Volunteer January 14/15, 19

I had a mission last Saturday, but I have it on good authority that last Saturday was spent breaking down a house--walls, ceiling, floors--probably so the house can be rebuilt without any rotting materials left behind.

Sunday I went. There were only three of us that day. They gave us those little orange wands to wave around and told us we were going to help cars park for an event. Entrusting this task in part to me sounded like a surefire way to cause the biggest car crash in the history of Kamaishi, but Futo-san was wise and put me in the entrance to the parking lot, where all I had to do was wave the cars on to someone else who knew better than I did. Wouldn't have been a hard job if it weren't for the fact that it was bitterly, horribly cold.
Two young trendy ladies in big horn-rimmed glasses shuffled into the event, and when they shuffled back out, they had a brief powwow between the two of them and shuffled up to me. It was to show me pictures of the event: a famous boxer, teaching little kids how to box. The girls reported that the boxer was being hugged by the children.
When the girls shuffled off, Futo-san asked me if I know those girls. No, I said. I waved goodbye to them as they pulled out of the parking lot. Futo-san asked me again, do you know them?
No, Futo-san. I am special so people show me pictures. :D

On Thursday, we leveled off someone's backyard. This meant getting rid of the excess gravel and such around so the ground was flat, plus getting rid of whatever rubble we found. It's surprising every time I do this how deep into the ground rubble gets, and how much there is of it. Ground that looks like it might have a bit of glass or plastic just on the surface ends up yielding big planks of wood, frying pans, mysterious metal things, who knows what, plus buckets of broken glass. All the broken glass a mosaic artist could ever want.
Spent the day hauling bags of gravel around. My body thought it was done for a while and is deeply upset that I am pulling this kind of junk with it again. Punishment: it hurts. I feel like I did 5000 situps and even little obscure muscles like the tool grippy muscles in my thumb are sore.