"Your husband is a brave man."

Last night I was invited to the city council official's home for a cookout.  I was the token gaijin (foreigner) invited because I can represent the volunteer group here in Ofunato and Rikuzentakata and because I speak Japanese.  People kept coming and going all evening and between the food and liquor, everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves in true Japanese style.  I was asked questions about the group, my life back home, my company and family.  When I pulled out my phone and showed photos of my husband and son, people gathered around practically gawking.  Then the questions started.

"How does your husband feel about you being here?"
"Your son has long hair!"
Young women asked if my son was seeing anyone saying, "he's so handsome!"  I smiled and said I'm proud to be his mother.

The questions inevitably reverted back to my husband's comfort level with "letting you go" and in general, his comfort level knowing I was away for such a long time and in a volatile earthquake/tsunami/nuclear zone.  I said things like "he's very supportive" and "he's used to me being away" and "he's a good man" and "I'm really lucky" and yet the questions didn't stop.  The general consensus seemed to be a lack of understanding of how a man would let his wife "disappear" for such a long time especially into a potentially dangerous area.  Finally, one man, slightly drunk blurted out "how does he really feel about you being here?  I'd never let my wife do that."  I paused.  I have to answer appropriately.  At the risk of stating a gross generalization there's a significant amount of truth to the fact Japanese men would not let their wives take off for two months into an area that has known dangers.  I had to give my husband credit without making him sound like a demigod. 

"He's a good man," I said.  "He said he would let me go to Japan on one condition.  I had to go home."  With no breaks or pauses, everyone around the table started to talk at once.

"I thought so."
"I knew it."
"That makes sense."
"He put his foot down."
"Of course he'd say 'you have to come home'."

After this collective talking-over-each-other had died down, one man with a beer in his hand piped up and said what seemed to be on everyone's mind. "Your husband is a brave man." 

"Yes, he is," I said.  "I'm lucky to have such a man for a husband."  People nodded, sipped their drinks and we moved on to the next subject content to know I have the proper appreciation for my husband.

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.

Before and After

I want to give you a tangible example of something we've done here.  Myself included, of course.  This is a photo (taken by an All Hands staff member) of a home we cleaned out before we started.

This is after.  The same house.

This is a bunch of us outside the home having a strategy meeting.

The owner if this building is the man in red.  On a different note, the city has come through with heavy machinery and cleared up all of the piles of rubble in front of the houses on both sides of the street.  It's slow-going.  They go about 10 meters per day.  There's that much to remove.

See the house on the right side of the road three down from us?  The tannish/brownish house?  This is another house that the group worked on.  The son of the family, a man in his 30s was in the house when the first wave hit.  He ran upstairs and waited for the water to recede and when it did, he ran down and fled to safety, higher ground to the far right of the photo (out of the picture).  Imagine being in your home when the wave hit.  The man in red, the owner of the home in this photo did the same thing.  He waited out the tsunami on the second floor.  What must go through someone's mind when faced with a real-life life or death situation like that?  For that, I'll muck out houses and interpret stories that make me cry.  Bring it on.

Did I fail?

I leave Tokyo today to go back up to Iwate.  I was given an extra day here which I spent mostly in the apartment I'm staying in (thanks to dear friends) doing nothing.  This is unusual for me--I never do nothing in Tokyo--but this time there was a reason.  I had one thing I wanted to do before I left Tokyo.  I wanted a meltdown.  Barring that, I would settle for a really good cry.  Neither had come as of yesterday so I stayed indoors and waited.

It didn't come.  I'm not sure what's going on.  I've certainly had teary moments.  I've certainly cried.  I've certainly choked up multiple times.  I have not cried, however, enough to feel like I let any of my pent-up emotions out in any real way. 

I tried my usual tricks.  I have several songs I listen to that always make me cry.  I listened to them, and sure enough, tears.  But then, they fizzled.  (Tears fizzle?)  I stopped crying.  Nothing else came.  I read several other documents I have stored for just such an occasion, of course, which also always make me cry.  More tears.  Which also eventually fizzle.  What's going on?  Where's all that emotion I needed to let out?  Why won't it come out?  Being verbally constipated is one thing.  (I'm having serious difficulty finding the words to describe what I see up in Iwate.  I blog about this in my other blog:  www.whereisgeorgeclooney.com.)  I'm now emotionally constipated, too?

