It's not even New Year's yet. It's only New Year's on the other side of the international dateline, but somehow everyone akemeshite omedetou-ing on Facebook makes me want to write a New Year's greeting early.
First of all, it's been a gift meeting every person who participated in HANDS this last year. I remember each one of you and think about you often. Thank you for your patience with the limits of our humble organization. Thank you for telling your friends about us. Thank you for caring enough to come.
Our leaders and our regular volunteers were very happy to meet all of you. They're so happy, they've started talking at me in English trying to practice so they can speak to you all. Please come back so they can stop speaking to me in English and practice on you instead. :D My Japanese is suffering.
I've had a nice two week vacation in another country--my country, Oregon!--and spent most of it completely slacking off volunteer-wise. Now it's almost time to return to my other country--Iwate, Japan!--back to my freezing apartment and my city, which is probably buried in snow, for volunteer: version 2012.
The first thing I need to do, other than email that one guy back, is to make a new entry here about what people can to help the coast, now, and update it regularly. The best way to for people to lose motivation and give up on a cause is for them to believe that there's nothing to be done anymore. There is absolutely something everyone can still do. Part of that something is yes, giving money, and another part is volunteering (volunteers! we are still taking them!) but there are other somethings. I will tell you about those soon.
I noticed during my two weeks in Oregon that it's like a tsunami-less, earthquake-less alternate universe. Maybe some of you reading this went home from Iwate or somewhere else in Tohoku and experienced the same thing. If that's the case, I know it's discouraging, but make sure you don't give up.
The trick to finding people who are interested in helping is to move your focus away from personal contacts. Make it more general. Do not try to make your aunt care about what happened. You may love your aunt, you may care about your aunt, and you may wish your aunt cared more about the disaster and wanted to help. (To my aunt: this is a hypothetical aunt, I know you care.) However, your aunt is only one person. It's like approaching individual people and trying to make them all badminton enthusiasts. Some people will be receptive to it, but others won't, and nothing makes your aunt more likely to be a badminton enthusiast just because she's close to you.
Tell your university. Tell your old study abroad program. Write a letter to the editor in your hometown. Write a guest opinion in the newspaper. Ask your old workplace to put something up on their blog. Tell them what is happening now and then make sure to tell them specifics on what they can do about it. Then, let people come to you and follow up with them. Repeat. And you never know, your aunt might just want to get involved after all.
So the second thing I plan to do is to write to newspapers in Oregon, my hometown's and the nearest big city, and do just that. There are things that people at home can do and it's a waste of resources as long as people with the potential to act aren't being reached.
Third and final thing: there is a lot of content about HANDS and about recovery that I haven't been putting up on this blog. Part of the reason is because it's Japanese content and I don't have the time to translate it all, and part of it is it just doesn't occur to me to make that content available in English. Anyway, I know you have just as much right as I have to information, so I'll try to do better at passing on more details about what we do, and more news about recovery in general.
This is my last full day in Oregon. Off to pack and exercise and spend time with my family, plus stuff myself full with food. Have a wonderful New Year's Day or New Year's Eve, depending on your location.
Anna
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
HANDS vacation
Hi from the States, everybody:
HANDS is taking time off from December 27th to January 5th for winter break. If you have time off during that period and are looking for a place to volunteer, please try the following:
HANDS is taking time off from December 27th to January 5th for winter break. If you have time off during that period and are looking for a place to volunteer, please try the following:
- It's Not Just Mud in Ishinomaki http://itsnotjustmud.com/
- Ask the Facebook group Foreign Volunteers Japan, on the wall, to see if anyone can get you any leads.
- If you are a Japanese reader or can find someone to help you, also try searching for a volunteer center that's open during that time at http://tasukeaijapan.jp/?page_id=11515 Click the city you might want to volunteer in, then click the link to that volunteer center's home page. They should have info about whether they're open during the holiday and whether they let individual volunteers register.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Christmas party!
Well, it finally came: the Christmas party. I'd been preparing for weeks: pencils, crayons, stickers, wrapped gifts, phone calls, and the horrible, gnash your teeth mishaps that happen when you're trying to get a big group of people in one place doing one thing with a bunch of supplies in tow.
I randomly asked about the key to the room we were going to hold the event in, only to get an answer back that it was basically impossible to get. There was a 30 minute window of time during which the key was available, and it was in a radioactive box in a fortress surrounded by a moat filled with man-eating electric eels.
Well, maybe that last bit is an exaggeration, but seriously, 30 minute window of time!
Then we discovered that the planned time to leave from Kitakami with HANDS left us with approximately 15 minutes to set up, which was impossible. My apartment was filled with Christmas miscellaneous and I had driven myself crazy with wrapping the perfect little Christmas presents for Santa to hand out.
Then, the morning of the big event I spent the prep time alternately forgetting to give people their insurance cards and name tags, looking confused, and being filled with an unreasonable, murderous rage towards people who kept putting little stuff on my craft table.
The event was from 10 to 12, and at 10:15, only two sweet little old ladies were sitting making trees and stuff at the craft table. Most of the volunteers were wistfully looking out the window and commenting on where all the children would be, and questioning what exactly had been my advertising method. (I had made a poster about the event a week and a half in advance, and left the distribution of the poster up to the volunteer center and HANDS.)
I finally cracked and called leader Jun at 10:15 to yell something along the lines of "There are TWO little old ladies here!" He arrived and hung up shortly after, but I was about ready to demand he kidnap a vanful of kindergarteners and bring them to the party by 10:30.
Eventually, some kids started coming, and then more kids and adults, but I lost track of what was going on inside because I was too busy bullying the man who had volunteered to be Santa ("Stand out in the cold and hold a sign!" "Pass out these presents now!") and trying to lure children passing by into the event.
In fact, I don't have much memory of the event beyond what I've already written here. There was a setup, during which time I panicked, then I did something I can't remember for two hours, and a takedown, during which time I panicked less, then a picture, then returning nametags and key and such to volunteer center, then the drive home and the wait for the HANDS "end of the year" party, which was going to be held that night.
When the Christmas party ended I didn't even believe that any children had actually attended. By my reckoning, we had only lured in about five, so I wandered around looking shellshocked wondering why everyone looked so satisfied, asking people, "Did kids come? Did kids really come?" Volunteer Ken said about 30 children came, which I couldn't believe.
When I got home, though, I saw actual pictures of the children that had been inside during the event. A little boy, holding some kind of board game he'd won, with an ENORMOUS smile on his face. Four little old ladies occupying the craft table, contentedly making origami Santas and such for two hours. The brother and sister who I'd found in the nearby playground and invited to the party, grinning and playing pin the body parts on the snowman. A three year old playing a game with his mom sitting next to him.
Frankly, though the people I got to hang out with were wonderful, the event itself was probably one of the least pleasant experiences I'd had in a while. Even before I saw those pictures, though, right after, I found myself thinking "Maybe we should do this in a school or a kindergarten next year."
"Next year"?
It's been a crazy year. 9 months ago, on March 10th, I didn't understand what a tsunami was or what it could do. I had little active interest in nonprofits, viewing them as an abstract "good" that didn't really have a lot to do with me. I had never seen rubble. I didn't know how or care how to use a shovel. There were some things I knew I would never do: I would never recruit. I would never network. I would never be a leader. I would never take less than two days off a week. I would never devote more than 40 hours a week to work.
I know what we've experienced is nothing compared to the experiences of people who survive the tsunami, but I think all of us in HANDS have been and continue to be enormously hurt by, and at the same time reap countless blessings from, that big stupid horrible wall of water that killed so many people and destroyed so many towns 9 months ago. We spent all of our lives, all 22 or 26 or 35 or 52 years, thinking that we were this certain kind of person with certain kinds of priorities, only to suddenly discover that we have been changed, and that the change is probably permanent.
We have gained a close-knit group of comrades and friends of all ages, Japanese and foreign, men and women, but we sacrifice time with our other friends and family to see them. We are tender enough to clean the mud from the floor of another person's toilet and to carefully carry their photographs to a safe place to be cleaned. We are callous enough to throw children's shoes away without thinking. We have regularly worked in places where someone has been killed, and went home cheerful, with an ice cream stop on the way. We do what we are told is the right thing to do, while worrying that it really isn't. We grope for new information because we have to see the future, now that we're almost inseparable from this group and this movement, we have to know where it's heading because it's going to take us along with it.
Sometimes I don't recognize myself and I don't recognize the priorities in my life. Sometimes I feel like a big hand has reached out of the sky and changed me into another person out of necessity. Maybe it happened the first day, cleaning that field of rubble, feeling the kind of power and satisfaction you can only get out of physically showing another person you care about them, out of making a place that has been dirtied and made unnatural healthy again. Maybe it was what one of the leaders said to me that day, that the reason volunteers were going every day was to help the coast recover as soon as possible. Maybe it happened gradually instead: hundreds of bags of mud tied up and carried to piles, combined with the hazy memory of the Oregon beach at age 5: the smell of salt, sand in the toes, fish for dinner, kites, hooded sweatshirts.
