Above the tree line: Takumi Hashizume, a representative for the “Sakura Line 311″ cherry tree-planting project in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, stands March 2 next to a tree planted last year. KYODO
Organizers of the project have been motivated by the belief that indifference and a lack of knowledge among local people about gigantic tsunami that struck the city in the past may have worsened the human cost of last year’s disaster.
“Having lost many friends and acquaintances due to the tsunami, I regret that we had no knowledge of inland points where waves had reached in the past. I don’t want future generations to feel the same way,” says Takumi Hashizume, 34, a representative for the “Sakura (Cherry) Line 311″ project.
Hashizume, leader of the city’s youth association and a member of a local fire brigade, was inspired by Rikuzentakata Mayor Futoshi Toba, who in a book published last summer wrote about planting cherry trees somewhere in memory of the March disasters.
Hashizume came up with the “Sakura Line 311″ project with his fellow youth group members and others with links to the city.
The group aims to eventually plant about 17,000 cherry trees, one every 10 meters, in a line some 170 km long, all within the city.
The project costs up to ¥100 million in total, including procuring saplings, fertilizer and equipment for planting, as well as operational expenses.
Volunteers from other parts of Japan who learned of the project began planting seedlings and trees in November. They plan to plant more than 100 saplings on March 11 and the overall number of trees planted is expected to reach about 270 by the end of the month, Hashizume says.
In response to a call for support by the group through the media, schools, municipalities and individuals across Japan have donated cherry saplings, and many owners of land in Rikuzentakata where the tsunami reached have offered to let the group plant cherry trees.
Among business supporters, Japan Airlines Co. has informed its passengers about the project by featuring it in its in-flight magazines, while Tokyu Department Store Co. has launched a campaign to raise funds for the group’s activities through the sales of bookmarks featuring cherry tree drawings.
Hashizume, who lost his house near the coastline and a job at a gas station in the city, stresses that the tree project may require more than 10 years to complete and is asking for continued support.
“For now, people are paying attention to our activities, but we need cooperation over the long term to continue the planting and pass down our experience to future generations,” he says.
“The media tend to report on positive stories a year after the disaster, but our city is yet to stand at the starting line for reconstruction. I don’t want people in other parts of Japan to think we are OK,” Hashizume says, referring to the slow progress in disposing of debris generated in the disaster and rebuilding in the city, the center of which was flattened by the calamity and remains vacant.
In Rikuzentakata, where about 24,246 people lived as of March 11, more than 1,700 were killed or are missing, including the wife of Mayor Toba.
Even though there were some stone monuments in the city to alert residents about the threat of tsunami based on points where the waves reached in the past, the memory had faded and many citizens learned about such warnings from the past only after March 11, Hashizume says.
“What I fear most is that citizens will forget about the horror of the tsunami and people outside of the disaster area will forget about us,” he says. “Living in temporary housing, we have great anxiety for the future, as we don’t know where to live and work and what kind of antidisaster measures we should take.”
The saplings will start blooming in about four years, hopefully offering solace and important messages on the risk of tsunami to future residents of Rikuzentakata.

RIKUZEN-TAKATA, Iwate–A young lawyer who spent about a year as a legal apprentice in Iwate Prefecture will be stationed at a legal office scheduled to open on Monday in Rikuzen-Takata, a city in the prefecture devastated by last year’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

“I want to go back and return the favor to Iwate [Prefecture], where I was fostered as a legal apprentice,” Fumiyasu Zaima said.

The 33-year-old lawyer stepped forward to work at the office financed by the Himawari fund of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA). It will be the first new legal office to open in an area damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to the federation.

The city had been without a legal office even before the disaster. After the disaster, the demand for legal consultations increased.

Located on high ground near the temporary city hall building, the office is a prefabricated structure. Zaima is now busy recruiting clerical employees and placing orders for office equipment, among other preparations.

Before the disaster, the city’s population stood at about 24,000 people. The disaster left a total of 1,844 dead or missing and swept away many houses.

As a result, demand for legal consultations has significantly increased as residents face various issues such as figuring out how to deal with inheritance and the repayment of housing loans for people who lost their homes.

The Iwate Bar Association has sent a lawyer from the prefecture’s capital, Morioka, and other areas to the city three days a week since September. Anticipating the increase in disaster-related consultations will continue, the association decided to establish a legal office using the Himawari fund.

Currently, there are three to five consultations a day, the association said. Moratoriums on repayment for many housing loans will expire after the one-year anniversary of the disaster, it added.

Born in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, Zaima was a first-year high school student when the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake struck. Some of his neighbors died in the disaster, he said.

Reflecting on the terrible situation following the 1995 earthquake, he decided he would offer to work at the scheduled Rikuzen-Takata office as he wanted to do something beneficial for Iwate Prefecture.

Zaima said he had a wide variety of experience from two years of working at a legal office in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, which is enthusiastic about fostering young lawyers interested in making contributions to regions with a scarcity of lawyers.

Consultation services on disaster-related matters will be offered for free in principle. “The people [of Rikuzen-Takata] don’t seem to be familiar with lawyers, partly due to the fact that there aren’t any around,” Zaima said. “So I want to make the office a place where they can easily consult us and give local residents peace of mind.”

