The Japanese government has set up three zones to designate the major disaster areas: blue, yellow and red. In the blue zones, any homes destroyed can be either fixed or rebuilt. The yellow areas only allow the houses to be fixed but no houses are to be rebuilt there. The red zone won’t allow houses to be rebuilt there nor fixed, even if they were left standing.
Just recently it was decided that the area around
Watanabe-san’s house, which was hovering between red and yellow, could be
classified as yellow.
Watanabe-san and his wife were at home when the earthquake
struck. When a tsunami warning was issued he and his wife only had time to move
upstairs to the second floor. They were lucky. The brackish water that swept in
from the river and the ocean, just a stone’s throw from their front door, and
left behind crushed oyster shells, a pooh bear doll, blue and white printed tea
cups, and disaster, spared the top floor.
There neighbors, an elderly couple who tried to escape by
car, weren’t as lucky.
Now instead of relocating, Watanabe-san has decided
courageously to brave the elements and fix the home on the land he and his
ancestors have grown up. His family is oyster farmers by trade and this is
where they have always worked. Behind his house are what at first appears to be
rows of white build materials but upon a close look is ropes and ropes of
oyster shells.
An energetic elderly man, who I instantly liked when my eyes
fell on his weathered face and he exclaimed that he was happy to have us but
admitted to not speak a word of English, he later explained the shells. Every
year, beginning in November and lasting until April, the oysters are harvested
as a delicacy tourists will come from all over Japan to eat. Millions of
oysters are pulled from the sea so in order to ensure that the oyster’s
continue to be bountiful, the shellfish farmers, place these ropes of shells
back in the ocean for baby oyster’s to grow big and strong to be eaten the
following year.
I gazed at the beautiful shells, shades of white to red, and
couldn’t help but smile. For Watanabe-san, life has gone on and he has made the
best of a situation. This is evident in the tea, and handmade donuts he serves,
the udon noodles his wife makes us on the second day and the swing set he’s
made for his two year old granddaughter when she comes to visit.
It was easy to forget, with all this hospitality, that we
are not here to be pampered, but here in this little community at the edge of
the sea, to help him start rebuilding. Surrounded by the water, salt decaying
trees unlucky enough to have found their new home flooded, and the pine clad
islands that Matsushima is famous for, we are looked over by a small shrine
built for the god of the ocean as we gut Watanabe’s home.
Inside there is a grey mark all around the walls, like a
ring in a bath tub, well over my head which is as high as the water rose. The
windows in the bottom floor are long gone and tarps keep out the gentle sea
breeze as I take a hammer to the dry wall and spend a day ripping the walls
away to wood frame. The walls, doors, window, and floor board all have to go so
that later a carpenter can come along and replace it all so it can be lived in
again.
Close to the floor, between the walls, is clogged with
tsunami dust, and I found small treasures of a pet bottle filled with the black
water that failed to destroy this survivor of a house, a pink lighter, mostly
empty, and a wedge or wrapped camembert cheese that no one much feels like eating.
The first day I work with a small group of
foreigners that traveled up together but the following day we are joined
by new Japanese
friends so that the air is filled with dust and scatter of Japanese and
English
as Watanabe-san’s house bridged the gap between us.
We worked for an organization called Habitat for Humanity.
It’s a non-profit organization that helps out in countries of need to build
houses. The division in Japan began ten years ago but after the disaster on
March 11, 2011, it got its first chance to go to work in its own country. A
chance no one could have hoped for. But still, it’s an amazing organization to
volunteer for and we made quick friends with the staff who were kind admirable
people who swapped between Japanese and English with as much ease as they
handed out tasks to get families back on their feet.
On the second day they had a team head to one of the islands to help a family move out their belongings so the entire house can be raised about a foot so that it is livable again. The family will move back in November thanks to Habitat for Humanity and my hard working friends.
A weekend of tearing away dry wall, cleaning, taking down
anything rotted and having our hearts warmed by Watanabe-san, lead me to have a
quiet moment sitting by the ocean beside the little shrine. The red gate shone
magnificently in the amazing sunlight that had sunlight streaming through the
clouds in a way you only imagine in movies. I tried to find the word for this
place and could only think of the beauty. Despite disaster, the Watanabe’s have
retained their little corner of paradise. Behind me I hear the laughter of the
group, entertained by the elderly man that radiates spirit, and know first hand
there is hope.
On the final day, the day we were set to head home, we returned to Matsushima to take in the beauty to the bay of pine islands from a vantage point above the sea. It was hard to imagine devastation in such a beautiful place. After we journeyed into the little town for a brief walk down a path that led to a temple. It was lined with these tall trees and caves with carving from hundreds of years ago all dappled in a cool sunlight. It was the perfect ending to an incredible experience.
And then it was a long trip home south, through Tokyo, past the new sky tree in our huge bus to Gotenba where we parted ways and hope to meet again to go help up north maybe next month!