I saw Rikuzentakata for the first time four days before the tsunami. I remember a big beautiful pine forest with high schoolers running relays on the beach. I remember a river with boys from a row team coming through. I remember my friend and I running into an older birdwatcher, a friend of his. His glasses and his friendly expression and the video of a goose he showed me on his camcorder. He was never found. The yachts were floating peacefully in the harbor. Any time I want to, I can remember that place. The high schoolers are still running relays, the boys are still rowing in the river, my friend's friend is still on his bicycle waiting to show us his videos of birds. Every time I remember it the sky seems bluer and the day is sunnier and all of the high schoolers running their relays look so, so happy.
This is the place I remember.
On Saturday, one HANDS team made flower beds for an old folks home in Kamaishi, and the other put on a Christmas party for Kaminakashima temporary housing unit, also in Kamaishi. We are taking volunteers every day in December except today, because of the party we had last night, and we will still be taking volunteers every day in January.
The ground is white with the snow that got dumped on Kitakami last night and people are gingerly shoveling their driveways. The swans are happy and my heater is ineffective and it looks like winter is here. I'm getting on the shinkansen to Tokyo in about four hours and haven't packed yet, how's that for procrastination? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
I randomly asked about the key to the room we were going to hold the event in, only to get an answer back that it was basically impossible to get. There was a 30 minute window of time during which the key was available, and it was in a radioactive box in a fortress surrounded by a moat filled with man-eating electric eels.
Well, maybe that last bit is an exaggeration, but seriously, 30 minute window of time!
Then we discovered that the planned time to leave from Kitakami with HANDS left us with approximately 15 minutes to set up, which was impossible. My apartment was filled with Christmas miscellaneous and I had driven myself crazy with wrapping the perfect little Christmas presents for Santa to hand out.
Then, the morning of the big event I spent the prep time alternately forgetting to give people their insurance cards and name tags, looking confused, and being filled with an unreasonable, murderous rage towards people who kept putting little stuff on my craft table.
The event was from 10 to 12, and at 10:15, only two sweet little old ladies were sitting making trees and stuff at the craft table. Most of the volunteers were wistfully looking out the window and commenting on where all the children would be, and questioning what exactly had been my advertising method. (I had made a poster about the event a week and a half in advance, and left the distribution of the poster up to the volunteer center and HANDS.)
I finally cracked and called leader Jun at 10:15 to yell something along the lines of "There are TWO little old ladies here!" He arrived and hung up shortly after, but I was about ready to demand he kidnap a vanful of kindergarteners and bring them to the party by 10:30.
Eventually, some kids started coming, and then more kids and adults, but I lost track of what was going on inside because I was too busy bullying the man who had volunteered to be Santa ("Stand out in the cold and hold a sign!" "Pass out these presents now!") and trying to lure children passing by into the event.
In fact, I don't have much memory of the event beyond what I've already written here. There was a setup, during which time I panicked, then I did something I can't remember for two hours, and a takedown, during which time I panicked less, then a picture, then returning nametags and key and such to volunteer center, then the drive home and the wait for the HANDS "end of the year" party, which was going to be held that night.
When the Christmas party ended I didn't even believe that any children had actually attended. By my reckoning, we had only lured in about five, so I wandered around looking shellshocked wondering why everyone looked so satisfied, asking people, "Did kids come? Did kids really come?" Volunteer Ken said about 30 children came, which I couldn't believe.
When I got home, though, I saw actual pictures of the children that had been inside during the event. A little boy, holding some kind of board game he'd won, with an ENORMOUS smile on his face. Four little old ladies occupying the craft table, contentedly making origami Santas and such for two hours. The brother and sister who I'd found in the nearby playground and invited to the party, grinning and playing pin the body parts on the snowman. A three year old playing a game with his mom sitting next to him.
Frankly, though the people I got to hang out with were wonderful, the event itself was probably one of the least pleasant experiences I'd had in a while. Even before I saw those pictures, though, right after, I found myself thinking "Maybe we should do this in a school or a kindergarten next year."
"Next year"?
It's been a crazy year. 9 months ago, on March 10th, I didn't understand what a tsunami was or what it could do. I had little active interest in nonprofits, viewing them as an abstract "good" that didn't really have a lot to do with me. I had never seen rubble. I didn't know how or care how to use a shovel. There were some things I knew I would never do: I would never recruit. I would never network. I would never be a leader. I would never take less than two days off a week. I would never devote more than 40 hours a week to work.
I know what we've experienced is nothing compared to the experiences of people who survive the tsunami, but I think all of us in HANDS have been and continue to be enormously hurt by, and at the same time reap countless blessings from, that big stupid horrible wall of water that killed so many people and destroyed so many towns 9 months ago. We spent all of our lives, all 22 or 26 or 35 or 52 years, thinking that we were this certain kind of person with certain kinds of priorities, only to suddenly discover that we have been changed, and that the change is probably permanent.
We have gained a close-knit group of comrades and friends of all ages, Japanese and foreign, men and women, but we sacrifice time with our other friends and family to see them. We are tender enough to clean the mud from the floor of another person's toilet and to carefully carry their photographs to a safe place to be cleaned. We are callous enough to throw children's shoes away without thinking. We have regularly worked in places where someone has been killed, and went home cheerful, with an ice cream stop on the way. We do what we are told is the right thing to do, while worrying that it really isn't. We grope for new information because we have to see the future, now that we're almost inseparable from this group and this movement, we have to know where it's heading because it's going to take us along with it.
Sometimes I don't recognize myself and I don't recognize the priorities in my life. Sometimes I feel like a big hand has reached out of the sky and changed me into another person out of necessity. Maybe it happened the first day, cleaning that field of rubble, feeling the kind of power and satisfaction you can only get out of physically showing another person you care about them, out of making a place that has been dirtied and made unnatural healthy again. Maybe it was what one of the leaders said to me that day, that the reason volunteers were going every day was to help the coast recover as soon as possible. Maybe it happened gradually instead: hundreds of bags of mud tied up and carried to piles, combined with the hazy memory of the Oregon beach at age 5: the smell of salt, sand in the toes, fish for dinner, kites, hooded sweatshirts.
I saw Rikuzentakata for the first time four days before the tsunami. I remember a big beautiful pine forest with high schoolers running relays on the beach. I remember a river with boys from a row team coming through. I remember my friend and I running into an older birdwatcher, a friend of his. His glasses and his friendly expression and the video of a goose he showed me on his camcorder. He was never found. The yachts were floating peacefully in the harbor. Any time I want to, I can remember that place. The high schoolers are still running relays, the boys are still rowing in the river, my friend's friend is still on his bicycle waiting to show us his videos of birds. Every time I remember it the sky seems bluer and the day is sunnier and all of the high schoolers running their relays look so, so happy.
This is the place I remember.
On Saturday, one HANDS team made flower beds for an old folks home in Kamaishi, and the other put on a Christmas party for Kaminakashima temporary housing unit, also in Kamaishi. We are taking volunteers every day in December except today, because of the party we had last night, and we will still be taking volunteers every day in January.
The ground is white with the snow that got dumped on Kitakami last night and people are gingerly shoveling their driveways. The swans are happy and my heater is ineffective and it looks like winter is here. I'm getting on the shinkansen to Tokyo in about four hours and haven't packed yet, how's that for procrastination? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Distributing goods and mochi destruction
Last Sunday, we helped out with an event to distribute goods at a temporary housing unit:
clothing, laundry detergent, soap, diapers, adult diapers, toilet paper, heat pads, laundry softener, even calendars. We also handed out tonjiru (a kind of pork soup?) and made mochi.
Distributing goods is difficult. Everyone needs these items, and it`s not always easy to get them, so they`re polite, but everyone has to take what they can quickly. There were a lot of rapid fire questions about what a certain item was or how many they were allowed to take, which is a little difficult to answer quickly in another language. I got the hang of it, kind of, though.
(If you are looking at this blog and considering volunteering without Japanese language skill: don`t worry. We make adjustments for people who can`t speak Japanese.)
The toilet paper disappeared very quickly. So did the diapers and the detergent. In fact, most everything went except some of the clothing, a few of the heat patches, the calendars, and some junky-looking necklaces.
I assumed that the coast would be warmer than inland and had underdressed a bit. I mean, it is warmer on the coast, but the temporary housing unit was in a windy area, and the windchill made it feel colder. One of the other regular volunteers took a coat from the donated clothing and tried to give it to me.
I said, "No, no, someone will use it." But then he pointed out that it was stained, and nobody would be able to use it anyway. I thought about this for a second, and then accepted the coat.
Thank you, person who donated their dirty coat.