There are 95 lawyers in Iwate Prefecture serving a population of about 1.34 million people across more than 15,000 square kilometers, according to the Iwate Bar Association. Only 11 lawyers, including Zaima, are located in coastal areas.

A JFBA official said it “had decided to open a legal office [in Rikuzen-Takata] using the Himawari fund as a meaningful way to assist a disaster-damaged area where few lawyers are available.”
(Mar. 1, 2012)

A shiitake grower farmer in disaster-hit Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, is working to cultivate a sales channel in the Chubu region, while a Nagoya-based civil engineering company launches an office near the Tohoku city.

These are just a few examples illustrating how Nagoya’s reconstruction support project for Rikuzentakata is gradually bearing fruit in the form of economic exchanges.

Rikuzentakata lost 68 of its 295 municipal officials to the March 11 tsunami.

Nagoya has dispatched 127 officials over the course of the last year to help restore various civil functions, and it has been engaged in fundraising activities for the Tohoku city.

It has also invited students from Rikuzentakata to Nagoya and promoted products from the city.

In one of his plastic greenhouses on a hill that commands a panoramic view of the surrounding area, mushroom farmer Hirofumi Sato, 51, showed a shiitake about 8 cm in diameter to Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura when he visited the city last month.

“Salt carried by the sea breeze stimulates vitality of mushrooms. They have a unique flavor. I hope the people in Nagoya will enjoy them,” Sato said.

The mayor put his nose close to the mushroom and responded in his Nagoya accent, “What a huge mushroom!”

Sato used to grow tree ear mushrooms in greenhouses set up along the coast.

It was immediately after he built an additional greenhouse and started mass production of shiitake that he lost them all, along with his house, in the tsunami.

It caused nearly ¥100 million in damage and left him nothing but debt.

His shipment volume plunged by half as the sales network for mushrooms that survived the disaster was cut off.

But in October, when Sato visited Nagoya to promote local produce, he met Kawamura to express gratitude for Nagoya’s support, and that led to the mayor’s visit to his farm.

“To rebuild the town from devastation, its local economy must prosper. In Nagoya, we will promote shiitake mushrooms that you have grown carefully,” Kawamura told Sato.

He plans to help promote the mushrooms in Nagoya department stores.

With subsidies from the central government, Sato will expand his greenhouses again next year.

“I want to cultivate a sales channel in a city with large consumption. I have my hope in the mayor as a reliable salesman for our products,” said Sato.

In November, Jun Ooka, a 50-year-old Nagoya resident and owner of a construction company, set up an office in Ichinoseki, a town adjacent to Rikuzentakata, through the Aichi capital’s initiative. He envisions establishing nursing homes and caretaker training centers in affected areas such as Rikuzentakata.

Initially, Ooka planned to concentrate on scrapping damaged buildings, an area of his company’s expertise. But he couldn’t get orders as the priority is to hire local companies.

That got him looking for other options.

“What is needed in the affected area, which faces a shrinking population, is to create jobs for the people and places for the elderly to live,” Ooka said.

Last July he joined an inspection tour of Rikuzentakata organized by Nagoya, geared toward company managers in search of business opportunities.

After visiting the devastated area, a local company president gave a presentation.

“There is no electricity or running water here,” Ooka recalls him saying. “So we would like to have someone with a strong will who can manage even in these conditions.”

While other tour members saw no business opportunities, Ooka decided to establish an operational base there.

Since then, he has visited the city office every day and is trying to lease the land where a school has been shut down due to the declining population. His aim: establish a nursing home there.

“It will take time to rebuild the disaster-afflicted area. So I would like to settle down and commit to working here so that I can gain trust from the local people,” Ooka said.

This section, appearing Saturdays, features topics and issues from the Chubu region covered by the Chunichi Shimbun. The original article was published Jan. 23.

via spoon and tamago:

“An unexpected structure has risen from the rubble of which Rikuzentakata, a city situated on coastal Iwate prefecture, was reduced to when the tsunami flattened it. With the help of Hideki Koizumi, a Tokyo University professor of urban engineering, Naruse-Inokuma Architects, Chikako Goto and various other individuals, students and corporate sponsors, Riku Cafe opened in January 2012.”

News photo
Saplings: Takako Niinuma (left) is seen at the age of 5 among young pine trees on the coast of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, in 1942. The trees grew into a famed pine forest until they were wiped out in the March 11 tsunami. TAKAKO NIINUMA/KYODO

Even the sole surviving “miracle” pine tree subsequently rotted after being damaged by the seawater deluge.

Now some local citizens are trying to restore the pine woods that used to grace the tsunami-ravaged coast. They are doing so both to revive the beauty of the coastline — and in memory of friends and loved ones killed in the disaster.

One of the local residents is Takako Niinuma, 74, who had enjoyed strolling through the woods since she was a child.

“I used to play on a swing that was hung from a branch of a pine tree and gathered pine cones,” Niinuma said.

She was stunned by the loss of the trees, but remembered she had collected about 600 pine cones from the woods before the disaster to use to make wreaths, her hobby.

