The program was over… 気仙沼(Kesennuma)!!!

So… After a long and tiring but very important trip from Yamada Machi I got off the last train and just moments later I met 2 very special friends from the Konkokyo organization which represents a religion that was totally new to me and with a very interesting point of view about god and other related stuff. I liked the ideas this people talked to me about and it was somehow refreshing after all the crazy and senseless things I heard about religion and god through practically all my life…

Masafumi Kimoto was my guide during the last 10 days I worked as a volunteer in Japan which casually, ended with one the most special experiences among all I lived in Asia. The day I arrived at Kesennuma, Masafumi was on the Van and from that time I started to met a lot of very interesting people in Kesennuma. After a few personal stories and some of his motivations in life I started to call him Masa Sensei, a sign of respect and admiration for someone who really deserved it…

The 10-15 minute ride from the last train station to the camp where we stayed (behind the Konkokyo main church) was enough to notice that the damage here was way bigger than I thought with all the images I had seen until that day. Kesennuma was destroyed by the Tsunami and some places were hit by a 20 + meter high mass of water.

I had already spent some days at Yamada Machi which was also destroyed, but nothing could prepare me for the landscape of this place…

 

 

I could never imagine how exactly a ship that size could have been washed away so much distance inland. No words… I took those pictures at the first place where we were assigned as part of the volunteer program, a hotel destroyed from the first to the fourth floor. Shimizu San gave us work orders and he was as energetic and motivating as the rest of us. He was also a great friend with a great spirit and a living example of dedication.

The task of removing debris was heavy and dangerous. One of the rules was to cover the entire body with protective cloth, boots with metal insoles, gloves, dusk masks, helmet and all this with a 30-35 Celsius-degree temperature. Everything was 100% necessary because cuts and wounds were something common and I remember that the helmet saved me a couple of times from some heavy metal pieces falling from the ceiling. Some other scenery around…

 

 

I met Wriston in Kesennuma. I thought he was a normal guy, until he offered me a ride in his Van from the workplace to the camp…

 

 

Then I realized that Wriston was also someone out the ordinary.  He came from New York to Japan with the only goal of helping with volunteer work, no tourism or nice trips. He arrived at Japan with just a few dollars (not even enough for spending a week in Tokyo) and a very unique dedication to work. I don’t remember exactly how he got to Kesennuma, I can only tell that he spent a night in the streets of Tokyo and some days later he vas driving the “Operation Thunderstick Van” which was a gift from another group of volunteers I believe.

Kesennuma was a mixture of opposite emotions in many aspects. I have to confess that it was not easy to walk around the ruins of the city. After working everyday for around 6 hours the only thing I wanted to do was take a bath, eat, sleep, be grateful and stay positive for the next day which was easier after a short walk around the city listening to music and thinking about many things. The landscape was devastating and heart touching and it was impossible to avoid thinking what could have happened to all the people here, but the Japanese people that I met (not only here but since I arrived) had taught me to look everything from a positive point of view, anytime and without thinking how heavy of difficult the situation was.

At late afternoon, after a Japanese-style bath, we volunteers, the refugees in the temple and the people from Konkokyo ate together. As you can see here, this was a place with no luxuries but everyone helped as they could and the food prepared for us by the hand of Shachou-san (the guy from the middle in the second photo) tasted great always! Some pictures from the camp and it’s people…

 

Each passing day volunteers left and came mostly from Tokyo and among them I could met Akira, Tatsunori, Yuki and Fuki. They were very energetic at work and we became friends!

The workplace shown in the next photos was the first where almost everybody worked together, Masa Sensei, Shimizu San, the guys from Tokyo, Wriston and the friends from Konkokyo. Removing 10-kilo sand bags from the house assigned to us during 2 days left a curious injure in my back that I often remember while training Karate, but the satisfaction of working was such that I forgot about the pain and at the end the house was mostly clean! Smiles for everyone!!!

