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?

Not feeling guilty

I wrote yesterday about daffodils and how they anger me.  I see more today.  Of course.  It's spring.  More flora will bloom in the next several weeks.  I realize it would behoove me to find a way to enjoy nature's beauty and not be constantly angered by the inequality of how it behaves.  I realize this.

It hit me this morning as we were mucking out a man's yard.  Half of his trees were blooming and the other half were dead.  He pointed out his rose bushes and said, "if they soak in salt water long enough evidently they die."  Neither of us knew that.  It's not common knowledge now, is it--except it's not rocket science and once I realize roses aren't meant to be underwater, much less salt water it all seems pretty obvious.  He was lamenting the loss of his bushes and trees when he pointed out his daffodils and tulips.  I now hate tulips as well.  I just do.

My phone rang and it was "the official" (again) and so I walked across the street to get away from the yard to take the call.  My dislike for nature is something to behold.  Again, I'm not proud of it, but I claim it.  Who goes around saying "I don't like nature"?  Right?

I pace as I talk on the phone saying "hai" (yes) a lot.  I thank him for all he's done, say things that he'll like, ask him yet one more favor.  I keep pacing.  Then I look down.  I see them.  More daffodils.  These are daffodils that will clearly not survive.  There are no flowers.  The stalks are yellowing.  These must have been affected by the salt water in a way I can't explain.

If you're a nature lover and you don't like seeing things die then you should probably stop reading here.  I'm not proud of what I did but neither do I feel guilty.  Here it is:  I stomped on them.  If felt good.  It's my one small act of rebellion against beauty that destroys.  It did appease my anger even if it was just for a bit.  I doubt I'll need to do it again.  If I do, I probably won't tell you about it.  There's certainly enough else going on here that I can write about.  I needed to say this to you once:  I am not a nature fan.  I appreciate the beauty but not this time around.  It did too much damage for me to love spring flowers.

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.

Volunteers galore

We went to a shelter today to make a spaghetti meal for those who live there.  We made sure to get strawberries and ice cream (what little ice cream we could find in the stores).  It was beautiful standing inside the kitchen and watching people scarf down pasta, salad and a dessert.  Slicing ten pounds of onions was a pain but it was well worth it.  Side note here......I was hoping the onions would make me cry and then I could bawl my eyes out and blame it on the onions......nothing.  I think this is the absolute first time in my life I've sliced into an onion without shedding a tear.  It's not a "Japanese onion" thing either as two nights ago I managed to get a good cry in when slicing the same type of onion bought at the same store.  Go figure.

There are families in this shelter with kids.  I've seen young women volunteering here for the past several days (all volunteers have a duct tape sticker on their arm) and I saw them today and yesterday running around with the children.  People are pitching in all over.  High school students whose schools were damaged do whatever they can.  A young Japanese man who was living in Canada came back here (he's from here) the day after the earthquake and also volunteers with City Hall as well as All Hands.  There's just no hesitation whatsoever.  People are helping.  Everywhere.  That we can cook a meal for them every now and then is a no brainer.  That I didn't cry at all after cutting up 10 pounds of onions?  Serious "brainer".......sorry.  Couldn't resist.  I have to make these little jokes here and there.  There's not a lot of laughter around these days, for obvious reasons.

All Hands Volunteers

Let me make myself very clear:  I am NOT bad-mouthing large relief organizations.  Some are corrupt, I'm sure.  I'm not talking about those.  I'm talking about the big-name groups that have a presence.  My attempt in talking about All Hands Volunteers (http://hands.org/) is to say small is beautiful.   All Hands is not a huge organization with a large overhead.  This means more of the money goes straight to the actual relief work, and quicker.  I like this.  This makes sense to me.  Sometimes it's necessary to have organizations that can pull together a large-scale effort and mobilize people quickly.  Other times it's important to have small organizations that just pick up and go and get themselves on the ground right away without going through the politics and red tape.  All Hands is the latter.

I found out about All Hands through the Japan Society of Boston.   I told my friends there I was willing to volunteer and to pass my name along to anyone contacting them.  Within a few hours e-mails were flying back and forth between me and the Executive Director of All Hands.

May I just go on record and say I have the utmost respect for the people who work at and volunteer for All Hands.  I hope to able to share stories about them, with them and let you know what we're all doing in Japan.

The Executive Director is en route back from Japan as I write this.  I plan to meet with him early next week to get up to speed and to share whatever he has to say.  Stay tuned.