AMURT Japan update

Update 24 March 2011. Today we started working in three refugee centers located within the town area of Shichigahama, and spend several hours in meeting the people whose homes were destroyed by the tsunami, and of course their children who as soon as we arrived came right away towards us.They helped in breaking the ice and soon enough the community accepted us and started sharing freely their mix of emotions ranging from worries to aspirations.

Japanese are amazing people, culturally trained to the virtue of patience and collective harmony, and their composure and wisdom gave us a taste of their mature humanity.

In most refugee centers the average number of people is now perhaps only 100 down from 1000 as it was right after the tsunami. This is a community prepared for the tsunamis, imagine - one pensioner told me he had experienced three of them in his life but even he couldn’t imagine one of such power, capable of sweeping away, in a few minutes, 25% of the his town.
The survivors have plenty of time in their hands and now are well fed and have sufficient blankets to keep warm. One could say that given the circumstances they are fine, but that is just the surface because there is nothing more unsettling than not having a home to return to or even to repair since in most cases nothing was left standing.

Fortunately people knew that it wasn’t safe to take shelter, even on the second floor of their homes and they had been informed ten minutes in advance of the tsunami arrival. A man was telling us how one of the residents listening to the radio saying that the tsunami was six meters high, had the presence of mind and courage to visit all the areas normally considered safe due to being three meters above sea level, and forced all those who had taken shelter there to move to higher grounds. He saved 65 lives; indeed a hero who will be remembered by the community for years to come.

Our team conducted some physical exercise programs mostly for mothers and the elderly because all the other able bodies were out helping in the cleaning effort. One such mother of two beautiful children was Olive, who was so grateful for the time we spent together that she offered to interpret in our activities there.

Indeed we had a very good time with the kids, playing games, singing songs and everyone there told us that they are looking forward to see us again, because after being able to express what had been troubling their hearts and minds, they felt better.

As always happens when working sincerely for everyone’s welfare, we unexpectedly solved the logistic problem of having to travel more than 20 km from the youth hostel that has become our base, to reach the refugee centers, which with no gasoline available almost anywhere, was becoming a pressing issue. The manager of one of the refugee centers felt the need to keep our team closer to the refugee centers and offered a small room there.

We will be living like refugees ourselves since there is still no running water in the whole area, but our presence and spirit will become like a humanitarian 7 Eleven: always available to the people.