Which also scares me a bit because while I don't know how much I have in me that I need to let out (how do I quantify emotions?) I know it's in there, in me.  One of my main goals was to release a lot of this stored-up emotional angst, these emotions I couldn't show openly until I was here in Tokyo.  My friends here would let me do this.  They would let me just sit and cry. 

My concern is I'm going to get back up there not having let this out to my satisfaction and there will be a point where I do lose it.  Crying here was meant to avoid that.  Maybe I'm still running on adrenaline?  Maybe I won't really feel like I completely let go until I'm back down for good?  Any last minute suggestions?  I have a little over four hours until I leave. 

The Kindness of Strangers: Part 2

In my most humble opinion I do believe I have the answer to why there was next to no looting or rioting after the multiple disasters that hit Japan last month.  The answer lies in taxi drivers.  Rather, it lies in what taxi drivers personify.  Let me explain.

I will admit I have a bias.  I have a thing for Japanese taxi drivers.  They're really nice to me and nine times out of ten we end up having phenomenal conversations.  Just last night a driver took me to an address and then stopped the car, killed the meter and asked me if I knew where I was going.  I actually didn't.  I had a sense of which way to go and was confident I could figure it out but I didn't know exactly where the place was.  He pulled over, typed in key landmarks into his GPS and took me to the nearest building I recognized and didn't charge me extra.  As I left the car he told me one last time to call my contact instead of wandering around.  Absolute kindness from a man I will never meet again.  I was just a fare.  Did he even know I wasn't Japanese?  I have no idea.  It was dark and we didn't really look at each other while speaking.

Since arriving in Tokyo I've had three drivers ask me if the temperature in their taxi was to my liking.  I've had three others ask which route they'd like me to take.  I usually leave it up to them at which point they ask whether I'd like to get there faster or pay less.

Their cars are impeccably clean.  The seats are covered with a tight cloth cover which has no wrinkles, tears, stains or marks of any kind.  Sometimes the head rests are covered in what I can only describe as doilies.

The drivers are always polite.  Always kind.  Always well mannered.  This, to me at least, personifies the Japanese sense of service, the importance placed on manners and in general, good social behavior.  Which is why I can understand why there was no looting or rioting, why people walked home for 7-12 hours on the day the earthquake hit Tokyo, and why standing in line for hours to use a pay phone was entirely orderly and normal.  Being kind to strangers isn't entirely a foreign concept here.  Good manners matter.  Being polite is an expectation.  I like this about Japan.

The kindness of strangers

I knew very soon after I started this blog I was reaching many people I knew I would never meet.  At the risk of a showing a bit of bravado, this blog has hit many, many, many countries and multiple times at that.  I'm thrilled with how you're all spreading the word and want to be sure you are all properly thanked and feel the gratitude I have for helping to keep those affected by the tsunami on peoples' radar screens.

Those of you whom I don't know are, for a lack of a better word, strangers.  I'll likely never know who you are.  We won't meet.  We won't go out to lunch.  There have been some, however, and we're still talking about "strangers" here, who have gone above and beyond what normally people do for other strangers (as in me).  Case in point:  I have yet to pay for a meal here in Tokyo.  The only thing I've spent money on is taxis and bottles of milk tea I buy out of vending machines.  Everything else (and I do mean everything) has been paid for by "strangers" who want me to have a relaxing time in Tokyo.

I have multiple homes I can stay at for free and with no strings attached.  People feed me.  People send food home with me.  People drive me around.  People make appointments for me.  People listen.  People cry with me.  People give me something else to think about by inviting me out to a movie.  People wine and dine me.  People give advice.  People ask good questions.  People care.  Of course not all of these "people" are strangers.  Some I've known for years.  Others, however, are friends of friends who have read this blog and make guacamole for me.  (JOY!!!) 

I went to Iwate and started this blog for very specific reasons.  I wanted to provide a first-hand, on-the-ground account of what I'm seeing, feeling, observing and hearing for those of you back home.  It was an easy way to hit all of my family and friends at one time with the same information.  That it has turned into my own little therapy tool where I can write to people I don't know with brutal honesty has been an unexpected and yet most welcome surprise.  That those of you who have read this show me the kind of generosity, kindness, support and friendship you have over the past several days--this, too, is an unexpected and most definitely welcome surprise.  I'm truly humbled and grateful.  Thank you so much.

