Chuo District of Ishinomaki and is open daily from 7am to 8pm. The address is as follows:

986-0822 石巻市中央2丁目11-5

986-0822 Ishinomaki-shi, Chuo-ku, 2-chome 11-5

They can be reached by phone at:

0225-96-2212

The following photo is a thank-you letter written by the Sato’s to It’s Not Just Mud, with the translation posted below:

Thank You letter from the Satos

We were deeply moved and very happy that we managed to reopen our shop on 20^th December after 9months. We cannot put into words how much the volunteers helped us and how much hope they gave us.

After the disaster on 11^th March, we stayed in the evacuee centre for three months and in temporary housing for another three months. Through this depressing experience, we started to strongly feel that we wanted something to live for and would like to live life to the fullest while developing relationships with other people even if it would take many years. But we, as a couple of 74 and 71 years old weren’t sure what to do. At that time the volunteers warmly extended a helping hand.

While we were working towards a goal together with the young people, we realised that everything was turning in a good direction and our spirits lifted. We laughed a lot every day and the cheerful laughter started to echo throughout the empty town. We laughed a lot, talked a lot and had a lot of fun.

Young people and foreigners gave us warm hugs calling us “father” and “mother” (and “grandpa” and “grandma”). We didn’t have this custom before, but it was very natural.

We almost gave up restarting our liqueur shop which had been open for 85 years, but we managed to revive it thanks to the heartfelt support from the volunteers and we deeply appreciate it.

After we lost everything in the disaster, the young volunteers showed us people’s kindness and the importance of personal relationships. They suggested we put a table and chairs as a tea drinking corner so that volunteers could come and have a rest when they had time or when they were tired and showed us to help and support with other local people.

Thank you so much for your warm support. Thank you for giving an old couple hope. We wish every volunteer a happy and peaceful life from the bottom of our heart.

Finally, here is a video produced by Paul Johannessen, Ivan Kovac and Jeffrey Jousan during their Jan 21st visit to Ishinomaki, also featuring a visit to Kotobukiya.

Mrs. Sato checking out the progress on Kotobukiya repairs.

Please visit the Satos when you are in Ishinomaki and support their business. Tell them how you came to know of them.. they will love to hear from you!