Cultural Exchange

June 19, 2011

Coming up to the end of my second week here and I have become accustomed to the daily routine:  

• Wake up about 6:45 am with about 40 other groggy volunteers (there are 40 at “FSC” base house and about 20 at the main house), have a breakfast of tea and toast with peanut butter and jelly, get on the bus to the main base at 7:45 am, 
• Find the team leader for my daily work project and help gather the necessary materials, get on the bus to the work site and start working about 8:30 am. 
• A yummy bento box lunch is delivered to us at the work site which we all voraciously gobble down and then try to rest until our 1 pm.   I’m not quite sure what some of the food is, but it is all very good! 
• Continue working until about 4:00pm when it is time to clean tools and pack up for the bus to pick us up to return to the main base.
• About 5:30pm, we sit down for dinner in the communal room.   Dinner is followed by a team meeting at about 6:15pm.   New volunteer arrivals are introduced, work teams report on their progress, the next day sign up options for jobs are announced and farewells are said to those who are departing.
• After the meeting, our bus brings us back to the “FSC” house where we read, hang-out, check emails, take showers, play cards and try to relax.
• At 10:00 pm, lights are out, we tuck into our sleeping bags on the floor and try to sleep and rest for the next day of work.  

Whenever I am working on these jobs, I make a point of trying to talk to the locals.  Not all of the non-Japanese speaking volunteers do this, and that’s a shame.   I think connecting with those who have witnessed and lived through the disaster is an important part of our task here.    Each work team has a Japanese speaker who can help be a translator.  As you talk to people, you learn about their stories.   Psychologists say after a traumatic incident, it is very helpful for people to talk to others about their experience.        

At the oil spill site, I met a young man, Takata, who joined us for the work day.  On the ride to the work site, he pointed out where his house had been swept away.   Later that day when we were commenting on his fashionable attire and slick looking moped, he pointed out to a large pile of demolished cars --- he said “that’s where my car is.”    I asked him about the tsunami and he told me that he ran very fast.   After the first wave, he and several other young men ran back into the wave to rescue a pregnant woman who was getting swept away.     Apparently the second wave was the largest and did the most damage.   Many of the Ofunato police were killed because they were first responders after the first wave.      

At the fish factory, I purposely sat with the female workers of the fish plant.    Although they couldn’t speak much English and I couldn’t speak much Japanese, we were still able to communicate.  They laughed at me making fun of myself as I tried to do the Japanese squat (they have this amazing talent for working in a low squat that my large bulky body just can’t do) and we commiserated about the fish smell.   Through the translator, one of the women told me how they were all at work at the factory when the earthquake hit and the tsunami alarms went off.   She also shared with me that she lost her 40 year old son.   With tears in my eyes, I told her how sorry I was for her loss.  

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been helping a work team to clear out the mud from a warehouse of a former auto parts store.  The owner, a young man in his mid 30’s has a wife and two boys.  He put his life savings in the business which he purchased two days before the earthquake.     He didn’t hear the tsunami alarms, but his neighbor called him and told them to run to high ground.  He showed me the direction that he ran in waist deep water.   I looked and saw a fairly tall chain link fence and asked him how he got over it.    He replied, “I climbed over” he continued, “I don’t really remember much.”  Luckily, his family home was on higher ground.

On the canal clean up job, we had a couple of the local homeowners who had been watching us and coming by to bring us drinks and gifts of bandanas.   After a couple of days, they decided to come join us in the work.  (It didn’t hurt that there were a couple of very cute young female volunteers in our group).   After dinner on Friday night, they came over to the main volunteer base with a case of beer and some kind of fruity alcohol cooler type drink.   About 8 of us sat down with them as we pounded down the drinks (kompai!) and had a little “cultural exchange”.   They brought a Japanese flag for us all to write on and sign.   

On the job sites, people honk and bow at us.  There are three older ladies in their 80’s that have been bringing daily drinks and goodies to the ditch and road cleaning volunteer crew.  (They survived the tsunami by scaling a large hill near their house).   They wave and say arrigato (thank you).   When we go to the store or walk down the street, everyone says thank you for being here.  We may be strangers, we may be culturally clumsy and a bit boorish to the locals, but they seem to be tolerant and grateful for our being here.    It feels good…..