Something personal

I'm a bit fried tonight.  I'm not exactly sure why but I'm beat.  Maybe it's the sleeping-on-concrete that's getting to me.  I'm not quite sure.

All this to say, I honestly don't have a story for you tonight from people I've spoken to recently but I do have a story from me.  It's not earth-shattering news or anything except to say I'm giving you a heads up. 

Tomorrow is my two week mark.  I've found I have a pattern in my moods and my tolerance for holding things in.  I have four days where I'm fine and then I follow that with a meltdown day.  Today is day four.  I'm scheduled for a meltdown tomorrow.

I've felt it coming on all day.  I've fought back tears multiple times and have been okay not breaking down in public.  I'm not sure I can do that tomorrow.  My heads up is essentially to say I probably won't be writing much tomorrow--I'll need another night where I walk around and cry--or I'll unload onto all of you in a way I can't predict quite yet.

I do have a story.  It's one of those moments I had to hold back and not breakdown.  There are three women from the community we've spoken to over the past several days who have offered to help with the cooking.  We will have 20 people staying in one of the new bases (which I'll move into tomorrow) and we need someone to help cook dinner.  This is meant to be a paid part-time position but these women said they would be willing to volunteer their time.  Their exact words were "we're volunteering so you can volunteer."  Hold back sob, hold back sob, hold back sob.

Then one of the women asks how we're going to bathe.  We say we aren't sure yet (buckets, probably?) as there's no shower facility in the building or hot water.  One of the women says she could offer her bath for us five nights a week.  I almost lose it.  Dirty, smelly volunteers, many of whom are foreign, walking in and out of a stranger's home five nights a week (in shifts, of course)?  This is quite an offer.  People are good.  I'm reminded of that everyday.

"I have a responsibility to start over"

The campground I will be moving to shortly also operates as a shelter for 120 people.  One of those staying at the shelter is a city council member.  He was instrumental in pulling strings to get us to the right people to get permission to use the campground as one of our bases.  There's a photo of Hirota Bay hanging in the main hall of one of the campground buildings.  Hirota Bay is where Rikuzentakata is located.  It's this bay that the tsunami came into and then onto Rikuzentakata.  I will find a way to take a photo from a hill so you can get a sense of the extent of the damage in Rikuzentakata.

Hirota Bay is known in Japan for its oysters.  Other areas are known for producing mass quantities of oysters but Hirota Bay provides the gourmet brand sold only in high-end restaurants and hotels in Tokyo.  The entire oyster crop was destroyed.  The city council member who I've now become friends with is also a fisherman, or rather an oyster-man.  He lost everything.  He said it will take him five years to get his first oyster harvest back.

He runs this family business with his three sons.  While all of his family members survived, he lost all of his houses and had to run up the mountain towards the campground to get to higher ground.  He, too, watched the tsunami destroy his homes, Hirota Bay, his oysters and livelihood.  I asked what the local oyster growers were going to do here on out as all of them lost their crop.  He said half would take their allotted payment from the government and retire.  "Not me," he said.  "I have a responsibility to start over.  This is a family business.  I need to have something to pass onto my sons.  They are still young.  If I can live five more years and get them their first harvest after the tsunami I've done my part."

What does one say to this?  I might worry about where my next job is coming from but I have a spouse who has a steady job.  Both of us are employable.  We can move.  The people here don't have that kind of flexibility.  Houses are gone.  Family members are dead or missing.  Livelihoods shot.  Listening to their stories tests my ability to say the right thing at the right time.  So far I have yet to stick my foot in my mouth.  I am careful to dance delicately around the subject of death and destruction as so many have lost so much.  It's not a casual question.  Offering regrets, comfort and words of kindness only go so far.  This is far more complex than I ever imagined.

Everywhere I look....

This is what I see everyday.  Note the boat.  This is over half a mile inland.  It just breaks my heart.  I didn't let anyone see me take this photo.  I meant what I said when I wrote I won't capitalize on their pain.