Just the Facts

Okay so here's the story.

We had been looking for some way, any way really, to help with the Tsunami relief effort. When the news came, it came quickly. We attended church for the first time since the earthquake on the 27th. Our local trains were not running before that time, and gas was scarce. There was literally no way to attend services. We had been communicating with the church members though. They knew that we were interested in volunteering. So on Sunday the 27th, they told us that there was going to be a Volunteer group that we could join, provided that we were willing to leave the next day.

So, with a quick call to Claire to see if she was in or out, we signed up.

Monday started at about 7 AM. We rode the local trains to Okunakayama, the town our church is in, and met up with the van that would be taking all of us to the coast. Then we had a 3 hour bus ride. Teperatures were not too cold. ( 0 Celcius is now my definition of "not too cold". ) Aside from a few closed stores and a gas station that was only allowing emergency vehicles, the edges of Miyako didn't look like a disaster area at all. A little further towards the coast and we started to see scenes like this:


We quickly arrived at Miyako church. We had lunch there and then divided into groups. Because the church was mostly clean we went out into the surrounding neighborhood to help. The men went to the nearby shops and houses, helping people bring their furniture outside to clean. The women were tasked with spreading this white powder around. The bag had several complex kanji on the side so, at first, Claire and I had no idea what we were spreading around. When we looked it up later, we discovered that we were spreading limestone, or chalk if you will, around. The chalk worked to wick up the excess moisture that was still a very big problem in the wake of the tsunami. We through it in alleys that had turned into mud slicks and in the rooms of houses where mold would soon be a problem when the warmth of spring hit. (We don't have many pictures of this time, or really of any other times we were working, because the work was filthy and we couldn't hold the camera.) After several hours of this we traveled, as a group to see the edges of the coast. These were the areas hardest hit. I don't really have much I can say about these pictures. I've tried to include some that Caleb hadn't already posted.




There is one thing Caleb forgot to mention entirely though. While we were walking through this area, we came across the amazing balancing log. Apparently the tsunami had washed some freshly cut logs away from some logging camp somewhere. One of these logs landed perfectly on top of the ladder used to climb down to the beach. If you poked it, as you see me doing below, it would wobble very slightly and very slowly, but it obviously had no intentions of falling off.


As I mentioned in an earlier post. Many houses had circles on them. I believe it meant that the house had been searched. Sometimes cars had them too.




After our trip to coast, we traveled to a kindergarten that still had power. We ate dinner together as a group and then split up. The women stayed in the kindergarten to sleep and the men went back to the church. The church did not have power and I am told it was a chilly night.

The next morning we ate breakfast and set off for Kamaishi.
When we pulled into Kamaishi church I was immediately struck by how surreal the situation was. The church building looked almost completely fine, with the exception of the fact that it was completely surrounded by rubble. The inside of the church was a completely different story. The main rooms had been shoveled out, but there were still places, such as the insides of cabinets and drawers, where the mud was three inches thick. Keep in mind that this was three weeks after the tsunami.

This is were I should make a note about Japanese dirt, or at least Iwate dirt. It's nearly black. Coming from a clay ridden state like Tennessee, I was shocked to discover that dirt did not have to be orange. Unfortunately in this case, Iwate's dark, rich soil makes a mud that will stain anything it touches. Any fabric or unvarnished piece of wood that was touched by the mud had a dark stain that could not be washed off.

We through so many things away. I learned a new term for trash ( gomi) so that I could ask if whatever thing I held in my hands was going to the wash pile or the trash pile. We saved plates and bowls, but threw out flatware and cutlery. All electronic devices went on the pile. We went by whatever the group leader told us. One of the only things I didn't have to ask whether or not to save was a metal communion tray.

After a long while, we managed to get the kitchen of the church relatively clean. It was at this point that we investigated the surrounding area some.

That evening, we spent the night in Tono church. The pastor and his wife layed out beds and futon for the women. Having a real shower and falling asleep under a down comforter felt like heaven.

This was hanging in Tono church. It is an image of Jesus washing feet, done in the traditional style of ink painting.
This is the sanctuary of Tono Church.After breakfast, we returned to Kamaishi to continue our cleaning. This time we moved all of the donated materials into the kitchen that was cleaned the previous day. One of the women in our group started sorting the materials into boxes. Meanwhile, the rest of us tried to clean the sanctuary. This is what the sanctuary looked like when we were done cleaning. You can still see the mark on the walls where the water reached. We were instructed not to clean the walls, because all of the walls were going to have to be ripped out and replaced.


I wanted to leave you with an amusing story, so I saved this for last.

On the second day of our volunteer work, we all piled into the van and blearily tried to keep our exhausted heads from nodding. Our driver navigated through the rubble-filled streets. Out of nowhere Caleb shouts "Oh my god, a BEAR!"

All of us sat upright and screamed ( in both English and Japanese), " What? A bear!" We plastered ourselves to the passenger side windows and just barely manage to catch a glimpse of this:It was a taxidermy bear, which we figured out when the van doubled back so we could all take a look. Looking at the pictures, it's perfectly obvious what it is. Getting only a seconds worth of a half glimpse in the middle of rubble though... well lets just say it looked a lot more alive.