(Edit: Ended up going to Iwate prefecture which is much farther up north.. And also quite badly hit. Making our way to a coastal town called Otsuchi. 50% town was destroyed, 600 dead, 1000+ still missing)
Just a short post before I cram all the assorted junk spread about my room into a backpack, and rush out the door. I was lauded, appreciated, back-patted and many goods things were said when I opened this blog Vada-Pimpin and then I was suitable chastised when I promptly ignored it. My defense being circumstances etc etc. But now I do have a thing to talk about that is blog-worthy.. and definitely worth me spending time to write about.
View Larger Map
I leave in a few hours to a place called Ishinomaki in Miyagi-prefecture, north east of Tokyo. This used to a seaside town before the March 11th tsunami. The waters destroyed everything that was near the water and much further up the coast. 4 months since then the place has seen slow improvement and there are indeed many many small towns, villages, communities that suffer the same fate and worse.
The government does what it can, apparently, and the balance falls on the people who survived. And some help comes from students/volunteers etc who travel from places that were not ravaged to try to rebuild/cleanup. This weekend I spend my time with one such organization Nikkei-Youth . Its tough work I am sure. Summer is in full swing, its humid, but most importantly the place is still devastated. In nearby Iwate prefecture, they found 19 bodies in one pond... in the month of July, 4 months since the incident. The fact that the still unstable Fukushima Daichii nuclear plant is 100km away does not improve my nerves.
But I think this is still worth it. The actual physical contribution may be close to zero, but the people living there need to know that they are not forgotten, and not abandoned.
"My home is where I live now, and my kinsmen are the people around me", - someone intelligent