I think it`s great to donate items to people who need them, but for the record: don`t donate a dirty coat! It`s like somebody thinks donating is better than throwing the coat away, and besides, the poor people on the coast will take anything they can get. From that logic, it`s OK to take a bite out of a hamburger and feed it to a homeless person. "Well, it wouldn`t be OK for me, but it is OK for you, because you are a poor person."
I think perhaps that reasoning is suspect!
Like, if you wouldn`t wear the dirty coat, don`t expect someone else less fortunate than you to wear the dirty coat because you don`t think they have any other options. Donate a clean one, or better yet: buy a new coat!
Give the dirty coat to the volunteer instead. :D We like dirty coats.
So, got a new dirty coat which shall become my special winter volunteer coat. Then, we made mochi. Of course they eventually decided that the random foreign volunteer needed to help swing the large mochi hammer thingy to make mochi. I obliged, reluctantly. After a little bit, I thought, this isn`t so bad, I`m really starting to get the hang of this, looks like this mochi will get made without any mishaps, but then...
!!!!
OH NO
You have got to be KIDDING!
I had DESTROYED the mochi hammer thing! There was to be NO MORE MOCHI because I had destroyed the mochi hammer thing. I think the gentleman in this picture is actually the head of Kamaishi volunteer center, holding one piece of what USED to be a mochi hammer thing, probably thinking "remind me why we take foreign volunteers again!"
Well, actually, there was a spare mochi hammer thing (?? Because everybody`s got a mochi hammer lying around in their truck bed? Where did it come from?) and fortunately, I did not destroy it.
Tomorrow`s a Christmas party for some kids in Kamaishi, nervous but we`ve got some really great volunteers for the event. Then back to the States for two weeks. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Saturday in Rikuzentakata
Last Saturday we went to Rikuzentakata, because the group accompanying us was pretty big, and the Kamaishi Volunteer Center said they didn`t have a job large enough to fit all of us.
We let Kitakami station at a leisurely 7:40! 7:40! This means I, since I live about 5 minutes away from the station, only had to get up at around 6:40 or so! (I take a long time to shower and put on clothes and drink coffee and stuff first thing in the morning). It was heavenly. Usually I would get up at around 5:30 or 5:45.
We changed the time to try and make the drive over safer. Recently the weather has been getting cold, as it`s apt to do in inland Iwate, and the road can get frozen. Hopefully, departing an extra hour later gives the sun time to make the drive safer. (For what it`s worth, if the roads are too dangerous, HANDS cancels volunteer dispatch for that day.)
So halfway through the drive to Rikuzentakata, it starts raining. I think to myself, "Sure, it`s raining, but maybe it`ll stop soon. Because: I want it to stop."
Unfortunately, rain does not follow that sort of logic. If anything, it actually started to rain harder.
We pull into the parking lot and walk over to the volunteer center and it`s still raining. We get assigned to a job, and it`s still raining. We drive to the worksite. It`s still raining.
I read in Japanese somewhere that much of the big rubble in Rikuzentakata has been cleaned up and now it`s just "smaller" rubble, but judging from what we were working with on Saturday, small rubble isn`t really that small. We were asked to move piles of rubble around what appeared to be a field to a series of sorted piles that were next to the road. This was probably so dump trucks or such could easily pick them up later.
I say it appeared to be a field because in the part of Rikuzentakata that was hit by the tsunami, it`s really hard to tell what a place used to be. Part of Rikuzentakata was basically washed away. You can tell where buildings were because you can see the foundation, but otherwise it`s hard to believe there was a city there.
Myself and volunteer Will and blue coat studies legends of Toono-san (I still can`t remember this guy`s name) were assigned to a strip of land that hadn`t been cleared of rubble yet. We were to gather the rubble into piles, then carry the rubble via wheelbarrow to the piles next to the road.
There was a lot of wood and some plastic, and pieces of styrofoam that were blowing around in the wind. Shoes. A tire, a sheet of metal that had probably been a door to something, and a large tank of something that had been somehow buried almost completely in the ground. Unfortunately we didn`t have the time to dig that last one up, because it definitely wasn`t meant to be there.
The road from our strip of land to the piles of rubble, between our wheelbarrows and the rain--which wasn`t letting up so much as getting heavier--quickly turned into a big mud trap. Like a fool, I hadn`t watched the weather report so had come to volunteer wearing a pair of jeans, which got soaking wet in about 5 minutes.
Unfortunately, because of the weather, volunteer ended before lunch.
It`s worthwhile going, even when volunteering ends early or gets canceled, because otherwise the work we did wouldn`t have happened, but it`s kind of disappointing not to be able to put in a full day.
I`m not even sure a full day would have been possible even if we had decided to work through the rain, though, because if that road had gotten churned up much further, it wouldn`t have been much of a road anymore.
Rikuzentakata, the disaster area, is strange and depressing. The rain doesn`t help much. It`s mostly flat, with just a couple of buildings still standing. The only tree left in the great big pine forest that used to line the Rikuzentakata coastline is visible from a long distance away. The news recently said that the pine tree, which had been a kind of symbol for resilience or something, is definitely eventually going to die. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I wish they could put up a statue of a tree there when the real one dies, until they get some other pine trees planted. No one wants to see the one symbol of resilience for miles and miles wither up and fall over.
There are still animals. Birds, especially. Osprey, seagulls, ducks in the rivers, egrets. It can`t be a good place for a bird to live, anymore, though. The water doesn`t look right. You see some ducks in the water, you start to want to go out and coax them all into cages and bring them to a nice wetland somewhere.
Rikuzentakata is not completely destroyed. There`s an undamaged area, and people still live there. I always forget that, for some reason, remembering the part that got washed away.
In the volunteer center, where they give us free coffee and cocoa, I saw letters from schoolchildren in Rikuzentakata thanking volunteers. "Thank you for cleaning up the rubble so it`s safe to walk around." How terrible, to be a kid and live in a place where you have to worry if it`s safe to walk around.
Friday, December 2, 2011
By May 2011, I had already decided never to set foot on the Iwate coast again. I reasoned I had been through enough just being inland, with the earthquake and the nuclear scare. At first, I avoided the tsunami footage and news articles because I felt if I saw anything else, between that and the aftershocks, I was just going to crack psychologically. Gradually, once I started to feel better, I reasoned that I still needed a break. Then I concluded that I had been through enough, like some disaster quota had been reached, and that was why I shouldn’t go to the coast.
Really, at that point, I was just avoiding going to the coast for the same reason people avoid looking at homeless people. I didn’t want to come into contact with people less fortunate than I was, because that would be uncomfortable. I might be required to feel something, and with that feeling might come a sense of responsibility, or commitment, and then I might have to adjust my schedule to include volunteering, and for some reason I didn’t want that to happen. Now I can’t seem to remember why. What exactly was it I thought I was doing with Saturdays that was so important?
Going to Kamaishi in May 2011 was a coincidence. I met a friend who had gone volunteering with HANDS, two times in a span of two weeks. I promised him the first time I would give it a go, and felt like I really would for a bit, but after a week I was almost about to forget about it. Then I met him again, a second time, and my conscience, which has really been mostly dormant for the past ten years of my life, sensed I was in a weakened state and took the opportunity to gnaw full force at my ankle until I signed up.
Then I saw what had happened to the coast, and the rest kind of happened on its own. But before, I was ready to forget about it. So I think I understand when people, Japanese or anyone, say that they’re busy to come, or it’s too painful to see what’s happened, or maybe next time. I think I understand when I see less volunteers at the centers and notice less inquiries about volunteering, I think I’ll understand when I go to the United States for Christmas and see that really, no one covers Japan anymore. Not as much.
It’s natural, I guess, it’s supposed to be natural, that more and more people are going to see this as a Wikipedia article or a news story that has already passed, A combination of time and distance and “it’s not my country” or “it’s not my prefecture” or “it’s not my area of the prefecture” is going to smooth everything over. But the horrible thing is, it’s going to smooth everything over for everyone but the people on the coast.
The situation on the coast has improved, but it hasn’t changed as much as the way people view it, as a historical event. Something that has already been cleaned up, something that will resolve on its own. But I can tell you that last weekend we cleaned a floorful of rotting clothes and bedding still wet from the tsunami, and tomorrow we will go to Rikuzentakata where there’s an enormous gaping hole in the middle of the city because everything got washed away. Last week nothing had been solved, this week nothing has been solved, and I expected next week nothing will be solved yet either. Imagine my surprise when English language news articles tell me that the cleanup phase has ended. No, not here, not as of last Saturday. And even when it does end, that’s absolutely not the end of this at all.
I’ve seen it too often lately to be a coincidence. Many different Japanese NPOs, who have talked with coastal residents in much closer detail than I have, all coming up with the same message. Residents see less volunteers coming in, less NPOs, and they express the fear that they have already been forgotten.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Saturday--removing belongings, rotting futons
On Saturday, we removed the belongings from the second floor of a woman's house. Strangely enough, the first floor wasn't completely clean, but we were told that was OK because the house was going to be torn down. What needed to go was larger things in the second and third floor.