Wondering what could be done about the loss of the forest, Niinuma now had an idea. She let the cones dry in the sun, then collected the seeds that fell from them and contacted the Society for the Preservation of the Takata Pine Tree Woods (Takata Matsubara wo Mamoru Kai) to donate the seeds.

The seeds were subsequently sent to a nursery at a forest research center in the Iwate village of Takizawa, and had grown into 10-cm-high seedlings by last July when Niinuma visited there.

Niinuma is working to restore the woods in memory of seven friends from her junior high school years who died in the disaster. One of them, Seiko Yoshida, used to head the conservation group. He was 73 when he died.

“I want somehow to ensure the survival of the pine woods,” she said, adding it would have been what Yoshida wanted.

She is also making wreaths with pine cones in memory of her lost friends.

today I got pretty drenched doing deliveries to temporary housing. we went to this area, in rikuzentaka, which is also the location of the photo rescue project.

today there was a large memorial event in Rikuzantaka for people who had lost their lives in the tsunami, so many people were not home in the morning.

most of the houses in this site are detached single units (around 170 total), and the families tend to live in the few connected row house areas of temporary housing. we saw a few kids today (it’s Saturday, so they don’t have school. there were 1 little boy and 1 little girl who were very cute and followed us around chatting constantly. when I said I was a student in Kobe, the little boy who is 7 said “I’ve been to Kobe”, when I asked why, he said because Kobe suffered a disaster, and his town had also suffered a disaster. and that it took 3 days to get there.

but there weren’t very many kids around, and many of the houses have only 1 person living in them, including some very elderly folks (we went door to door dropping off hot water bottles, etc.). one women who lives very close to the photo project came to the door with a exceptional energetic attitude and was very friendly and chatty. she told us that her husband had died in the tsunami, and that today she went to the memorial event. but she was so positive, and said that she had many friends around, and that many people died in the tsunami, so there were many others around her who shared her feelings.

but mostly people seemed very quiet and withdrawn. I had always thought that detached temporary housing is the best option (more privacy, more space, more control over your own living environment), but today I realized that it’s not enough–if the people living there don’t have a way and/or reason to come outside and interact with others, the form of the housing, whereas it looks nicer, may not serve them any better than the big barracks type temporary housing after the Kobe earthquake, or the high rise recovery public housing built later.

since support from the government officially stops (for food, utilities, etc.) when people move out of evacuation shelters and into temporary housing, it’s difficult for residents. actually there were many cases of people not wanting to leave evacuation shelters for this reason.

in the morning, we delivered to 4 small temporary housing sites in ofunato. they had around 12 units each. and they have received some financial support from kitakami city to provide 1 staff person per site. so at each location there is one unit that is used as a kind of office, where a staff person who has been hired for a temporary period (this was unclear–2 years? Or 1 year?) is there from 9-5. we dropped off our relief supplies with this person in each place. the units seemed pretty nice, prefab but new, with carpeting.

in the afternoon we distributed to 4 sites in rikuzentaka. in these, there is no staff there, but in each site there was a designated resident who received our delivery, and helped us sort the items into bags for each resident household.

it’s hard to say which system is better–at first I thought it’s great that there’s a staff there, but actually in the areas without, the people worked together to distribute the relief goods, and seemed liked they had much stronger connections. of course it was only a glimpse at 1 time on 1 day, but today I met someone who is very familiar with disaster recovery in this area, and she also said that the support staff are from outside, and there is very little criteria for hiring them, and maybe the areas where the people are self organized are better off in terms of capacity building.

the people themselves were very kind and friendly, and thanked us so much for bringing them things. it seemed that the smaller sites that are out of the way and not easily visible don’t get very much support, as many groups just go to the large sites.

all hands has delivered or is delivering to 95 sites, and just yesterday to over 1000 people (I have to double check that information).

it seems like a really hard situation for the residents–the locations are inconvenient, and if they don’t have a car, they really can’t get anywhere. their gratitude for the small things we brought was moving, and I felt like I wanted to come back again regularly and bring them some smiles and cheerful words, along with more things. at the same time it made me want to cry.

one lady had made a little rock and moss garden outside her house, along with some flower planters. at the last place we stopped, they had a tent set up, and some donated items underneath it. they were really happy to see the socks and underwear (men’s boxers) we had brought, and were funny and cute, the ladies calling out to the old guys to come back for undies! at each place, the contact person has a list of all the people living there, but can also tell us without looking at it the ages of all the kids, and what size diapers they need. at our last stop, where we brought socks, we gave them an assortment of socks for the 8 kids (up to high school) who live there. the ladies set them out for the kids to choose their own socks, saying they each would like to pick out their own. it’s a little thing, to be able to pick your own socks, but it’s something that these kids probably haven’t had much of a chance to do since the tsunami.

it was my first time to visit temporary housing in japan. in some ways it reminded me of indonesia, where each local unit has a leader who takes care of official paperwork on the local level.

it also made me think about the need for more human interactions. after the Kobe earthquake, there were a number of people who died solitary deaths in temporary housing and also permanent recovery housing.

the foot bath (ashiyu in japanese) is one activity meant to help with this. but in Kobe, there were also the apple girls, who were students who brought apples to the residents, and chatted with them. now I really understand how and why this is important.

yesterday was the 1st time I passed through rikuzentakata directly since early april. my camera battery is dead, but here are a few panorama’s from my phone.
A lot of clean up work has been done, but I found the scene to be almost even more devastating after this time has passed and it’s still there.

