On 24 June, I participated a volunteering activity of reconstruction support in Tohoku for weekend arranged by an organization called 'ap bank'. They have been dispatching weekend volunteers from Tokyo to afflicted area in collaboration with the organization 'Peace boat' since April.
There was the orientation a week prior to the departure. After the explanations about activities and what we had to prepare, we had to write promissory letter that everyone had to take his own responsibility in any case. We formed teams of 6 people each, decided a leader and exchanged contact information. There were some people had been there already and we were able to share the information, so I felt a bit easier. What we had to prepare was very detailed but I had enough time to do that in a week.
We assembled in Shinjuku Friday night, and headed to Ishinomaki city in Miyagi by bus. It was a group of over 100 people with 3 buses.
We arrived at Ishinomaki Senshu University where the volunteer center was located next morning. After leaving the luggage at tent and changing to working outfit, we got on the bus again and traveled to the site. The work scheduled on this day was to clean sludge in street gutters in residential area called Sumiyoshi-chyo. Tsunami didn't only destroy buildings and wash everything away, but also left enormous amount of sludge covering everywhere and huge amount of time and labor have been spent to clean it up. There were factories around Ishinomaki port and they were all destroyed by tsunami, and chemical and oil came out from there mixed with sea water, domestic wastewater and mud from the river became sludge, and it smells awful and harmful to human health, moreover it's also troublesome the dust is flying in the air when it dries. The only way to clean inside of houses or narrow street gutters was to do by hands. After 3 months of the quake, central area of the city became a lot cleaner than before and I was able to feel that people have been working so hard consistently and developing step by step towards the restoration.
The area we worked was soaked maximum 180cm but not so many buildings were destroyed, and some people were still living. Street gutters were meant to be cleaned by inhabitants of the area, but most of people living there were old and also many house were still left empty, so they needed help of volunteers in fact.
After the detailed explanation of local staff, distribution of tools and allocation of sites on each team, we started working on it. It was very well organized to work systematically so that over 100 people could work efficiently, and various tools were well prepared to clean sludge too. We were also obliged to prepare proper accouterment such as protective boots, rubber gloves, goggle, mask, impermeable jacket and so on so that we were able to work safely. Houses around there didn't look like being damaged so much, but we could see the vivid trace of water remained on the walls quite high up.
First we lifted up the heavy concrete lid of the gutter, then found it was bung-full of sludge. They said it gets flooded when it rains because there is no way water goes.
The spot we did was little bit dry and not so smelly, so it was relatively easier than the spot which was really wet, but it was quite a physical work. The weather was cloudy and luckily not so hot, so the temperature was quite good for work, but I got soaking sweaty after for a while. People living in the house in front of the street came to give us some cold tea or fruits, and it was amiable and friendly atmosphere. That made me able to feel that I could be help of afflicted people. Although we could not complete the given area this day, we had to stop working when the scheduled time had come, and we called it a day. On the bus way back to the tent, I saw the site with rubble piled up from the disaster. My voice came out because the amount was unbelievable.
Next morning, it was cloudy but looked like it was gonna rain, though it was not raining when we were having breakfast. We prepared for work and while we were doing warming up exercise, big raindrops started falling. They held a leader meeting quickly and decided to cancel the schedule of the day. It's preliminarily decided that they don't work outside when it rains even it's just a little. Because there is a possibility that rain contains radioactive substance. Nobody has any clear information how much radioactive substance contained in rain and how much it affects human health. It's often said that the accident of Fukushima nuclear plant is man-made disaster, the influence of the accident is the big cause of delaying the restoration. I felt regret that we didn't complete the gutter we were working on the day before and left halfway. I was very mortified that we came all the way from Tokyo and we couldn't work whole one day although we had only two days there. We reluctantly changed working wear again and packed up. Instead, they arranged for us to have a bus tour to see more severely damaged area close to the coast and Onagawa town next to Ishinomaki.
As we came closer to the damaged area around the port, it started smelling quite bad. I've seen it on TV some times, but it was quite shocking to see it in real as hard to imagine there was a town with people living there just a few months ago. Most of rubble was cleaned up already and it was mostly desolate empty space but there were still some buildings of houses, shops or factories destroyed ground floor yet standing on a tilt. The power of tsunami is really incredible and scary that utterly destroys buildings into pieces. I was imagining it might have been so tough for people who lost their house and everything in there just in few minutes and lost even family or significant person. They told us that there was still possibility of unfound victim's dead bodies lying under the collapsed houses just we were looking at. It was also striking that there was completely damaged area next to not so much damaged area only about 100m away. Not only the throughly damaged area with empty space but also the area with huge amount of rubble and piles of countless unusable cars gathered from there told us how big the disaster was. I felt regret that we couldn't work due to rain, but it was a significant experience to see the situation of afflicted area in real. One of local staff told us that it's also one of important tasks of volunteers to report the situation of afflicted area to people as many as possible.
There was a shop selling local products which was in a shopping arcade where was also soaked by tsunami but cleaned up already. We dropped by there and did some shopping after the bus tour. I bought a smoked beef tongue and a pack of instant clam soup. It is also one of the ways to help people there to buy local products and leave some money.
We left half day earlier than planned and headed to Tokyo. We arrived in Shinjuku and the team being together for two days was dissolved. I think it was a good team with friendly and warm atmosphere. It was just usual Tokyo, but I felt so unrealistic because the contrast was too big between Isinomaki where I was just half day before. Even though it was very short and I couldn't work as volunteer so much, I think it was good that I participated. I think it's not so easy to just go there and do volunteering on your own, but it's very good that there is an organization to support dispatching people for volunteer. It was a significant experience for me to do something to help the restoration and see in my eyes and know the situation of the afflicted area in person. It's a very ordinary writing (and maybe many errors in english) and maybe many other volunteers have been writing almost same thing, but I just tried to write down what happened in this two days in my own way.
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