I've never heard of that before this job, but that was the explanation that was given.
We didn't touch the third floor, possibly because the cleanup was going to happen one floor at a time, or maybe because the third floor was unstable. We were told to borrow helmets, which doesn't bode well for the overall health of the ceiling.
The second floor was covered in things--clothing, futons, tatami mats, paper, books, tsunami mud. Everything was wet, and had been wet for a very long time by now. There were plastic tubs filled with clothing that had been sitting in water for 8 months or so. Frankly, it stunk. I guess if you leave lots of things to rot for long enough, they start to stink, even fabric. We drained the tubs and carried them down the stairs. The clothing and such, we stuffed into bags and threw out the second floor window. Then the usual--drive the truck to the dump site, dump the rubble, drive back. We had to throw everything into piles at the dump site by hand because the volunteer center didn't have enough dump trucks to lend out. (Maybe there was another dump-truck heavy job going on that day?)
The owner of the house, a little old lady, filled her purse with canned coffees from a nearby vending machine and gave them to us during breaktime. She was happy to have found a notebook with money slipped into the pages--really old Japanese money, 10 yen and 100 yen notes. "I've been looking for this," she said, smiling.
I learned how to tie a knot called a "nanking musubi," English name unknown, which allows you to tie down stuff in the back of the truck securely while still unraveling quickly when you need it to. We'll see if I can still remember how to tie it next weekend?
I've never heard of that before this job, but that was the explanation that was given.
We didn't touch the third floor, possibly because the cleanup was going to happen one floor at a time, or maybe because the third floor was unstable. We were told to borrow helmets, which doesn't bode well for the overall health of the ceiling.
The second floor was covered in things--clothing, futons, tatami mats, paper, books, tsunami mud. Everything was wet, and had been wet for a very long time by now. There were plastic tubs filled with clothing that had been sitting in water for 8 months or so. Frankly, it stunk. I guess if you leave lots of things to rot for long enough, they start to stink, even fabric. We drained the tubs and carried them down the stairs. The clothing and such, we stuffed into bags and threw out the second floor window. Then the usual--drive the truck to the dump site, dump the rubble, drive back. We had to throw everything into piles at the dump site by hand because the volunteer center didn't have enough dump trucks to lend out. (Maybe there was another dump-truck heavy job going on that day?)
The owner of the house, a little old lady, filled her purse with canned coffees from a nearby vending machine and gave them to us during breaktime. She was happy to have found a notebook with money slipped into the pages--really old Japanese money, 10 yen and 100 yen notes. "I've been looking for this," she said, smiling.
I learned how to tie a knot called a "nanking musubi," English name unknown, which allows you to tie down stuff in the back of the truck securely while still unraveling quickly when you need it to. We'll see if I can still remember how to tie it next weekend?
Friday, November 25, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Planting flowers and hardcore rubble clearing
Long time no blog post; sorry about that. A lot of crazy things have decided to happen since last week, and some more crazy things popped up for good measure this week. My apartment is covered in excess bedding from the nice group of exchange students who came to participate last weekend, plus a couple of pizza boxes. I have already stress eaten all of the Pocky they left behind, which reminds me why I never keep sweets in the house...
Anyway, let`s talk about last weekend`s activities! It was a pretty weird combination of activities: on Saturday, we planted flowers in pots and flower beds to decorate Miyako Station. On Sunday, we went to Kamaishi and cleaned up an enormous pile of rubble behind a building.
Saturday was nice and relaxing. At first, if you happen to not be a flower person (like me), you might worry about harming the flower during the process of putting it in the pot, but after a while you learn to relax a bit and enjoy shoveling the dirt into pots and pretending you have a color sense. I was a little jealous of the Man Team, who got to do more physical work like shovel dirt into flower beds and such.
Sometimes we get explicitly separated into the Man Team and the Woman Team for volunteer activities, which is not my favorite, but you have to make a judgment call. If you are in another country, volunteering or doing anything really, you have to work with what people want or expect you to do. Otherwise, if you decide that you`re going to do it the special non-sexist American way and everybody else should too, you`ll end up hindering the work you want done in the first place by wasting everyone`s time arguing about something no one`s going to change their mind about.
This does not mean it is not ridiculous, however. Especially when someone in charge says "All the women will move these little rocks over here," but when you start moving all the little rocks using the wheelbarrow it becomes a really hardcore heavy weight bearing activity. But then they can`t really take it back, and amaaaazingly it turns out we can handle it anyway!!
Anyway, but the women what with our estrogen and natural color sense did hopefully a good job with the flower pots. And Miyako Station, I have to say, looks great.
I suppose I shouldn`t complain about lack of physical work, however, because the next day we went to Kamaishi and cleaned this.
It was an enormous pile of rubble, a house had essentially been washed into the alley behind the building next to it. Keep in mind that this is November and the disaster happened last March. That`s an eight month old pile of rubble.
There is nothing like the piles of rubble that I`ve seen in Kamaishi. They`re not like regular piles of trash. They have their own smell and their own weird set of colors. Twisted plastic, rotting books, the weird tsunami mud, splintered planks of wood, telephones, televisions, cans of beer. And yes, teddy bears. Children`s clothing. Wallets for teenage girls. You learn not to look at these things too closely. You learn not to think about the little shoes. It takes a newer volunteer commenting, "I hate finding these," for you to think about it again.
On Sunday, a big group of volunteers wallowed through this pit of dirt and rotting tatami mats and ex-furniture and twisted clothing and pulled everything out, and eventually we finished with this:
The other side of the building, but you get the idea. After a day`s work, with many vans full of volunteers coming in as reinforcement, we got the area back to ground level, though you can see the ground still isn`t clean.
Tomorrow we have another public holiday and more than 10 foreigners coming to volunteer through HANDS! That`s a HANDS record, for your information, and it`s all thanks to one of our regular participants offering to set up an event. I`m looking forward to seeing the faces of surprised Japanese volunteers at the center when an entire mob of foreigners shows up. Should be fun. :D
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Wool-san
A conversation I had yesterday between leader Taiki-san about a change in schedule.
Taiki-san: So please let them know that they should come at 7:15 and their lunch is provided this time.
Anna: OK, well, I'll let the TIU group know and it looks like Will-san is also coming on that Saturday, so...
T: (Sounding worried) Who?
A: (Didn't he get my email?) Will-san!
T: W-...Wool-san?
A: Nooooooo! Wiiiiillll-san!
T: Wool-san. Wool-san??
A: Noooo! [Last name] Will-san!
T: (After a pause) Oooh! Wuiriamu san!
A: (Hahaha! <3<3) Yes! William!
T: OK OK!
A: So, I'll let William-san know, and...
Taiki-san: So please let them know that they should come at 7:15 and their lunch is provided this time.
Anna: OK, well, I'll let the TIU group know and it looks like Will-san is also coming on that Saturday, so...
T: (Sounding worried) Who?
A: (Didn't he get my email?) Will-san!
T: W-...Wool-san?
A: Nooooooo! Wiiiiillll-san!
T: Wool-san. Wool-san??
A: Noooo! [Last name] Will-san!
T: (After a pause) Oooh! Wuiriamu san!
A: (Hahaha! <3<3) Yes! William!
T: OK OK!
A: So, I'll let William-san know, and...
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Google translate
Somebody running the HANDS Facebook page/group or whatever just put an announcement up today in Japanese, and in English (!). The English had been clearly originally just Japanese that had been Google translated or Babelfished around a bit:
"
:D What a happy thing. Maybe this means they want me to translate some announcements. Maybe this means I should wait and see if they Babelfish anything else. :D
Anyway, looks like we're helping out an environmental NPO based in Kitakami plant trees for recovery. I'll try to post other highlights of our activities in English here.
Busy busy busy busy and I needed to go to work (I have a job!) five minutes ago. Need to email like four people and call two. But first: teaching kindergarteners!
"
:D What a happy thing. Maybe this means they want me to translate some announcements. Maybe this means I should wait and see if they Babelfish anything else. :D
Anyway, looks like we're helping out an environmental NPO based in Kitakami plant trees for recovery. I'll try to post other highlights of our activities in English here.
Busy busy busy busy and I needed to go to work (I have a job!) five minutes ago. Need to email like four people and call two. But first: teaching kindergarteners!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Saturday volunteer: moving beauty salon chairs
We had another large group volunteering on Saturday. On the foreign volunteer side, there was myself and a wonderful relaxed couple now living in Tokyo who came to participate with us Friday through Sunday.