On Aug. 11, the five-month anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the city was to distribute the key to the last completed housing unit, and on Aug. 12 it plans to close all evacuation shelters. At its peak, Rikuzentakata had around 16,000 evacuees across 62 shelters.

On the morning of Aug. 10 at Daiichi Junior High School, which was one of the shelters, there were around 40 people receiving their final relief supplies.

“It was a long experience,” said 52-year-old Kazuya Nakamura. He was waiting for the gas line to his housing unit to be opened, and was planning to move there the next day.

Nakamura’s mother, who went missing in the tsunami, has yet to be found. Nakamura will live in his new home together with his 49-year-old mentally disabled younger brother.

“There have been lots of things I wasn’t happy with, like people who had repeatedly turned down the housing units they were offered to move into before we did. I heard that the elderly and disabled would be given priority, but we weren’t able to move in until now, at the very end.”

Another evacuee, 50-year-old Takeharu Chiba, said, “Things will be hard from now.” His mother and younger sister whom he lived with went missing, and his sister’s daughter was found dead, leaving him alone.

The housing unit he will move into is located at the top of a steep slope and was rejected many times by other evacuees. He was given the key to the unit at the end of July. However, his car was taken by the tsunami, and it took time before he was able to borrow a truck from a friend to move his belongings. He will also have to search for work, as the stone dealer he worked at was washed away by the tsunami and went bankrupt.

“I was worried that if I became isolated (at temporary housing where I knew no one), I would lose myself in alcohol. But someone I know will be in the same group of homes so I think I’ll be OK.”

A 40-year-old assistant nurse was planning to move over the next couple of days into the final group of housing units in the city to have been completed. In preparation for a national nurses’ exam, she has continued to attend a vocational school after work even after the earthquake and tsunami. Since her return to the evacuation center was late at night, she had to be careful not to make loud footsteps.

“That life is finally coming to an end. Still, seeing the computers and air cleaners we shared being so suddenly put away, I feel lonely,” she said.

Click here for the original Japanese story

(Mainichi Japan) August 11, 2011

Fusako Kanno, a 73-year-old resident of Rikuzentakata, is trying to decide whether to bring her 77-year-old husband to her temporary housing unit to care for him. He has dementia and is in hospital.

The two initially took refuge at an evacuation shelter set up at a junior high school, but the husband began shouting at times, announcing that he was “going home.” Not wanting to bother the others in the shelter, the wife had her husband moved into a hospital with his own room, but he escaped from the hospital several times, and his condition worsened to the point where he can now barely stand.

“I’m worried about trying to care for him on my own, and if I take him into the temporary housing facility then he might bother those around us by yelling about going home,” Kanno says.

Also worried about care is Kazue Konno, 42. Her 81-year-old mother-in-law had cataracts and light dementia before the disaster, but she was able to use a toilet by herself and it was not much work to care for her. After March 11, however, her condition worsened and she frequently raised her voice in terror. She had to start wearing diapers, but she sometimes took them off and soiled her bed. Walking became very difficult for her, and her vision deteriorated to the point where she could no longer see.

Perhaps because of her lost vision, she has calmed down since moving into temporary housing at the end of June. However, Konno says, “It’s impossible to care for an elderly person with heavy dementia in a temporary housing facility, where you have to be careful even when hanging laundry not to bother those around you.”

After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the government enacted a special measure allowing care facilities to exceed their official capacities so they could take in elderly people who had lost family care providers or couldn’t fit in at evacuation centers. If that special measure ends, more families may be forced to care for elderly members at home.

Yasuhiro Yuki, an associate professor of social welfare at Shukutoku University, says temporary housing facilities don’t have the same level of community spirit as that found at evacuation centers, where people live close together.

“In temporary housing the community of mutual support has collapsed, and we will likely see more cases in which people cannot care for elderly family members. We need new ideas that exceed the current framework for at-home care services and are based on the situation in the disaster area,” he said.

Click here for the original Japanese story

(Mainichi Japan) July 23, 2011

at the same time, time has passed without being noticed, and the disaster area continues to need help.

this trip I didn’t ever have any free time to write or read before lights out, so I’ll try to reconstruct the trip now, while I’m on the bus back to tokyo.

this time, when i registered, gakuvo asked if I could be the lead translator. I said sure, and when I saw the list of students going, there were only 4 international students, 2 of which cancelled at the last minute, so it turned out there was only me and A, my new friend from the phillipines, and 10 japanese students and our leader. so I was kind of a personal translator, which was great. being in a mixed English and Japanese speaking group was also great, as was our super genki leader Y chan and the other team members.

