Life in the Tsunami’s Shadow

The walls of the Shinsei Kamaishi Church had a distinct dark line about 20 feet high in every single room. Under the line, everything was tinted with a thin layer of mud. It just barely touched the bottom of the large cross mounted in the sanctuary. Earlier volunteers had cleaned out all the tsunami junk and scrubbed down the entire building as best they could. Some of the walls were being removed to expose the beams so mold and bacteria would not be allowed to grow. As I walked through the sanctuary, I had to be careful not to trip on the extension cords that crisscrossed the plywood floors to the mobile generators.

I was taken to the intact second floor where there was a tatami room and the minister’s office. Boxes with salvaged food, drinks, books, memorabilia and household goods were stacked everywhere. The twelve-mat tatami room had 8 neatly folded sleeping bags and backpacks of other volunteers. Since I was here for an extended stay, I was lucky enough to get a space. Some volunteers slept in their cars, camping at convenience store parking lots so that they could use the store’s electricity, light, food and washrooms. Many NGOs had bases in hotels in Tono City, an hour’s drive away. With few main roads, there was always a ‘volunteer rush hour’ coming into the disaster zone.

After leaving my backpack I was given a brief introduction to the place and the rules:

Wake up at 8am and prepare breakfast, morning meetings at 9am, gear up by 9:30am, work your missions until 4pm and do not work over time, lunch break from 12-1pm and you should prepare your own food, 6pm dinner time.

We had to get free insurance available at the city volunteer center. Since the plumbing was damaged we had to use the nearby hospital’s portable toilets. There were no showers but a public bath nearby opened up and offered services two days a week for free. One other option was to use the army base’s free public bath, which was located in a tent. Before sleeping we always repacked our bags in case another tsunami hit. This always kept us on edge, and indeed, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake did hit at 4am one night. Luckily, it didn’t trigger a tsunami.

There were three main volunteer bases in the city. The city volunteer center was located next to the train station and army base. A large international NGO was using the intact Catholic church down the street as a base. Lastly, Shinsei Church, where I was working, ran its own volunteer center for local missions. Due to the lack of volunteers and the immense scale of destruction, volunteer bases cooperated routinely by sharing their people.

The bases were a hive of activity and everyone contributed different skills. Some housewives did the cooking for everyone; some carpenters worked on replacing doors; a Buddhist monk and priest sat at the red tent with Sensei giving mental care to patients. Sensei ran his mobile clinic in the red tent; nurses made rounds at the temporary shelters; a piano tuning company even came to repair the damaged grand piano in the church. Most volunteers headed out to the damaged city on debris-clearing missions.

Although for the first few days I mainly assisted at the mobile clinic and made rounds at the temporary shelters, I remember my first debris-clearing mission well. Since there were so few people available for heavy-duty work, I was asked by Mr. Deguchi, the volunteer coordinator, to go to the city volunteer center by myself and join a mission. Riding my bike through the deserted, warped streets wearing a helmet, boots and mask, I suddenly realized how surreal this situation was.

At the base’s portable office, coordinators busily registered names, arranged missions on large white boards, prepared papers and assigned teams. I was placed on a team of 7 men and assigned to do the most labour-intensive task. The mission, at the request of a local resident in the next town, was to clear a concrete wall that had partially toppled over and posed a safety risk. It was about 5 feet high, 50 feet long and was made of concrete blocks reinforced with rebar.

With limited electricity, use of power tools was difficult. The city also did not have any heavy construction tools at its disposal anyways. Instead, we brought three wheelbarrows, sand bags, shovels and one large hammer. To make a long story short, I couldn’t hold chopsticks for the next two days after that mission. But the most memorable part was receiving a free canned-coffee from a local, despite losing everything, and hearing them express their gratitude.

Click here to view photos of the mission and stay tuned for my next blog: “A Sheltered Existence,” describing the conditions in the temporary shelters where evacuees lived. Click here to view my first blog on the 3/11 disaster.

You can also see more of my photos as part of the GOD Loves Japan exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto from February 4-April 1, 2012.