When we got to the volunteer center leader Futo-san told us that we were going to split up into two groups: one group was going to be cleaning a house with a big water gun, and the other was going to cut grass and pick up rubble. Richard, Debra (the couple) and I were all set to be part of the cutting grass/rubble picking up team when Futo-san ran up suddenly and said "The volunteer center needs more people for another job, so we're going to split you three off."
!!!
You mean you're going to leave me ALONE?
Aw, but it was just fine. HANDS: Team Foreign was assigned to work with three nice young men from various places who had registered to volunteer as individuals. Our mission was to move various hair salon equipment, like those heavy chairs and mirrors, to a storage facility. One hair salon owner was closing her shop, and wanted to give all the equipment she could to another friend who was going to open up a business in December. The explanation sheet for the job looked intriguing. "You will move chairs, mirrors, etcetera" it said.
Hmmm. Is etcetera heavy?
When we got there, it turned out that along with the chairs and mirrors, the shop owners wanted us to take some shelves as well. Unfortunately, the shelves were very, very firmly bolted to the wall to be earthquake-proof, so they wouldn't fall over. The team poked around the shelves for a while. The Japanese conversation didn't sound very hopeful: they weren't sure if it was possible to take off the shelves without damaging them, so maybe it was best to just leave it alone and take the things we could carry easily. The English conversation going around at the same time was Debra and Richard discussing exactly how the shelves were bolted to the wall and strategies about how to find out.
We loaded some of the chairs and mirrors into one of the vans and two of the men drove off to onload them at the storage center. While we were waiting, Richard and Debra got ahold of the crowbars and, after we got permission from the shop owners, started to carefully pry at one of the shelves.
I've never understood crowbars. If you want me to be as useless as possible, give me a crowbar and tell me to pry at something with it. You might as well be telling me to pry at something with a wet noodle. This is how useless I am. But Debra and Richard were pros. They had all kinds of prying/wiggling/lifting/jiggling strategies that they employed, all the while having a pretty lively discussion about exactly in what way the shelves were bolted to the wall. (Pics forthcoming.) The rest of our team came back to find that Debra and Richard had pried off one of the shelves perfectly, with no damage, and were starting on another.
This made me and continues to make me really really smug about HANDS: Team Foreign. Essentially all I did the whole day was stand around looking really smug watching Debra and Richard pry at shelves, occasionally helping to move a chair or translate something.
All in all, I felt, a very successful day.
Other projects for November and December are in the works, lots of leads to a lot of different things. Specialists in childhood trauma maybe coming to Iwate the end of this month, groups of 20 volunteers from India, Christmas parties for children, a call for donations for Christmas candy, an NPO ally in Toono who are also taking foreign volunteers. There's a group of college students coming next weekend, and a really big group of Iwate foreigners on the national holiday on the 23rd. I need to send a volunteer translation sheet to this great guy from Holland who's staying in Kamaishi and volunteering as an individual, with minimal Japanese, but can't enter his ridiculously long scribbled email address correctly.
It's all very exciting and nervewracking. These months are also going to fall under the category of "hard, but cool."
When we got to the volunteer center leader Futo-san told us that we were going to split up into two groups: one group was going to be cleaning a house with a big water gun, and the other was going to cut grass and pick up rubble. Richard, Debra (the couple) and I were all set to be part of the cutting grass/rubble picking up team when Futo-san ran up suddenly and said "The volunteer center needs more people for another job, so we're going to split you three off."
!!!
You mean you're going to leave me ALONE?
Aw, but it was just fine. HANDS: Team Foreign was assigned to work with three nice young men from various places who had registered to volunteer as individuals. Our mission was to move various hair salon equipment, like those heavy chairs and mirrors, to a storage facility. One hair salon owner was closing her shop, and wanted to give all the equipment she could to another friend who was going to open up a business in December. The explanation sheet for the job looked intriguing. "You will move chairs, mirrors, etcetera" it said.
Hmmm. Is etcetera heavy?
When we got there, it turned out that along with the chairs and mirrors, the shop owners wanted us to take some shelves as well. Unfortunately, the shelves were very, very firmly bolted to the wall to be earthquake-proof, so they wouldn't fall over. The team poked around the shelves for a while. The Japanese conversation didn't sound very hopeful: they weren't sure if it was possible to take off the shelves without damaging them, so maybe it was best to just leave it alone and take the things we could carry easily. The English conversation going around at the same time was Debra and Richard discussing exactly how the shelves were bolted to the wall and strategies about how to find out.
We loaded some of the chairs and mirrors into one of the vans and two of the men drove off to onload them at the storage center. While we were waiting, Richard and Debra got ahold of the crowbars and, after we got permission from the shop owners, started to carefully pry at one of the shelves.
I've never understood crowbars. If you want me to be as useless as possible, give me a crowbar and tell me to pry at something with it. You might as well be telling me to pry at something with a wet noodle. This is how useless I am. But Debra and Richard were pros. They had all kinds of prying/wiggling/lifting/jiggling strategies that they employed, all the while having a pretty lively discussion about exactly in what way the shelves were bolted to the wall. (Pics forthcoming.) The rest of our team came back to find that Debra and Richard had pried off one of the shelves perfectly, with no damage, and were starting on another.
This made me and continues to make me really really smug about HANDS: Team Foreign. Essentially all I did the whole day was stand around looking really smug watching Debra and Richard pry at shelves, occasionally helping to move a chair or translate something.
All in all, I felt, a very successful day.
Other projects for November and December are in the works, lots of leads to a lot of different things. Specialists in childhood trauma maybe coming to Iwate the end of this month, groups of 20 volunteers from India, Christmas parties for children, a call for donations for Christmas candy, an NPO ally in Toono who are also taking foreign volunteers. There's a group of college students coming next weekend, and a really big group of Iwate foreigners on the national holiday on the 23rd. I need to send a volunteer translation sheet to this great guy from Holland who's staying in Kamaishi and volunteering as an individual, with minimal Japanese, but can't enter his ridiculously long scribbled email address correctly.
It's all very exciting and nervewracking. These months are also going to fall under the category of "hard, but cool."
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Hello Canada, pictures to show we are not scary
I'm really very curious about some of the people showing up to read this blog. Hello, Canadian Firefox users! Hello Russia!
Please leave a comment or send an email if you have any questions! We are a friendly organization running a friendly operation that does good things. We won't bite.
Here are a few pictures to show who we are.
The usual group picture in front of Kamaishi volunteer center after a hard day's work. I'm in the middle there with the hat hair, holding the sign. This was last Saturday. As you can see, there was one other foreign participant that day, really nice guy from Tokyo. Our site leader is the one with the disgraceful hairstyle on the left there. He's been working for a nonprofit too long and his fashion sense has gotten a bit warped.
Here we are enjoying ramen at a shop in Kamaishi. This shop opened up just last month and the ramen is delicious. Every week, new businesses open and we can see a little bit of progress.
This is our celebrity participant, Hello Kitty, enjoying a nice post volunteer ice cream in Toono City.
Please leave a comment or send an email if you have any questions! We are a friendly organization running a friendly operation that does good things. We won't bite.
Here are a few pictures to show who we are.
The usual group picture in front of Kamaishi volunteer center after a hard day's work. I'm in the middle there with the hat hair, holding the sign. This was last Saturday. As you can see, there was one other foreign participant that day, really nice guy from Tokyo. Our site leader is the one with the disgraceful hairstyle on the left there. He's been working for a nonprofit too long and his fashion sense has gotten a bit warped.
Here we are enjoying ramen at a shop in Kamaishi. This shop opened up just last month and the ramen is delicious. Every week, new businesses open and we can see a little bit of progress.
This is our celebrity participant, Hello Kitty, enjoying a nice post volunteer ice cream in Toono City.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Winter ho!
I belong to a Japanese NPO, which means that everyone speaks Japanese and is very busy, which means that a lot of my time is spent listening to conversations about very important things that sometimes sound to me like this:
"Volunteering may change from what you`re used to, hamina shamina shahimina hamina hamima hamina but we hope to have your ongoing cooperation during this change."
Or news articles that look like this:
"In Iwate prefecture today, the prefectural KANJI KANJI KANJI! cooperative KANJI distributed a number of heaters that should be MORE KANJI to temporary housing residents."
It`s a bit frustrating. It`s like all the input here operates like an enormous broken radio, where you`re trying to listen to a station and hear five minutes perfectly and then the radio wigs out and you get a bunch of static.
I don`t want to bother my leaders, because they`re already busy, and don`t need to spend their time explaining to me. I want to keep up as best I can without hindering anybody else`s work. Occasionally, I do corner someone and demand that they tell me, in relatively simple Japanese, exactly what is going on with housing insurance, or the Kamaishi volunteer center, for example. But even if I do this, often the answer isn`t very satisfying.
Me: Dear leader, there are foreigners who might want to come and participate in December, what do I tell them?
Answer: We don`t know what is going on, it`s up to the volunteer center. If there`s a need, we will still dispatch volunteers.