we went to tono, and worked as part of the large number of volunteers that are coordinated by magokoro net, an umbrella NPO. when I came to tono in april with K and M sensei, we also visited this center and joined the nightly meeting–at that time there 30-40 people total in the meeting room, with typed and printed handouts showing all the activities of the following day. of course the needs of residents at that time were different–the volunteers were delivering food to people stranded in their homes with no services, or shuttling them to a temporary bath. at that time I was amazed by the very Japanese organization of everything.

in the last 3 months, the number of volunteers has increased a lot– I think there were 100-200 at the most busy– we were there on a weekend, and number seemed to fluxuate with the largest number on saturday.

and, the volunteer center has become more…lived in. the daily meeting for volunteers in the gym, which also have several hundred volunteers, lead by one main volunteer coordinator. I feel like perhaps there are quite a few similarities with what I experienced at common ground in new orleans after katrina– issues of long term/ short term volunteers, burnout and exhaustion, the challenges of dealing with a large transient volunteer population coming from outside. but social bonds and mores of japanese society will go a long way I think, to keep everything running smoothly! and it is remarkable.

I think that local culture will also effect the relationships between the local folks and the volunteers–it’s a very interesting topic…

on our 1st day, we worked in a field outside rikuzentaka. there was garbage that had been mixed in with the earth, and we picked it up. some of it was rotting samma (saury?) fish. a lot of it was pieces and chunks of houses, bits of walls and plaster. after our break, and the local farmer turned over his field again with his tractor, the part we had cleaned was full of debris again– garbage that had been buried deeper before, and was brought to the surface. it seemed like a metaphor for recovery…

the next field over had been planted with sunflowers, which absorb toxins from the soil.

magokoro net forbids taking pictures in the disaster area, at least of anything that could be recognizable–this is very respectful of them, and probably a good idea, but it means I don’t have any photos of our work site.

because of the large scale of operations based out of tono center, we didn’t have as much contact with local folks as in past gakuvo trips.

there were a few other foreigners at the center, basically everything is in japanese, but everyone was very friendly.

because it was so hot, the work day finishes at 2pm. this is reasonable, but leads me to want to work more days, if I can’t work more hours.

on sunday (day 2) there was a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. there had also been an aftershock on friday night, after we arrived at the tono center, which was also the place I felt my first aftershock in april. but on sunday, when we where going to start work outside cleaning ditches in a village near otsuchi cho, there was a quake, a long one. the otsuchi disaster warning alarm sounded, and announced that a tsunami warning had been issued, along with instructions to evacuate. we walked up a hill to the evacuation area, where we waited for 2 hours until the warning was lifted. it was my first tsunami evacuation, a new experience. everyone was very calm, including a few local residents who also evacuated to the same area. I’m not sure how many times there have been warnings issued for aftershocks, but it can only be a nightmare for people who lived through it before.

during the tsunami on march 11, otsuchi city hall was completely destroyed, and most city hall employees lost their lives.

after the evacuation, and lunch, we wound up working for only an hour on sunday, cleaning up a bank of a stream that had been covered with tsunami dirt and now was full of weeds. other folks in our group worked on cleaning some ditches.

on monday, we spend a few hours helping clean the volunteer center before heading back to tokyo.

It’s been a whirlwind…with lack of Internet in many places we were at, so my apologies for a lack of updates.

We arrived in Sendai on Tuesday afternoon and were picked up by Jeremy and Kumi Jenkins as planned, then taken to get our rental car.

Jeremy had found us a great deal that filled both our requests for a reasonable, but able to hold cargo, vehicle. I’d only been able to find a decent vehicle online (from the US) that was priced at about ¥8000/day, but Jeremy found this one for about ¥3000/day. It turned out to be one of Japan’s many K cars, meaning it’s engine is under 1000 CC in size (most cars in the US would be at least 1800 CC). It’s a little “micro”-sized for 3 large Americans, but it’s getting the job done very well!

We discussed various needs and options with the Jenkins for where we should go. We became aware that the greatest needs seem to be where others – NGO’s (non-government organizations) and faith-based relief groups – are not going:

A. The more northern coastal towns.
(the following cities can easily be located by typing them into the search box of google maps.)
From Sendai, it takes about 2 hours just to reach Kessennuma. From there to:
Rikuzentakata – 30 min (main bridge across a river and into the city is still out, meaning a longer drive up river to the next crossing),
Ofunato – 50 min
Kamaishi – 1 hr 45 min
Miyako – 3 hrs
Lodging can be expensive for Sendai-based teams, so for most, it means pay the price to stay the night, get back to Sendai very late at night, or don’t go at all!
There are towns with tsunami damage even farther north…in fact all the way to the top of Honshu. However, the severity diminishes north of Miyako.
(If you’re interested, you can find a number of videos of the extensive damage the tsunami did in Miyako, by typing “tsunami Miyako” into the search box of YouTube.)

B. The coastal areas to the south of Sendai.
There is a mistaken impression among many that all areas to the south of Sendai are in the “radiation zone”. This means that most relief is going north. There are fact towns outside the zone, but still a little drive to the south of Sendai.