 

In some occasions Wriston offered me a ride around the city (like the one on the video and I must be clear that the song playing was mere coincidence) listening to good metal and rap music and talking about many interesting stories. One day we arrived at a cafeteria and I was surprised! The owner of the place came out to be a Karate Sensei from the same Dojo where I trained in Tokyo! Not only that, but the place also had a unique design and decoration… So after chatting about Karate and the city we continued our ride back home…

 

10 days quickly passed in Kesennuma and with them, the volunteer program in Japan ended… My everyday was: get up, focus on the task at hand, breakfast, work hard, bath, get back to camp, dinner, a short walk around the city and every night we had a small reunion and talked about everything, I drunk beer as I never had and will never have again in my life and at the end of the day, just take some minutes to think and think and think until I was too tired…

I don’t remember who left first or how we said goodbye. What I can tell is that Alejandro arrived by the end of our stay. He was Wriston’s friend, same situation and something particular… He spoke Spanish because his parents are from Colombia. It was a bit weird and fun to speak Spanish fluently after months!!!

Akira was another example, after the volunteer period ended he stayed more time in Kesennuma and even until some months ago he was still helping in the place after along time away from Tokyo…

 

The day we returned we were lucky! There was a music festival and I could listen to the famous Japanese Taiko drums for the first time during the whole journey! So much energy and power from this drums and I felt very happy that this was the final event for a unique experience… Something from that moment…

 

The trip back was long and most of the time I was silent or sleeping. When we arrived Masa Sensei invited us to a very special Ramen restaurant with a unique taste I will never forget! We made a promise to go back sometime…

After everything I saw here it was time to plan my last 15 days in Tokyo and start to focus on my next step… The  journey back to Costa Rica…

Smile… I’ts free and it really helps!!!

From 宮古(Miyako) to 盛岡(Morioka) to 気仙沼(Kesennuma)!!!

Hi everyone! I hope you're doing fine!!

After the 10 day volunteer program in Yamada Machi and a very relaxing day at beautiful Miyako Bay, it was time to continue my journey to my final volunteer work location: Kesennuma!

The trip was divided into 4 main courses from Yamada to Kesennuma. First I took the bus for Miyako with Anita and Nobu , this was a short 20-30 minute ride. From Miyako we took more time until we arrived at Morioka which is a bigger city than the previous ones.

The second part of the journey was silent. Few people were on transit that day and we were tired. I could think about a lot of stuff in the train. I had a mixture of feelings and emotions from long ago... The whole journey in Japan was coming to an end and it was until this moment, on this train that I had some time to think deeply about everything that happened and what was left... Obviously the ride was not enough to think about everything but two feelings were always present during this journey to Kesennuma: happiness and nostalgia.

Some pictures from the second train, as you can see it was practically empty...

 

The destinations were different for each one of us, so once in Morioka I had to say goodbye to Anita and Nobu. At the station I waited a few moments for Tomoko. She was coming to the station to help me with the next trains and to give me some instructions for the next days. When we met we had some free time so I decided to wash some cloth and have a nice special Ramen from this region, it tasted so good! It was sometime with no Ramen and I was starting to miss this kind of food!

I spent half of the second train ride with Tomoko. It was great to travel with her! Most of the maps here were only written in Japanese and sometimes just Kangi with no Hiragana like the one below... So her company was very fun and helpful!

After Tomoko's main instructions, taking a lot of notes and doing a lot of questions about the next train I had to ride for Kesennuma, she left and I was on my own. I was tired but it was impossible to sleep because if I missed the stop I wouldn't be on time for the next and last train for Kesennuma and I would have to find a place to stay in a totally unknown place, the good thing was that I was not stressed at all, I knew everything was going to be nice and fun!

I got off at the right station. This was a relatively big place, I searched for the train I had to take and after checking that everything was in place I got on waited for the little train to depart for the last and long ride. Here's a shot from the moment...

Besides thinking of many things, I had a lot of time for taking some landscape pictures... I felt I was traveling in another time, this place had a very special vibe that I will never forget!!!

 

 

Here some stations from all the journey and some shots from the last course...

 

 

I was very careful... I checked each station's name and grew nervous as I was getting near the final stop. After a very long but awesome journey, a unique experience in Yamada and a lot of expectation about the next and last days in Tohoku we arrived at the station before Kesennuma...

Just minutes after arriving at Kesennuma I realized I bought the wrong ticket for the train! I had to talk to the staff at the station and explained what happened. Everything was fine, I paid the ticket and this was the only small problem I had during the whole trip...

A unique experience and a lot of special people were waiting for me in this new place!!!

Next time I will talk about what happened in Kesennuma!

Be happy!!!