Me: ...OK, but I wonder what I`m supposed to tell them...
So when I actually stumble into some real live information, and connect a few measly dots, I am very happy because with that information comes a plan on how to act.
The dots I have connected are these:
One, that Rikuzentakata volunteer center, according to its blog, is continuing operation through next year. Read this yesterday.
Two, that HANDS was founded and is run by a bunch of fanatical maniacs (bless them) who will continue to serve the Iwate coast as long as it is needed.
Three, that the things the Rikuzentakata volunteer center ask for are things definitely doable for a foreign volunteer.
Four, that even if for some reason HANDS no longer dispatches volunteers or can`t handle foreign volunteers during a certain period of time, there is an NPO based in Toono called Toono Magokoro Net that is also actively recruiting foreigners. Which I am going to contact like, tonight.
This means, in short: winter ho! I don`t know exactly how this going to work out, whether it`ll be Kamaishi and Rikuzentakata, or just Rikuzentakata, through HANDS or through Makogoro net, but there will be ongoing opportunities for foreign volunteers to participate this winter.
So why is it important for foreigners to volunteer? I think there are many reasons, not the least of which is: the foreign population of Japan is an underutilized source of manpower. I understand how in the direct aftermath of the disaster, the first priority should be getting in trained professionals, and then the next priority is getting in the most useful volunteers--native speakers or fluent speakers--but the third priority should have been people. Just people, including the however many? 2 million? foreigners who are living in this country.
Every foreign volunteer who participates with us is another "in" to reach other members of the foreign community, plus their Japanese friends, plus their friends and relatives back home. Part of recovery means fostering connections between the coast and the inland, between far away prefectures and Iwate prefecture, and between Japan and other countries.
And on a personal note, I want Japanese to know we care, that we are connected to their country, and that it`s our country too. It`s the place we live and pay taxes and go to the movies and recycle our cans. Or it`s the place we used to live. Or a favorite travel destination. I know that shouldn`t be the goal, for foreigners to make themselves feel better, but at least it might be a little reassuring to folks on the coast that these people haven`t forgotten them. Not Japanese, not the international community.
And if foreigners want to communicate caring, or allegiance to a country that they chose, for whatever reason, that`s a really good source of motivation and another reason why the foreign community should be tapped.
That`s why I`m happy there should be a place for us a little longer, at least through the winter. So...have at me! Winter volunteer season starts soon!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Water gun Saturday
On Saturday, I particpated with Rupert, a really great guy from Tokyo who refers to his boots as “Wellies.”
The group of HANDS participants was especially large on Saturday for two reasons:
One, there was going to be an enormous, epic all HANDs participants party that night and it’s kind of natural to do the volunteer work before going to the epic party,
and
Two, because the party was anticipated to be so epic, the party organizers had arranged a HANDs holiday, a day off, for our three staff members. This means that there was no volunteering on Sunday, so anybody who wanted to participate on the weekend through HANDS had to do it on Saturday.
(This does not happen often, by the way. We’re still dispatching every day.)
It was such a big group that we used both vans for transportation, plus two participants drove their own cars and took passengers to boot.
When we got there, we were split up into two groups. One was tasked with handing out donations, mostly winter supplies, at the big Kannon statue. About six people from our group, though, were to split off and do a different job—using the pressure cleaner, aka 高圧洗浄、aka “big crazy water gun,” to clean a barber shop on the main street with all the shops.
Rupert and I ended up working in the big crazy water gun group.
It was the last day of what must have been a multiple day job; the sheet said to remove rubble from the shop but that had already been done by another team. What was left was washing off the salt and mud from the shop with the water gun. The walls and ceiling had already been removed so the only thing that was left of the structure was the iron beams plus some wooden beams, and an iron ceiling.
Tsunami water and mud is nasty stuff. It doesn’t stink, per se, but it doesn’t smell nice. From a building perspective, for one thing, it’s salty, and salt means rust.
I once met a resident who said her family’s car had only floated a bit in the tsunami and been dented. They thought “Lucky! We still have the car.” But after they drove the car for a while, it performed worse and worse, until they finally had to take it to a mechanic. The mechanic told them it was the sea water, and there was nothing they could do. They could drive it for now but at some point the car was going to be junk.
On a side note, that same family had a bunch of belongings still intact in their house as well, but because that neighborhood didn’t get power or water for months and months, by the time they got the chance to come back and clean and salvage things everything had been ruined by mold.
Anyway, so one reason to wash off a building is rust, but another is the smell. You have to get rid of all the mud because if you don’t, it’s going to start smelling. It’s a process with really a lot of steps—take out the big rubble, shovel the mud off the floor, take down the walls and ceiling (it’s rotting by now), hose down the building and scrub the beams, remove the remaining mud. After volunteers come in and finish the washing stage, there’s actually another step where you have to disinfect everything or a lot of nasty tsunami bacteria is going to grow and the place will start to smell. I don’t know what happens after that.
So after one person had washed off the whole shop with the water gun, everyone got ladders and brushes and started scrubbing the beams. I think this is both to get rid of the mud that the water gun didn’t get, and to get the remaining salt off the beams, but don’t quote me on that last part because I’m not sure.
I’m up there scrubbity scrubbing away and reach to clean the top of the beams, and when I pull my hand back I find—
an enormous gob of mud that is still stuck up there on the top of the beam.
The people using the water gun were using it from the ground, which is really about all you can do, but when you do it from the ground the tops of beams and nooks and crannies up there in the ceiling don’t get water shot at it directly. Therefore, we had to use the ladders to get all that mud off by hand. By the time I was done for the day, I was covered in mud because I couldn’t figure out any way to get the mud off that
didn’t involve flicking it towards myself.
My jeans will never forgive me, and my beloved volunteer hat looks like it’s been attacked by a mud puddle.
The owner of the barber shop was very nice. At the end, some of the guys moved a big barber chair back into the shop. The tsunami came up to the third floor of his building, so the owner still isn’t done with cleaning, nor with rebuilding his shop.
In other news, I found out Saturday night that it’s very rare for homeowners and business owners to have insurance, like disaster insurance. According to my leader, Futo-san, the only money these people are likely to get is from the prefecture. I had been assuming that everyone was getting a big payout from their insurance to rebuild.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Culture Day Thursday
I suppose if I am going to make an English blog for HANDS and take the time to update more often--out of having nothing better to do, and probably the need to write some of these thoughts down—I might as well tell you what we did for volunteering once in a while.
Yesterday we went to Kamaishi, as per usual. More people than probably is normal for a Thursday because it’s a national holiday: Culture Day! What does one do on Culture Day? Absolutely no idea. Like every one of those random holidays that hangs around in the middle of the workweek, I think one usually either does something fun in the area, like go to an onsen or watch a movie, or sits in a corner of the living room vegetating. Anyway, and some people volunteer too.
Because of the large number of people (maybe around 30 in total) we were split up into a couple of worksites. One group finished up cleaning a house with a big water gun, and there was possibly another group doing things unknown, but my group was tasked with removing the tsunami mud out of a person’s backyard.
When we arrived at the worksite, we found the tsunami mud was not just any tsunami mud, but tsunami mud that had been mixed with gravel, and the resulting mixture had been pushed all over the place. Meaning: you can’t tell where the tsunami mud ends and the gravel begins, and you can’t tell how deep you are supposed to dig. The information sheet summarizing the job said essentially, “Owner will not be on site, and will leave the depth up to you. Err on the side of digging deeply.”
Often, the person making the volunteer request is on site, so we can ask them specific questions about how deep to dig, what to throw away, whether they need help with anything else, etcetera. However, like today, they have every right not to be there, just to use up an entire day watching us work, or working alongside us and bowing at us and having to say “thank you.” They have their regular lives to live.
Anyway, we found ourselves faced with a whole backyard of gravel mixed with tsunami mud that had hardened in places and was mixed with large unpleasant rocks. Unlike cleaning up the floor of a house, or concrete, there was no clear “end” or “bottom” to the mud that you could hit and say “Aha! This is the bottom! I will dig down to here, and no further!” You could conceivably dig very, very very far down. It was a dangerous, potential “dig a hole to China” situation.
It took a lot of scraping, and some unpleasant shoveling (gravel is not easy), and throwing gravel into bags, and throwing the bags into trucks, and some sweating, but we did finish the job by just about 2:45. Tools washed and returned, ate ice cream in Toono, took a bath at home and ready to order a pizza and have a glass of wine. Good day’s work.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Need to figure out how to get the important stuff
I need to figure out how to get the important stuff permanently at the top if this blog, instead of my latest volunteer-related rambling.
In the meantime, here is the important stuff that should be on the top of the page, before I start rambling:
Volunteer Application
FAQ
Volunteer Manual
Tomorrow's a national holiday, which means that myself and some of the other HANDS regulars are taking a mid-week trip to Kamaishi.