C. The islands off the coast as you go north from Sendai.
Most are very small, but one in particular called Oshima (big island), has a number of people living there. Since not many have taken the time to go there, it’s unclear what the situation is like there. I should say that it appears that the Japanese military has done a great job of getting people on this island (and all up and down the coast) their basic necessities, so at this point, everyone is getting by ok.

After these discussions, we decided to attempt to go to all 3 areas listed here, if possible, during this trip because: a. we’d been divinely guided to a closed and unadvertised super low-priced traditional hotel (ryokan) in Ofunato, b. We aren’t so afraid that we feel compelled to stay far away from any communities somewhat near (but outside) the “zone”, and c. we’d love to go where most others aren’t going.

We spent the night with the Jenkins Tuesday and thankfully the delivery company brought my baggage at around 11am Wednesday (they’d told us originally it might get to Sendai as late as Wednesday night), and we set off for Kessennuma.

Our route took us through Minami Sanriku, which is one of 2 larger coastal towns that were pretty effectively removed from the face of the earth (the other is Rikuzentakata). Its roughly 45 min south of Kessennuma. This was our first glimpse of the coast on this trip.

We were amazed at the progress of the cleanup effort. In most places, the mounds of debris (imagine a snowplow piling up snow beside the road – thats what the mounds looked like) that had been piled along the roads is gone. It’s all been moved to various locations where the metal and certain other materials are separated out and the debris is piled into huge mountains. I have no idea what is to be done about the mountains…some were located next to piers at the sea (to be taken somewhere else by boat?) and some have taken up huge swaths of sections of ruined towns, while others appear to being used as landfill in uninhabited flat areas along the coast.

We also noted that at a minimum all the sidewalks have been completely cleared of debris and even pressure washed clean. In addition, many many home sites that used to have debris randomly piled about and between them are now “clean”, meaning that only a foundation remains, but no sign of any debris…even small pieces.

In some areas, we observed teams of workers removing small “light” debris (plastic bags, clothing, etc) that got left on the hillsides, in trees, and tangled in fences. It really appears that one of the primary goals at this time is to “clean” or “beautify” all areas that were ravaged.

We noted many sites where rows and rows of temporary pre-hab houses have been erected. Many are now being lived in, but many others are empty…awaiting decisions on which shelter victims get to move into them???

In Kessennuma, our first goal, we went directly to the location where we’d made a connection on the first trip.

(We’d found a tiny roadside distribution center run by a resident of northeast Kessennuma. This amazing young man had decided that since his home was damaged and his job was gone, he would start to help his community by setting up a distribution center beside the road leading out of northeast Kessennuma, right in the parking lot of a popular convenience store there. Watanabe’s amazing heart convinced some 10 or so friends and relatives to do what they could to bring in supplies from various places and give it away to those who needed it. They called themselves the “Get Backs” of Kessennuma because they wanted to do their part to get their community back on it’s feet! On our way back from 2 separate trips to the north, we “dumped” ALL of our remaining supplies on him and even gave him a brand new bike from Samaritans Purse. The effect on him with the first drop was significant, probably because his supplies were meager and he appeared to be quite discouraged when we first approached him. He openly wept and gripped us when we hugged him. On our second drop, we intentionally saved a large portion of our supplies for him, to bless him on our way back through Kessennuma to Sendai.)

But now, on Wednesday afternoon, when we got to the convenience store lot, Watanabe was nowhere to be found. I went inside the store and asked one of the clerks, who told me he had no idea where he and his band of friends had gone to. I realized that I probably would never see Watanabe again. Suddenly, the clerk remembered that he’d seen their “poster” on the from window and he pointed it out to me. Sure enough, there posted for all to see, was a flyer from the “Kessennuma Get Backs”, with a bunch of information about getting free supplies and…his telephone number at the bottom!!!

I immediately started calling the number. It rang forever but there was no answer…and no message. I had no idea if the number was still good or what. All I could do was keep trying for the rest of our time up north.

We drove into Kessennuma to show Rudi the northeast fire ravaged district and then through downtown Kessennuma so he could see the tsunami’s effect on the wall to wall compact buildings lining the skinny winding streets. By now the streets were free of debris and even most of the buildings’ first floors were also empty and pressured washed clean. Everywhere, watermarks on outside of buildings and dirty sidewalks had been totally cleaned and it was actually hard to see how far the tsunami had reached. We stopped at a gas station and immediately noted to stench of rotting fish that the attendant explained had recently started to smell because it’s getting quite warm here now.

The next step of cleaning appears to be the gutters…which are being cleared out everywhere we went. Probably much of the stench is coming from there since everything else appears to be clean. Upon asking him, the gas station attendant related how he and the rest of the staff had retreated to the 2nd floor of the gas station when the tsunami hit, not being able to come down until the next day, then wading through the muck and water back to his home to find the rest of his family and relatives safe. There are thousands and thousands of these stories up and down the coast…many of them not as positive as this young man’s.

