An observation: A newspaper article this past week here in Portland referred to the "devastated city of Sendai." To me, that means a severe loss of infrastructure--roads out, no public transportation, lack of water, electricity, gas, phones. Yes, the airport was inundated, but was back up and running in 10 days. And while the coastal suburbs of Sendai were certainly destroyed or heavily damaged by the tsunami, the majority of the city is fully functioning. I saw zero tsunami or earthquake damage. I think that description is inaccurate, to say the least, and doesn't help in efforts to boost tourism and the economy in general.
At the farewell party the last night in the hotel, several people stood up to say a few words about their experiences during the week. Tamura-san is Japanese and came up from Kobe (he lives in Mikage, my old neighborhood!) to help out. He'd heard about our group trip through a sister-group relationship between the Hawaii Jr. Chamber of Commerce (they are on an email list and got word of our trip, so sent two folks) and the Kobe group. After the Great Hanshin earthquake in Kobe in 1995, the Tohoku region sent a relief effort to help out, so after this year's disaster up here, he felt it was time to return the favor, so he has made several trips to volunteer. A one-way drive is 10 plus hours, and we were all very touched by his commitment. He was a great addition to our group effort!
We were also given a going away present of a 4.0 earthquake at 1:02 am! Many in our group were awakened by it, but I lucked out and slept through it; I probably wouldn't have gotten back to sleep afterwards!
The group left to return to the U.S. today, but I had made prior arrangements to stay two extra days and do some additional volunteer work. I'd contacted an NGO working in Ishinomaki and was due to work there, but my contact there didn't respond to my email earlier in the week, so I had to resort to Plan B. I was chatting at breakfast with the two women from Hawaii, who were also staying on, and they invited me to join them on their jaunt, along with Tamura-san from Kobe. I eagerly jumped at the opportunity. We left Sendai at 8:15 to drive 80 miles/2 hours south to Koriyama, to deliver donated food that the Hawaii C of C had shipped over. We went to an evacuation center that had taken over a convention hall, and with the perseverance of Tamura-san and permission of the staff, were able to hand the food out to evacuees as they came through the lunch line.
Tiffani, Tamura-san, and Brenda
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