I think I might have been at least partly misinterpreting that graph of incoming volunteers--that dip in October, at least for Kamaishi, is probably in part because the volunteer center there stopped accepting volunteers without pre-registration in October. It does not mean you should not come. You should come.
First, a little explanation about volunteer centers, keeping in mind this is the explanation of an imperfect-Japanese-speaking, late to the party, "I got the memo three weeks later" foreigner.
Volunteer centers take requests from locals, or sometimes from the city itself, for volunteers to come and perform a certain task. For example, let's say my yard has rubble in it and I want volunteers to come pick it up. I go to the volunteer center and have a consultation session with them. The staff member I consult with listens to what I need and records on a form estimating what tools, how many people, and how many days are needed for this project.
Every day, a number of volunteers come to the volunteer center and are assigned one of these projects. If it's a big project, many groups of people and individual volunteers might get combined into a big megagroup (technically speaking). If it's a big project and there aren't many people, your tiny group might be assigned to a project that is clearly not going to finish that day.
But it's OK--projects can take more than the estimated time when the volunteer center decides that's appropriate. Some projects take less than a day, some can take a week or more.
Earlier on, essentially any number of people just showing up to Kamaishi was great. No matter how many people showed up, it was fine, because there was a very big urgent problem and you just had to throw as many people at the problem as possible. Everyone who came, even without notice, would have work.
Now, it sounds like there is a steady stream of less jobs than before coming in. This does not mean at all that the volunteer center doesn't need volunteers. It means that the volunteer center needs a preferably stable number of people coming in who register in advance.
It's like donating goods. Before, you could throw a lot of food and blankets in a truck and bring it to the disaster area and there was a very good chance someone could use it. Now, the need is still there but NPOs and such are planning to match the supply to the demand.
Anyway, there is definitely still demand, and you can definitely be part of the supply, if you fill out that registration form so the volunteer center knows you're coming! Hint hint hint.
(Those who already filled out that form before don't need to fill it out again, just need to tell HANDS you're coming.)
I had a dream a few weeks ago that A, a volunteer and friend who's come a couple of times, was sitting with the HANDS volunteer group. And I was like, "A, what are you doing here? You weren't here this morning?" And she said "Well, I figured I would just show up and help in the afternoon!"
"But A," I said, in great distress, "HAVE YOU FILLED OUT YOUR REGISTRATION FORM?"
Which is silly because she already had anyway.
I never knew I would turn out to be such an anxious paper-pusher. Who has dreams about registration forms? Who does that?...
In the meantime, here is the important stuff that should be on the top of the page, before I start rambling:
Volunteer Application
FAQ
Volunteer Manual
Tomorrow's a national holiday, which means that myself and some of the other HANDS regulars are taking a mid-week trip to Kamaishi.
I think I might have been at least partly misinterpreting that graph of incoming volunteers--that dip in October, at least for Kamaishi, is probably in part because the volunteer center there stopped accepting volunteers without pre-registration in October. It does not mean you should not come. You should come.
First, a little explanation about volunteer centers, keeping in mind this is the explanation of an imperfect-Japanese-speaking, late to the party, "I got the memo three weeks later" foreigner.
Volunteer centers take requests from locals, or sometimes from the city itself, for volunteers to come and perform a certain task. For example, let's say my yard has rubble in it and I want volunteers to come pick it up. I go to the volunteer center and have a consultation session with them. The staff member I consult with listens to what I need and records on a form estimating what tools, how many people, and how many days are needed for this project.
Every day, a number of volunteers come to the volunteer center and are assigned one of these projects. If it's a big project, many groups of people and individual volunteers might get combined into a big megagroup (technically speaking). If it's a big project and there aren't many people, your tiny group might be assigned to a project that is clearly not going to finish that day.
But it's OK--projects can take more than the estimated time when the volunteer center decides that's appropriate. Some projects take less than a day, some can take a week or more.
Earlier on, essentially any number of people just showing up to Kamaishi was great. No matter how many people showed up, it was fine, because there was a very big urgent problem and you just had to throw as many people at the problem as possible. Everyone who came, even without notice, would have work.
Now, it sounds like there is a steady stream of less jobs than before coming in. This does not mean at all that the volunteer center doesn't need volunteers. It means that the volunteer center needs a preferably stable number of people coming in who register in advance.
It's like donating goods. Before, you could throw a lot of food and blankets in a truck and bring it to the disaster area and there was a very good chance someone could use it. Now, the need is still there but NPOs and such are planning to match the supply to the demand.
Anyway, there is definitely still demand, and you can definitely be part of the supply, if you fill out that registration form so the volunteer center knows you're coming! Hint hint hint.
(Those who already filled out that form before don't need to fill it out again, just need to tell HANDS you're coming.)
I had a dream a few weeks ago that A, a volunteer and friend who's come a couple of times, was sitting with the HANDS volunteer group. And I was like, "A, what are you doing here? You weren't here this morning?" And she said "Well, I figured I would just show up and help in the afternoon!"
"But A," I said, in great distress, "HAVE YOU FILLED OUT YOUR REGISTRATION FORM?"
Which is silly because she already had anyway.
I never knew I would turn out to be such an anxious paper-pusher. Who has dreams about registration forms? Who does that?...
Sunday, October 30, 2011
On a more positive note
On a more positive note, All Hands in Ofunato (which incidentally is not us, we are HANDS serving mostly Kamaishi/Rikuzentakata) is rebuilding a park.
http://hands.org/2011/10/05/japan-rebuilding-a-community-park/
How great would that be, to build a park? I`m really looking forward to doing something like that, hopefully sooner than later.
November approacheth! HANDS has at least one foreign volunteer besides myself scheduled to participate every weekend. One foreign group scheduled and possibly two or three others in the works. In the meantime, though, I feel like I haven`t been getting as many new inquiries about volunteering.
I`m not sure if the same is true for Japanese participants as well, or if as a group we`re holding steady. Are there enough volunteers or not? I don`t even know that for sure.
I`ve been looking at this graph http://tasukeaijapan.jp/?page_id=11509&prarea_id=10
and it looks bad, but I can`t be sure what exactly it means. For non-Japanese speakers, that blue graph on the right is the number of volunteers coming to Kamaishi weekly.
Rikuzentakata is here
http://tasukeaijapan.jp/?page_id=11509&prarea_id=10
What`s up with October? Maybe it just looks bad compared to the big peak during August. I`m trying not to worry about it because it`s a waste of time. Anyway: go November go! Come on up and volunteer! The more people come, the sooner we can get to things like building parks.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Everything is Much Better Now
We are still taking volunteers every day in November except November 6th.
It`s the last week in October and HANDS is still dispatching volunteers daily: today we dispatched to Kamaishi. The group includes a college student from the JSP exchange program at Tokyo International University, accompanied by our fair site leader Futo-san and a number of other volunteers. Looks like maybe 6 people in total?
I, of course, am at work, though would rather be with them.
It`s been a long time since I started working with HANDS, about five months now. My first time was during the last week in May, when Kamaishi was covered in piles of rubble, and there were these crumpled-up cars scattered everywhere, and boats and cars balanced precariously on the tops of buildings. Slowly, gradually, the town has improved. Compared to “before” pictures, everything looks better. People who haven`t been here for a while sometimes comment on how clean it is compared to before.
It`s the last week in October and HANDS is still dispatching volunteers daily: today we dispatched to Kamaishi. The group includes a college student from the JSP exchange program at Tokyo International University, accompanied by our fair site leader Futo-san and a number of other volunteers. Looks like maybe 6 people in total?
I, of course, am at work, though would rather be with them.
It`s been a long time since I started working with HANDS, about five months now. My first time was during the last week in May, when Kamaishi was covered in piles of rubble, and there were these crumpled-up cars scattered everywhere, and boats and cars balanced precariously on the tops of buildings. Slowly, gradually, the town has improved. Compared to “before” pictures, everything looks better. People who haven`t been here for a while sometimes comment on how clean it is compared to before.
But clean isn`t a relative term. Clean is a word for a regular town, where you can dig in a flower bed and you won`t find handfuls of glass and twisted plastic things and rotting books. Clean is a word for a place without rubble--rubble that has now been sitting, untouched, for about seven months--in the first floor of so many buildings. Clean is a word for a place that doesn`t need masks and gloves, for buildings that don`t need to be hosed down with water and disinfected so the smell doesn`t start again.
Even now, volunteers who have never seen the area before sometimes comment that it looks like a war zone. But once these places don`t look as impressive, as catastrophic as they did earlier on, will more and more people forget about Tohoku because it looks better now? Will they forget what they might have heard on the news, that better is supposed to take ten years?
When will people start believing that living conditions on the coast are “good enough?” But we don`t have the right to assume anything is “good enough” for other people until it fits our own expectations for living. Kamaishi is not “better” or “clean” or “good enough” until it meets the conditions of being a regular city again.
