Getting Settled In

The long transport to the volunteer base camp wasn’t bad at all.    By big gaijin (non Japanese) body was a bit large for the seat on the overnight bus.  Thankfully, no one was seated next to me.    I was glad for the three hour connection in Morioka because it took me awhile to figure out where to catch my next bus.   In Tokyo, everything was in both English and Japanese – but here in the North there isn’t much English.  ( I went to the store yesterday to try to by some cleaning supplies.  You should have seen me trying to figure out what was what.  Hm, that spray bottle has a picture of a crib and a bed?   Febreeze perhaps?)

I continue to be impressed by the Japanese.   It’s no myth – everyone really is as nice as they say and there are continual little “touches” that surprise you.   I might sound like I’m obsessing about toilets, but I thought it was a hoot when I sat down on the Western style toilet at the train station and a tape came on that said something like “thank you for using our toilet.  Welcome to Morioka” and then there was the sound of rushing water like a waterfall (I guess to help you with you “flow”).    It made me smile as I was going.

There are currently about 60 volunteers here, about 15 of them are Japanse and the others are from all over the world.  There is Michael from England, entertaining Thomaso from Italy, Maria from Sweden, Ana who is about  my age and is a Japanese American working for the US Embassy in Japan,  Dominic from Milwaukee, and Tyree from Kentucky who keeps getting a lot of stare and smiles from the locals because he has a big ol' 70 style afro.    Just to name a few.   We are nicely crowded onto the floors of three communal living spaces.  A cacophony of snoring at night.    

The pleasant surprise is that the community center where I am staying has a fabulous Japanese style shower and tub.  So no cold water sponge baths - yay.    The bath is gender separated, and it feels like being back in junior high gym class with lots of naked flesh lathering up.    After a shower, you dip in the nice warm hot tub – great for soothing aching bones after a long day of work.   It is taking me awhile to get used to the whole “shoe deal” here.   You wear one set of slippers when you walk in the halls, then have to take them off when you walk into the communcal rooms.  When you go to the toilet, you take off your hall slippers and put a different set of communal bathroom slippers and then reverse that step when you leave.    The communal kitchen at the Community Center (where we had dinner last night) had yet another pair of slippers that had to be put on.

I packed a few goodies for the volunteers in my luggage, but the one that has been the most popular by far has been the three bricks of cheddar cheese (who knew?).   The “oohs” and “ahhs” over a bit of cheese was very rewarding.

The first work gig that I signed up for was helping the canal and ditches team.  In the morning after breakfast we load up into a bus (with hired local driver) to head to the jobsite.   This was my first look at the devastation.   It looks very similar to the gulf coast after Katrina.   Miles and miles of rubble.  

At the job site, some of the team jumped into about a 6 foot high canal in about 3 feet of water and they shoveled and dug to clear out debris and mud so the water flow would be improved   I’m surprised how much intact china there was – how could some of these delicate little pieces of china survive that horrendous rush of water?   After lunch, we went to the unglamorous, but most needed, job of cleaning out the ditches (or gutters).  There is a whole network of covered ditches for water run off throughout the town and most of these have been filled to the brim with mud, dirt and debris.   After a day of hauling bags of mud and schlepping full wheelbarrows to the dump site, I was pretty tired and sore.    I know I need the workout.....but it's probably going to take me a week or two to get up momentum and used to getting this much exercise!