A weekend in northern Japan

During the weekend of July 1-3, I travelled with a group of volunteers supported by the Japanese NPO, Peace Boat, to northern Japan to aid in the cleanup efforts after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. We worked in the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, one of the hardest hit areas. We also had a tour of the neighboring fishing village of Onagawa, which was completely destroyed by the tsunami. As anyone who has seen the devastation will tell you, nothing prepares you for the experience.

Why did I go? Certainly I felt the need to help in any way. For the past three months I have been involved in improving the understanding locally and globally about the need to help. I have donated money and attended fundraising events. I have participated in online discussion groups. But it never seemed to be enough. All of this was important but it still felt as though I was distancing myself from where help was most needed from an able-bodied individual. It was time to put some muscle and sweat behind all the talk. This was personal.

Moreover, I felt the need to see and experience in person what we had been seeing on television and through the internet. I lived through this event and the aftermath in Tokyo. As I told one tsunami survivor in Ishinomaki, "Japan is my home, too."

For two full days I toiled in hot and humid weather in filthy conditions doing backbreaking work to clear a stretch of drainage canals of mud near the harbor in Ishinomaki. I saw fields and mountains of debris, and wrecked cars stacked in long rows. I walked through neighborhoods that were completely wiped out and breathed the air still tainted with all the tsunami inhaled. I saw the faces of the survivors who all shared such a traumatic experience they need not talk to each other about it. For all the work we did, so much still remains. I am torn between the significance and the insignifiance of what we accomplished.