One of the things that I really wanted to do here in Japan was help out with the tsunami relief efforts. During my second week in Japan an announcement was made that a group from the church would be going up during Golden Week (A Japanese holiday where everyone gets a week off to vacation). Jordan Powell and I asked if we could go despite having to come up a bit later than the main group. The people organizing it got really excited and went above and beyond to make sure that these two newbies found their way and arrived safe. That was an adventure in and of itself and I was a bit nervous. Neither Jordan or myself had ever traveled by train before (Yet alone, for a six hour trip). Needless to say, it was way worth it. It felt good to help out in whatever small way we did. We were, also, able to meet and grow with some people from Mito Church as well as some university students.
I have a video and some pictures below. The video is mainly about this burnt down school that we visited. While the students had luckily evacuated the school, a lot of people from the surrounding neighborhood had fled to it for safety.
The man playing the harmonica was an alumni of the school and the song is the school's song. Both of his parents were inside the school but luckily they survived. He comes back to the school every vacation that he gets and plays the schools anthem for the memory of those who were lost.
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| The man in orange was the guy playing the harmonica. He was super cool. |
Below are a few of shots of the house that we were stripping out. Jordan and I were in charge if closet removal. It's amazing how a job were you get covered in dust, grime, and sweat can fell so good.
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| Everything in the house needed to be stripped out except the frame work |
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| That is a pile of the insulation that was in the walls. It all needed to be bagged. |
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| Lunch Time! |
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| Group Pic. I'm the dude way in the back with the black bandanna. |
Here a couple pictures of a house that had not yet been started on. It really tells the story of the devastation but also shows how far the other houses have come.
This is a junk yard containing all the cars that were totaled during the tsunami. The picture doesn't really do what we saw justice. That Line of cars stretched for a mile or so and the cars go way back.
These are some pictures that I took at the burnt school. Again, they don't really do justice to what we saw.
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| This is a shot of the school's shoe locker room |
This is where a convenience store once stood. It is now a memorial and a declaration of the strong spirit of the Japanese people.
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| This sign reads, "Fight Ishinomaki" |
A couple shots from the road as we traveled.
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| The waves of the tsunami reached up to the first floor of this hospital despite it being way up on a hill. |
Finally, Here are a couple pictures of what was left of downtown Ishinomaki. Most of the debris had been cleared away. Aside from a couple overturned buildings, there was nothing left.
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| Here you can see that the road is now under water. |