When will people start believing that living conditions on the coast are “good enough?” But we don`t have the right to assume anything is “good enough” for other people until it fits our own expectations for living. Kamaishi is not “better” or “clean” or “good enough” until it meets the conditions of being a regular city again.
All Hands makes all of its long term volunteers take a break for at least three days a month for mental health reasons. Peace Boat usually limits participation time to one week. Interesting to think about the residents themselves, who have been in a disaster area--and not just any disaster area, their own home--for seven months solid. It`s too bad those people can`t get a break from what they have lived with and what they are still living with every day for mental health reasons.
The last weekend I came to Kamaishi I saw a line of elementary school students, maybe waiting for a bus, and three or four of the boys were laughing and slapping another boy in the face. I was in a van, watching this happen, and the van happened to stop right next to the group of boys. The other boys were slapping this one boy in the face, over and over again, while the boy yelled at them, while right next to them stood an adult man who was probably a teacher. The man wasn`t doing anything. Maybe he was tired of breaking up fights. The boys were still slapping him, over and over, when we finally drove away.
What do you think happens to children who are going through an experience like this? Do you think those kids feel better that their dangerous, scary war zone town with broken glass in the flowerbeds is less of a scary, dangerous war zone town than a few months ago? Maybe they`ll feel better when you remind them there are no more cars on tops of buildings anymore. That the enormous ship that has been left with its tip stuck in the side of a road has finally been removed, and it only took seven months.
Who would have the nerve to tell these people that this month, that next month or the month after that is good enough? I certainly don`t, and I`m sure HANDS doesn`t.
Not until they tell us they don`t need us anymore. Not until Kamaishi is a place I would want to live in. Not until the beach is a place to take a vacation.
Not until they tell us they don`t need us anymore. Not until Kamaishi is a place I would want to live in. Not until the beach is a place to take a vacation.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Documents (Volunteer Application, etc)
If you would like to participate with us, please download and fill out volunteer application above, then send to Anna Thomas at thomasanna85@gmail.com
IMPORTANT: We will stop dispatching volunteers daily on March 10, 2012, but we will continue to go most weekends and you're welcome to join. Please see this announcement.
For people who speak some Japanese but might not know some of the special vocabulary we use while volunteering.
A translation sheet for communicating with Japanese volunteers and site leaders
FAQ
What is HANDS?
HANDS is a nonprofit based in Kitakami dedicated to recovery on the coast. Originally, we were affililated with JCI (Junior Chamber International) Kitakami, but we became our own nonprofit last August.
Currently our trips to the coast are run on an all-volunteer basis. This means we basically carpool to the coast when there are volunteer drivers.
What kind of volunteer work can I do?
That depends on what kind of work requests are brought to the volunteer centers, but you can usually expect one of the following:
- Distributing goods
- Removing tsunami mud
- Cleaning up rubble
- Cleaning pavement and houses with a high pressure washer (a kind of big water gun)
- Cutting grass and weeding, other landscaping
- Helping to remove household items that residents no longer need
- Helping people move (for example, to a temporary housing unit, etc)
- Rarely, cleaning photographs
Where does HANDS meet? Where does HANDS go?
We meet in Kitakami station at 7:00 am. Please see manual for more details.
We usually go on weekends, but please email for more information.
We used to dispatch daily, but that changed last March. Please see explanation here.
What do I need to bring?
Usually boots with safety insoles, work gloves, masks, a lunch, clothes that can get dirty, clothes that can get wet, warm clothes. (Some of these things, you can borrow if you come with HANDS.)
With other groups, you might also need a sleeping bag or a tent, depending on the kind of accommodation. Be careful and make sure to bring everything your chosen volunteer org asks you to!
What other organizations could I volunteer with?
Some organizations may or may not still be taking volunteers, but try the following:
Nadia
JEARS (Animal rescue and support)
What do I need to do to participate with HANDS?
You need to fill out our registration form, ideally at least three days before the first day you want to participate, then send to thomasanna85@gmail.com. After you fill out the registration form once, all you have to do is tell us (email or otherwise) additional dates you want to participate.
You also need to bring the proper equipment, arrange a way to get up to Kitakami, and find a place to stay. Don’t worry: we can help advise you to do all of these things.
How can I get to Kitakami?
You could use the shinkansen: Kitakami, where we are based, is a shinkansen stop about three hours away from Tokyo.
Another cheaper option is the night bus. Being a bus that runs in the night, the night bus is uncomfortable according to some people, but definitely doable.
Sample schedule: Board in Ikebukuro 22:40. Arrive Kitakami 6:20 the next day (if you want to volunteer that day, basically get off the bus and volunteer!). Depart Kitakami 10:35, arrive Ikebukuro 6:13 am the next day.
See http://www.bushikaku.net/ or http://travel.rakuten.co.jp/bus/ (reservations in Japanese, use Google translate or ask a Japanese friend for help if needed)
How long can I volunteer? Is one day too short? Is three weeks too long?
If you want to volunteer longer than a couple of days, I can point you towards other NPOs taking long-term volunteers. Since we`re on a weekends basis only, you could only volunteer with us a couple of days.
I want to volunteer two months from now. Will you still be taking volunteers?
We`ll be taking volunteers, and if we aren`t, I can find you someone who is.
Who are you?
My name is Anna Thomas, and I'm a foreigner and HANDS volunteer who lives in Kitakami. I can help foreigners, or anybody else interested, volunteer on the coast. Contact me at thomasanna85@gmail.com any time if you have any questions.
Do I have to speak Japanese?
This also depends on the organization. HANDS is run by Japanese speakers, but everyone has been very flexible about English-only volunteers. Some HANDS participants can speak some English, and often someone who can translate can participate with you at the same time.
Can I take pictures?
There have been problems in disaster areas with disrespectful photography. It’s OK to take photos, especially before/after photos of work sites and pictures of participants at the volunteer center, but please be careful. No pictures of people without their permission, and avoid taking pictures in front of locals.
Anything else I should know?
Remember to respect the communities and houses you enter and people you meet on the coast. Volunteering, like lots of things, is a privilege, not a right. Try to interfere in other people’s daily lives as minimally as possible—if you’re working on a sidewalk, don’t put tools in the middle of the sidewalk.
Try to spend money in the communities you go to whenever possible. They need your business, not just your service.
Don’t forget what you see on the coast, and don’t let others forget. Recovery is going to take a long time.
I want to find out more. Where can I ask questions?
Ask me questions at thomasanna85@gmail.com
You can also join the Facebook group Foreign Volunteers Japan and ask questions on the wall there, someone should be able to help you.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Volunteer Manual
HANDS Volunteer Manual
Volunteer locations：Kamaishi・Rikuzentakada（Oofunato・Ootsuchi）
What to Bring (Items in bold, please do your best to bring. Other items, recommended but not required.)
・Work gloves
・ Masks
・Boots
・Cold weather clothing (Coats etc.)
・Drink (Such as water, sports drinks)
・Lunch
・Rubber gloves
・Towels
・Safety insoles（For protection against stepping on nails）
・Parkas or raincoats（Sometimes we work with large water guns for cleaning.)
・Caramels and other candies (For quick energy)
・（Helmet）
・（Eye guard）
It is possible to borrow some items at the volunteer center, such as gloves, boots, and safety insoles, but there is a limit to the sizes available. Please do your best to bring what you can.
Schedule
Meet at Kitakami station, east entrance, by 7:40 am. (For volunteers coming by car, we do have a parking lot available. Please contact HANDS for more information.)
? Depart Kitakami after role call.
? Arrive at volunteer center. Leader receives details of volunteer activities for that day and explains to group. Volunteers load tools onto vehicle(s).
? Depart volunteer center.
9:30 Start work. (We take regular breaks during volunteer work.)
12:00 Lunch.
1:00 Start work again.
2:45 Clean volunteer site and load tools onto vehicle(s).
3:00 Depart for volunteer center. At volunteer center, wash and return tools.
4:00 Start drive to Kitakami.
6:00 Arrive in Kitakami.
A Final Note
Please deal with residents carefully and thoughtfully. Try to put yourself in their shoes and act appropriately to the situation.
It’s not common for volunteers to enter dangerous areas, but there are some risks to the activities we perform. Please be careful while volunteering to prevent injuries or accidents.
Also please note that while the disaster area may look to a volunteer as if it’s filled with rubble and trash, to the residents it’s a place where their most precious belongings have been buried, with the possiblity that at least some of those items could be recovered. We ask that you please keep this in mind and treat the items you handle with respect, even if they happen to to be covered in mud.
HANDS、NPO
〒024-0061 Iwate Kitakami Oodori, 2-11-25-101
Volunteer work may be canceled depending on weather. In the case of bad weather, please confirm with HANDS that volunteering will be held that day.
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