April 23 Relief Trip: Figs, Fruit Juice and Rotting Debris

April 26, 2011 Leave a comment

Remo and Hisako Camerota, Masa Koyama and myself left Tokyo just after 5.00 a.m. on April 23 in a downpour that would only let up when we eventually returned some 20 hours later.

Topping up at Donki

The Camerotas had rented the van the previous day and driven across Tokyo to the warehouses of Second Harvest, which had kindly donated enough fruit juice, potato chips and figs to fill the vehicle. Before heading over to pick up Masa, we topped it up with items that had been specifically requested, such as rain boots, pasta, shampoo and dictionaries.

Hisa and Clive in the Tokyo rain

Having no ETC card meant that we had to pay the full 8,800 yen toll charge, in contrast to the 1,500 yen I’d been used to paying. Suddenly, one of the key items in the Democratic Party of Japan’s manifesto for the general election last year, that of abolishing the prohibitively expensive toll charges on expressways, impacted me directly.

We arrived in Kesennuma around noon and were met by the stench of rotting debris. It was markedly worse than the week before, and inescapable. The van’s windows remained tightly closed for much of the day. There are still 1,000 people unaccounted for in the city; more than a few of them are probably under the rubble.

We drove through the slanting rain to what I thought was the Kaizouji road. It wasn’t. However, a passerby kindly offered to escort us, and before long we were handing out the shampoo, body soap, conditioner and bath towels for 45 people that Bevelyn had requested the week before, as well as Nescafe, Coffeemate and 15 pairs of rain boots for the obasan, much of it donated by Ryokojin. We also unloaded a third of the juice, crisps and figs.

Mine's a BMW

The obasan were conspicuous by their absence but the blue-tracksuited Buddha was there, still in his blue tracksuit but more affable this time. I asked him if he wanted anything in particular that we could bring up the next time. He suggested a BMW.

From Kaizoji it is short drive south to Seiryoin. The temple doesn’t appear to have electricity yet. We dropped off another third of the Second Harvest food to the subdued appreciation of Kikuchi-san and his young assistant I’d first met the week before. Masa told me that they are fishermen and therefore we shouldn’t expect gushing enthusiasm. The rain was unremitting.

Hisa & the fisherman at Seiryoin

From Seiryoin we headed back to Kesennuma and down to the port, where we met with roads closed to all traffic except trucks and military vehicles. The miserable weather worked to accentuate the decay of the area. My initial fascination with the destruction has, after four visits, been replaced with repulsion. The wreckage is a blight that needs to be removed quickly and entirely.

Two of the girls staying at Kyofukuji

Backtracking, we eventually made it through to the north of the city and back to Kyoufukuji, the children’s temple, to deliver the final third of Second Harvest’s food plus pasta, pasta sauce, three large ham sausages, summer clothes for the kids, fresh coffee and filters, 15 dictionaries kindly donated through a Facebook contact and a box of health drinks.

Unfortunately the otera no okaasan (“temple mother”) was away, but a couple of the girls were on hand to oversee the delivery, pose for photos and giggle at the right moments.

Masa at the wheel

After a quick stop at the shimin kaikan to drop off paper towels they had requested, we headed south, through the evening rain and along the coast road I had taken on the first trip up here with Jeff. A sign warned that the road was closed, but we continued until we came across what looked like a battlefield, half drowned in mud and rain. The road was smashed here, as it had been four weeks before, so we headed west, through towns that had been untouched by the tsunami but badly damaged by the quake. In the half-light I could see the ubiquitous blue tarp concealing broken windows and cracked walls.

We reached the expressway around 7:30 and ploughed through the rain, passing trucks at 120 kph swaying in the strong crosswinds. I felt reassured that professional driver Masa was at the wheel. We arrived back in Tokyo at 1.00 a.m. just as the downpour ended and the dark sky lifted over the city.