Report by Shin Hasegawa, 長谷川 森 , Tao Sangha Tokyo member
Translated to English by Satie Fujimoto
with English check by Deb Bachmann, Tao Sangha Madison members
April 1st, 9:35 AM
What we can do?
Mr. Haku and I ride in a long-distance bus to the town of Karakuwa, city Kesen-numa in Miyagi-ken (prefecture/state) from Shinjuku-ku in Tokyo. The purpose of this trip is to be able to see and grasp the reality of the place, the people, victims of earthquake and understand what we can do for them. Also we wish to find out what kind of supplies are needed there. And we’ll do volunteer shiatsu if their condition is ready for it, listen to the victim’s heart, listen to their voice and story that does not come up in public.
4:10 PM
Arrived at the city of Sendai (Sendai is the biggest city near earthquake area)
Arrived at the hotel, left our backpacks and went shopping. Sendai also got damaged badly but shopping arcade back to life. We enter Daiei (the one that is a popular big supermarket in Japan), in order to buy some supplies which we’ve learned they need from Mr. Kokuta of the center of disaster provision department. We found the supplies easily and bought socks/sneakers/jerseys for 10 people. We told the register lady, just in case, "this is not buying up stuff: (people’s tendency to over buy or buy up after earthquake because of too much worry)".
Finished dinner by about 9 PM and went to bed. Two Futon covers don’t work well, it's cold. We already heard that there would be no electricity no heater, no shower when we were reserved this room, but it’s much colder than we thought….. couldn't sleep. We thought it would be a good idea to sleep with a winter coat on, but after a short amount of sleep we would wake up again.
April 2nd, 8:10 AM
Move to Karakuwa-cho Kisennuma-shi from Sendai
The breakfast in the cold lobby, was croissant and boiled egg, and I drank coffee, which I usually don't drink, in order to wake up. I told Mr. Haku "you couldn't sleep could you?" He said “what? I was able to sleep very well". I thought maybe I’m weak? but so lucky to I have a reliable partner.
No train, so only way to go is to use rental car, and it was no problem getting a full tank of fuel. Sometimes we felt a big shake on the drive, earthquake? blast? We are honestly scared, and just kept concentrating on having a safe trip.
When we were almost to Kesen-numa-shi, we saw a view that looked like everything was hit by a nuclear weapon. Small amount of snow on top of lots of debris. Gasho (join the palms).
We kept driving and entered Karakuwa area. We saw a yellow car on top of a pile of debris over 15m high, from a supermarket. The tsunami did this.
1:10 PM
Mr. Sato who is a student of Tao Shiatsu, was waiting for us in his house which is near the disaster provision department. We kindly were treated to hot tea at his house. Their place is just a 3-4 minute walk but it is located on higher ground, so nothing was damaged by Tsunami. By the way, his son’s name was Mr. Tao!!
1:45 PM
We visited disaster provision department, and couldn't meet Mr Kokuta,. We heard that this department is mostly running by Mr. Kokuta and Mr. Ogawa, and Mr. Sato really appreciates this. We gave the supplies and Mr. Sato guided us to disaster area.
2:13 PM
Only sigh
We left the high ground and went down to a lower area, the view suddenly changed, everyone got silent. Coming through many brutal sights, unbearable for speaking, naturally keep silent, like my heart is crushed, sigh. we ride around in car. This vision is not a TV show – just immense mountains of debris.
We came here in order to see this reality, we are seeing it and taking this in deeply, but we sigh and sigh. We went back to the car and move to another disaster place, some beautiful seaboard is still there but afterward coming again horrible views.
6:20 PM
Crying crying and more crying
We were supposed to sleep in the disaster shelter or a car, but we stayed at Mr. Sato's house, finished dinner, talked by candlelight, this cold temperature makes me drink a Shochu (it's like a sake, shochu is a distilled beverage native to Japan. It is most commonly distilled from barley, sweet potatoes, or rice.). Kotatsu (electric table heater with futon) doesn't work, but somehow we feel heat from Kotatsu.
Mr. Sato said "my lovely town got Tsunami, some people died who I know very well, many of my loved ones lost their home, job, future, I was just crying, crying and crying". The next day, I heard from other person about Mr. Sato, that he was running helping the fireman just after the disaster.
Mr. Sato was asking about the shiatsu class, which he couldn't attend, and he said "I think I'm not going to be able to join the class for a while"
9:30 PM
I went to bed early from lack of sleep from the last days and Shochu works.
Shin Hasegawa,
長谷川 森
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