"I knew this would happen."

Walking to an older woman's house today to schedule a date on when to begin working on her home (no land line, no cell phone) I was on one of my three cell phones and not really paying attention to my surroundings.  I'm walking and talking and next thing I know a car pulls up beside me and a man gets out.  I don't pay much attention except to notice soon after, I'm being followed.  I keep walking, stopping here and there a few minutes at a time, and then continuing on my way hoping this signals to him I know he's there.  He pulls back and then follows me again.  I'm a bit annoyed, find this all a bit creepy but figure it's day time and I'm safe.  I continue talking, and stop in the middle of a side walk.  At this point he walks across the street, stops and faces me.  Something in me snapped.  I don't like this.

"Yes?" I say to him.  He responds in English and starts repeating what it is I've been saying.  Now I'm really annoyed.  I ask the person on the phone to call me back and I decide to hash it out with this man.  The guy on the phone laughs, asks if I'm alright and we agree to talk later tonight.

"I'm sorry," the mystery man says.  "You were talking about ******" and to this, I say "yes, I was" back to him in English.  The only way I describe what came next is to use the word "serious outpouring of guilt."  I don't think this man wasn't mentally ill or had any issues that would affect my safety.  He saw me, a foreigner in his town which he no longer lives in and must have felt I was the one safe person to tell.  This is what I tell myself, at least.

He continues to tell me he knew this tsunami was coming, he knew it would be big, and stops just shy of saying he thinks he may have caused it.  I listen, still a bit bothered by all this violation of my privacy but nod which he takes as encouragement to go on.

"I watch CNN.  I read TIME.  I saw what happened in Sumatra.  I knew it was a matter of time," he says.  He then says again, "I knew this would happen here."  He goes on about how he thought the previous warnings were "people crying wolf" which made them ill-prepared, and discusses in great detail what could have been done better.  He makes some good points but the barrage of information coming out of this man's mouth makes me think he has had literally no one to talk to for the past 50 days.

Bottom line, it is a bit creepy.  I'm not sure what to make of any of this.  We weave in and out between English and Japanese and he thanks me for what I'm doing here.  I deflect and tell him I'm only doing what I can.  He tells me he's sorry to bother me but thought it would be okay for me to tell me all this.  There it is.  What I thought earlier has just been confirmed.  Somehow being foreign makes me okay to tell all this to.  That much I'm okay with.  I'm a sounding board that people will stop their cars and come after me for.  Weird and odd.  It's also very real.  At least today it was real.

A most strange encounter.

The dreaded white phone

There is this cell phone that has been passed from interpreter to interpreter here in Iwate.  It's used to take calls of local residents wanting help, people calling with complaints and in general, anyone who speaks only Japanese who wants to reach the volunteer group here.  I had my turn with it for about two weeks before I went to Tokyo.  I handed it off to another bilingual volunteer when I went to Tokyo and then since my return, my illness has kept it from it coming back to me.

It's called "the dreaded white phone" for several reasons.  First, it never stops ringing.  This is generally a good thing as it means people are calling asking for help.  It also means the person answering it is in charge of taking down the information (correctly), relaying it to the necessary parties and then doing all the go-between work. 

Second, not everything runs smoothly.  The person answering the white phone must speak Japanese as this is the number that's called by the Japanese public.  This means the person taking the calls handles not only the language but also the cultural nuances.  Anytime one person is put in the middle of a bilingual and bi-cultural situation there is always the probability there is a misunderstanding.  It's the white-phone-handler's responsibility to keep all the potential mishaps at bay.  This is pressure.  It's actually a lot of pressure.

So, now that my voice is back and all I'm really doing is coughing and hacking here and there, the phone has made its way back to me.  For a few days at least.  This will kick up my stress level several notches.  It's what I'm here to do but that doesn't make it easier or enjoyable.  I know how to alleviate potential problems.  This is what I do.  This doesn't make it easy, though.

All this to say if I'm cranky in a few days and this pops up in my posting you'll all know why.

Waiting for Sister

It was a small job.  They hadn't gone into their home yet since the tsunami partly out of fear, partly out of dread.  They wanted some help in looking through their things--not valuables necessarily.  My take on this was they wanted company.  They didn't want to be alone when they went back home for the first time.

I stood in the doorway trying to stay out of the way of the younger ones hauling things down the steep and cluttered staircase.  I glance at the floor of the genkan (the front entry way) totally covered with muck and gunk except for one pair of shoes.  I take a photo just because they seem so out of place.  They're polished, clean and placed neatly in the corner as if they're waiting to be worn.

More youngsters go up and down the stairs.  More stuff gets taken outside into the road for the family to sort through.  I continue to stand in the doorway just sort of watching, making sure I'm not needed, fielding calls on the dreaded "white phone."  (More on the white phone in another posting.)

There are three women who are from this house.  A youngish woman and her teenage daughter and the mother.  Three generations of women.  I talk to the young woman making sure we're doing what she wants, who suggests we talk to "mother" and together we talk to the matron of the family to get her input. 

Mother sees me, bows, thanks me profusely and we exchange gratitude, compliments and general goodwill.  Out of the blue she changes the subject.  "See these shoes?" she says.  I nod.  "They belong to my oldest daughter."  She chokes up.  I get it now.  They're missing a family member. 

The younger daughter, the one I'd been speaking to earlier says, "Mother said to put these shoes out for sister.  We're waiting for her.  These shoes are so she'll know to come home."

What do I say to this?  Seriously.  What do I say to this?  I just looked down, fought back tears (and failed) and then when I finally looked back up, nodded to mother.