First Day in the Disaster Zone.

Forgive me if this is a little unpolished; it's very late in the PM here and I have to wake up at about 5 tomorrow to travel to Ishinomaki. 

Nael and I are staying the apartment of Okayama-san, one of the volunteers at the AARJ Sendai office. Besides putting us up, Okayama-san also gave us bikes to use while in Sendai, and after going out for beer and fried food with him and another worker at the office last night, we got to put them to the test while drunkenly biking home. Luckily the route wasn't too hard, because Nael and I had to find our ways back to the office this morning by ourselves. 

We had mostly loaded all of the things we would need into the van last night, but this morning we went with Itou-san, a former JAL pilot and now worker at AARJ, to pick up two grills and a kakigori (snow cone) machine. After that we traveled to a small vacant lot where the other AARJ vehicle was, which ended up being a huge, military-looking truck which had been donated by Daimler. The vacant lot is going to be used as a future parking area for AARJ vehicles, but first we headed north we needed to clean up the lot and clear it of weeds and grass... manually. We used ninja-like scythes to cut the grass by hand, and put all of the bricks, brush, clipping, etc into a big pile. I found a toad at one point and showed him to the other workers, but they all looked away in disgust - apparently Japanese people aren't a big fan of toads (although they did ask me if I had eaten one before). 

Nael gives the grass a trim. [click to enlarge]

After that we began the 3 hour drive north from Sendai. Itou-san drove, and he ended up being quite a talker, so it was a good chance to practice our Japanese although I fell asleep in the back of the van fairly quickly (which was quite an accomplishment, considering how hot and uncomfortable the back of the cargo van was). 

Eventually we entered Minami Sanrikucho, where we would be working for the day. Although I had seen pictures and heard stories about the disaster, nothing prepared me for seeing it in person. While I can attempt to describe what we saw, it still remains difficult for me to convey at all what it felt like to be there. The entire town had been leveled - piles upon piles of rubble covered every surface. Everywhere we looked there was shattered concrete, crushed cars, and upturned boats, sometimes more than a mile inland. Almost nothing was recognizable within the debris - there were no solid walls or unbroken objects, only jagged piles of twisted steel and the dull colors of former belongings. We drove by the pulverized remains of a railroad bridge, once two lanes wide and made of solid concrete, now only the stumps of the massive columns stood above the water. There was no vegetation or signs of any life. The trees which remained, marking the maximum extent of the tsunami, had all turned a deep maroon; killed by the saline water which soaked the ground. The twisted and cracked remains of a handful of buildings remained, often with one or more walls completely blown out and the shredded remains of the interior spilling out. On the roof of a former hospital, an upside-down car precariously hung over the edge of the building. It felt as if we were driving through the aftermath of an atomic bomb, and I found it difficult to believe that anyone could have survived.

Driving through Minami Sanrikucho. [click to enlarge]

Driving inland. [click to enlarge]

We eventually parked at a middle school just outside of town, which was protected by the hill it was on. We met the other volunteers for the day there, and afterwards set up shop. We assembled various tents and grills, grated radishes, thawed fish, and began preparing huge bags of rice. We had about 5 hours to make the 80 meals we would be serving for the day, but no one seemed to be in a huge rush. Okayama-san and Itou-san led us over to a group of middle school students who were playing basketball, and we played a half-court game with them for a good hour. It's probably the most fun I've had since arriving, even though the Japanese students (and even Okayama and Itou-san) put our basketball skills to shame. 

Itou-san goes in for the kill. [click to enlarge]

Finally at 6pm the people started trickling in. There were never more than three or four people there at a time getting food - most of them were older women, often picking up four to five meals each; it was unclear if this was for their families, or for the people who could not come to the soup kitchen site. Although the soup kitchen volunteers and the kids we played basketball with were chipper as could be, the survivors who came to get food had an unshakable air of solemnity. And I could hardly blame them - it's been nearly four months since the tsunami, and looking at the town I could have believed it happened yesterday - it's hard to think that they will ever finish clearing the remains of the town, much less rebuild it. In Tokyo I wrote letters to donors talking about the long road to recovery, but before today I could never have understood how long that road must seem, and probably I still don't understand it. 

Our host Okayama-san preparing Akauo (Red Rockfish?) [click to enlarge] 

Grating raddish, which frequently accompanies fish in Japan. [click to enlarge]

After we finished serving food, we cleaned up the site, and the director of the middle school, Abe-san, came over and gave each of a letter with our names on them. Although I couldn't read most of it, the first line is apparently from the school song, which read "In you we have a friend, a path, and a tomorrow." 

At dusk we all said our goodbyes - it seemed like I will be seeing a lot of the same people tomorrow in Ishinomaki. We finished loading up the van, and then the four of us began the long drive home. By now the sun had set, and without any lights, Minami Sanrikucho was completely swallowed up in the night. I found myself thinking of the letter we had been given by Abe-san at the middle school. The kanji for the word "tomorrow" in Japanese literally mean "bright day", and yet driving through the oppressive darkness, that bright tomorrow still seemed like a long, long way away. Watching the small bit of road carved out of the darkness by our headlights, I began to grow tired, and with thoughts of tomorrow, finally fell asleep.