We drove north, stopping briefly at one of the shelters we’d stopped at the first trip. In this shelter there’d been nine plus families, but six had been moved to temporary homes, 3 remained and were awaiting news to be moved out to their new homes. The shelter’s leader, Takashi, who we’d made a strong connection to on our first trip, was back at his undamaged home somewhere in the valley below the shelter, but the shelter residents were unwilling to give us Takashi’s contact info. (This is also the shelter where the young man who wanted the Ichiro baseball had been but in a few days, you’ll be able to read about that story on my blog: http://timaotheos.wordpress.com )

The residents still didn’t know when they’d be able to move to temporary housing but they wanted out of this makeshift shelter badly. I encouraged them to hang in there and then left our number to give to Takashi and we moved on.

We then passed through Rikuzentaka, which like most other places has been cleaned up, leaving only foundations dotting the landscape. Here you can easily see the effects the earthquake had of the lowering the coastal regions by many feet. The Rikuzentaka baseball stadium now sits in the water at the edge of the sea, totally helpless against the high tide that now covers it’s base.

We drove on to Ofunato where, we stopped at the inn we’d found on the first trip to see if they’d have us for business. Amazingly, they’d opened for business and were nearly full, so we took the one remaining room, went out to get a bite to eat and settled in for the night.

At this point, we’re starting to feel that one of the keys to this trip will be to find key people that we can impart hope and direction to (think Paul’s journeys through southern Europe). We won’t be able to stay for more than 2 weeks, but what if we found key people that could carry on our work?And if they found more people like that? Yeah, the possibilities are limitless!!! We’ll be trying to find those people as we reach out to and connect with many along the way.

More coming…

I can’t sleep past 5am daily…because of jet lag I guess. So, you get the benefit of an update and more requests for prayer from me. I write while Daniel my brother snores to my right and Christopher my team mate talks in his sleep to my left. Last night, we holed up in a cheap hotel because it’s just too cold out there for tents with temps around freezing. (Sleep is important when you’re trying to give your all.)

We’re on the 2nd day of a trip deep into the devastated north to see how we can help and where the most help is needed. I offered to be the driver because I love driving and also feel comfortable driving here but it’s turning into a challenge with lots of damage to all roads (bumps have been paved but will need a lot of work to flatten) from the earthquake and finding our way through unmarked roads in debris fields and around washed out roads.

We took the Tohoku expressway north from Sendai and at the exit west of Kessennuma, asked if they would let us through free as volunteers with supplies. We were told we must have an official paper from a city hall or a prefecture HQ (which our hosts in Sendai said are no longer being given out). But the 2nd attendant in the toll booth said something to the first guy and he then asked us to fill out a paper and proceeded to let us go through free.

Along the route to Kessennuma, Ania our group leader, felt we needed to stop and get as many boots as we could. We bought out the cheapest (¥1000) pairs of boots 2 stores in a small mall along the route. We were even given a small discount after they realized what we were doing this for. (We found this willingness to discount fees and prices prevalent wherever we go, along with the appreciation expressed by all for the fact we came all the way from America to help.)

In Kessennuma we visited the local volunteer center and found that the official city policy is to refuse supplies at the shelters and instead have people take the supplies to a distribution warehouse, which they refer to as a “love hall”.

We spoke to a volunteer from near Tochigi (just north of Tokyo) who told us that the volunteer center is struggling. They need many many volunteers for both sending out to fill numerous requests asking for assistance AND for manning the volunteer center. The needs are great but people are too few.

We felt led to head north to Ofunato and seek needs along the way with the hope that we can interact with people and give the supplies, rather than just give our supplies to the distribution warehouse.

We were led to stop at a small cluster of old homes along the route just south of Rikuzentakata and found an older woman who was hesitant at first but then admitted need and lit up when she saw the laundry soap. She took a few supplies from us but told us she was otherwise OK and advised that the shelter in Takekoma could probably use help. She let us pray for her and we moved on.

Takekoma is inland from Rikuzentakata and we found the route 45 bridge heading east across the river there washed out but found alternate routes through the river bed and through unmarked smalls roads leading through endless piles of rubble.

We found the community center in Takekoma with about 75 people, mostly elders, with a few grade schoolers and middle aged with them. They gladly received underwear and boots and shampoo, but were otherwise OK. It turned out that the boots were the biggest hit and they took over half of them off our hands (thank God Ania responded to the Holy Spirit prompting). We had arrived just prior to an evening meal (one of 2 meals daily) and after they retreated inside to eat we convinced them to let us inside to distribute candy and origami to the kids. Some of them had probably never seen a foreigner before and some were probably orphans, but they were delighted to receive the candy and so were the elders (candy is probably somewhat of a luxury for people in these shelters).

A leader there told us that Rikuzentakata back at the river mouth had 1000 people in a shelter on a hill and were probably in dire need.

We drove into Rikuzentakata and were once again shocked by the war-zone apocalyptical appearance with more piles of rubble and unmarked cleared streets leading through the endless piles. The only standing buildings were the very tall cement ones but the water had gone through the 3rd floors there. We saw a steel frame building, still all bolted together, that had been tossed about like a toy. Interesting too were the road signs leading in and out of towns that announced “begin of tsunami inundation area” and “end of tsunami inundation area”. These signs, predicting how far a tsunami would come where accurate and not exceeded and this planning probably saved lives (as opposed to countries and communities where this is not done). In fact one sign was exactly where the debris field ended, making that prediction 100% accurate.