10 Days at 山田町 (Yamada-Machi)…

As some of you might know, on March 11, 2011 Japan was struck by the strongest earthquake ever registered in the country's history. Besides the earthquake, what was really a problem was the Tsunami that destroyed a huge area of Japan's east coast... This event was really indescribable.

If you want to read detailed information from the earthquake you can visit this Wikipedia page.

At the time of the earthquake I was in Setana working in my first volunteer program. I was taking a nap that afternoon and I remember that I woke up for some reason, but I can't really say I felt the quake. Setana town is far from the epicenter and I had no clear idea of what had happened because my Internet access was very limited and I never watched TV there...

After a while I could get more information about the event. Because in Setana the earthquake's impact was little and everything was normal I had no real idea of the disaster's magnitude.

It was until some months after and back in Tokyo in June, that the people from ICYE Japan (the volunteer organization with which I was working ) told me that there was an opportunity to help in the tsunami affected area and immediately I said yes! So after the final volunteer programs in Tokyo and Yokohama and the final ICYE Seminar I prepared my back pack and rode a 8 hour bus to Morioka in Iwate with the company and help of Kurose-San, Nobuhito and Anita.

Morioka was not our final destination. We stayed here one night and the next day from our arrival we departed for Miyako and finally to Yamada-Machi...

When we arrived, the shock from the devastated landscape was just indescribable. Never in my life I had walked in a place with so much destruction and even though most of the debris had been removed, the footprints from the disaster were still fresh. Before coming here I saw some videos and photos and I knew destruction was big, but visiting the place was a huge impact... This really moved me and I felt more committed to work as hard as I could during the volunteer program. Here's a video I took on the fifth day of our stay...

We stayed at a temple where, between 15 and 20 affected  people were living. Almost every day we had coming and going volunteers from all over Japan, mostly Tokyo and nearby places.
Before Yamada I learned some things about the great fighting spirit of Japanese people but this experience took my ideas to a whole new level. Even if the situation had been very strong and complicated, the people here continued their everyday work with what they had, always very kind and ready to help us volunteers in anything they could with a smile on their faces. I never heard anyone complaining about the bad conditions. It was all the opposite, even in the toughest of times the people here were open to talk about what happened or they listened carefully to what a non Japanese volunteer could tell them. For me this was a unique example of calmness and a strong attitude to face even the most difficult problems.

Some shots from nearby places of where we stayed...

  

      

Once we settled in the temple (where we slept in futons, in a big hall in the second floor) they took us to the kindergarten where we worked with kids from 0 to 5 years old. The place was a bit far from the destroyed coastal area and I liked it very much there! I could see a very different landscape from the mega city that Tokyo is and I could get in touch with rural Japan and it's lifestyle... !!!

 

 

The kindergarten staff (mostly teachers) was very kind! I have to thank so much to Anita and Nobuhito for the translations of almost everything I had to do because the Japanese the teachers used was far from basic level and they also had their own dialect from the region that it was sometimes difficult to understand even for Japanese people from Tokyo.

Work was great! Every day we took the bus or someone from the community would drive us to the kinder where we played all day long with the kids and helped teachers with some preparation tasks for a festival that was a few days away. Even though our work at the kinder was just for a few days, one makes very special bonds with the people and mostly with the kids. Our goal was simply sharing and having happy times after such a difficult situation as the one this people had. I never saw sadness here, this kids had so much energy (every day after the kinder I was exhausted) and even though I was a stranger they treated me like their old brother and they always wanted to share something with me! It was a very special experience and I felt so fortunate to have such a happy and valuable time! :D

  

  

Besides the kinder we also visited a care center for senior citizens where we share a special day. It was nice to work with 2 different generations but with the same interest for knowing who you are and having a new experience. This day we talked about culture and they gave us a very nice origami!!! This happened toward the end of the voluntary program in Yamada and the last day the friends from the kinder gave us a special framed picture of a day we spent together when we made bracelets with volunteer monks who also visited the place for helping. This picture is now in my room and every time I look at it very unique moments come to my mind! :)

  

 

We didn't work all the 10 days we stayed in Yamada. We had a couple of days off so we could visit some places near Yamada-Machi. One of the places we visited was Miyako which has beautiful landscapes and we had a super nice weather that day so the break was very fun!

This post has grown a lot so next time I will tell you about the day off at Miyako and the boat ride!!!

Be super happy!!! :D