Saturday, April 30, 2011

The power of people

I have the feeling "power to the people" and possibly even "power of the people" is copyrighted so I'm so I'm going with "the power of people." To be more specific, I'm referring to numbers. To be more specific, I'm talking about the number of volunteers. In the past two days, there has been a huge spike in the number of people who are here working. To be precise, there are 70 people here.

Seventy people can do a lot. During the past two days, there have been five teams working all around Ofunato and Rikuzentakata. The teams range from four to twenty people. The largest team is working on one of the campuses of Rikuzentakata High School where there are multiple buildings that needed to be cleaned out. One of the two gyms with a floor covered in an inch and a half of mud and then debris was almost completely cleaned out today. That's good stuff!

Other teams are cleaning out an old traditional inn, a home with a large antique-style vault (a kura), an apartment complex and individual homes that need mucking and gutting. A lot of work, good work at that, is being done. There is absolutely power in numbers and power in how much a large number of people can do.

Tomorrow I'm going to walk around town and pictures of things I want to share with you. It will be another posting but of a different nature. Key word being "nature."

How's that for a teaser line?

3 comments:

  1. send to you all our respect.
    You're a wonderful and people.
    hope you stay healthy.

    Sincerely

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  2. Been reading your posts regularly, unfortunately I have no info on how to cry, if I could help in any way I would, all the can do now is listen to you. Someone was squatting your sleeping bag? Weird.
    I hope you're doing OK Ravenlocks, I think you're over the hump yes? Less time ahead than behind?
    I'm so proud of your accomplishments there. I guess at the beginning I thought you would be strictly translating not "Mucking", something more suited for me not you.
    Take care,
    Kevin

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  3. Hello!

    I noticed that you are volunteering with All Hands Volunteers. Any advice for a volunteer-to-be? I will be going to help out in Haiti in June with All Hands too. Keep up the great work :)

    Thanks,

    AJ

    ReplyDelete