We saw the shelter but realized our supplies were too few for so many and decided we would instead report this great need back to Sendai. We headed to Ofunato and because of the hilly nature of the road through the town, found a strange combination of devastation and complete normalcy along the route.

One thing I knew and felt before even arriving in Japan was that there would be stark differences between the “haves” and the “have nots”. This is a problem because of the gods of materialism so prevalent in this country. Indeed, as we drive through devastated areas, you see so many with perfectly normal houses, right across the street from debris piles and rubble, the separation resulting from a difference in height. Everyone goes about their business as normal and you can see no signs among the “haves”, of compassion for the “have nots”. In this country of materialism, this stark difference will leave the “have nots” very inferior to the “haves” and so in addition to having lost everything and being likely depressed from that, will have to endure the pain of having nothing in a have-everything materialistic culture.

We found the church recommended to us (by Samaritan’s Purse in Sendai) to stop at, with Pastor Muraya there. He informed us they had decided against a place that could take in 20 people and instead had turned their open meeting room into a distribution center. Because of that statement we decided not to ask if we could stay there for the night and instead decided to find shelter elsewhere.

We talked a while and he informed us he’d only arrived a week ago and knew nothing about Ofunato, or even the Tohoku region. He is with Christ Church in Japan (Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan) and is getting some supplies for his center from their regional headquarters in Morioka. He speaks almost zero English but was gracious to receive my interpretations.

He lamented that Ofunato is being overlooked because people are hearing about more devastation in Rikuzentakata to the south and Kamaishi to the north. He estimates 1/3 of the homes in Ofunato are gone but wasn’t sure how many lives were lost because there is still no news to be had. we found parts of the city in darkness and parts with electricity.

Chris, our team member, felt led to tell him that this pastor’s being placed here was no an accident and that God was going to do mighty things through him and that revival was coming to Ofunato. From the Holy Spirit, he identified a member of the congregation with a specific need of healing in their leg and instructed the pastor to be sure to lay hands on this member’s leg and believe God for healing the next time he sees this member.

Pastor Muraya accepted our request to pray for him and I gave it my best shot in Japanese (have prayed in Japanese maybe only once before). He seemed more relaxed after that and even asked if he could pray for us too. We headed out just as a few members arrived.

We’re off for another amazing day. Pray for continued guidance to the right people and places, good rest and providing for needs.

Until next update…

Some evacuees are hinging their hopes on a chance to get away from the awkward life in shelters, while others are hesitant about taking the offer, wondering if they should continue living in their hometown that was flattened by the devastating tsunami.

‘‘We are planning to accommodate all disaster victims hoping to move in,’’ said a city official. The local government is planning to determine how many units to build after checking demand.

Rikuzentakata had a population of roughly 23,300 in about 7,800 households, according to the 2010 national census conducted by the central government before the quake.

The first applicants showed up at a counter of the municipal government office set up in a prefabricated building just past 8:30 a.m. in the morning.

A woman, 49, from the Kesen district, said her home was completely torn down by the tsunami. ‘‘I am hoping that we could get a large temporary home because we are a family of six.’’ She wishes to get a home in the same district, saying she does not want to leave the place where she is attached to after living there for years.

Seishichi Terui, 70, said his home was washed away and pleaded to a city official, saying, ‘‘I hope you will let us move into a temporary home as soon as possible.’‘

Many neighbors remain missing, he said. He evacuated to a municipal junior high school with his wife Kimiko, 64, taking with them little more than the clothes on their back. He said, ‘‘There isn’t much freedom’’ at the shelter.

People will be allowed to live in the temporary homes for up to two years.

Setsuko Kumagai, 70, who lost her home in the Hirota district, where she was living alone, was despondent. ‘‘Even if I could move in, being a pensioner, I would have difficulty making a living after I move out of the temporary housing,’’ she said.

Some elderly people who had been living alone are planning to start a new life with others. Kiyoko Kikaiwada, 77, who lost her home in the Takata district in the tsunami, wants to share a home with an 86-year-old woman friend who used to live in her neighborhood.

‘‘I would feel lonely if I have to live alone, and I would also feel anxious because my back and knees are bad,’’ she said.

Mitsuyo Sasaki, 50, who is living in a shelter with her 54-year-old husband and 9-year-old daughter, said, ‘‘We have not made up our mind yet about whether we should apply for it.’‘

She said she is attached to her neighbors and her neighborhood and is thankful for them for helping her raise her daughter. But having lost relatives in the tsunami, she said she is uneasy. ‘‘People say it’s a tsunami that only comes once every 1,000 years but I don’t feel secure even after it happened.’‘

She said she has no plans to rebuild a home where her home, which was washed away by the tsunami, had once stood.

Sasaki also expressed concerns about her daughter’s school that was also hit by the disaster. She is also worried about what would happen to her husband’s job. He has been working for a company in adjacent Ofunato city, which was also hard hit by the quake and tsunami. ‘‘I am troubled as to whether I should continue living in Rikuzentakata,’’ she said.”