On September 11th it had been 6 months. I feel it is long and at the same time I feel it is short. It was the longest 6 months for Japanese people. Time waits for no man. 6 months flies. I feel as if it were ten years ago. I feel as if it were yesterday.
The March 11th quake and tsunami hit Tohoku Japan.
No electricity, no water supply, no telephone around my area in Ichinoseki, Iwate. On March 13th I went to Ichinoseki city hall and made a line to charge my cell phone with the emergency generator. Then I sent
an email up to my blog. This was the only way for me to tell my friends "I and my family are OK" then.
In March Ichinoseki received people from the coastal areas such as Rikuzentakata (Iwate), Ofunato (Iwate), Kesennuma (Miyagi) and Minamisoma (Fukushima). I visited evacuation centers in Ichinoseki and set up an evacuation center in
my school.
In April I had a chance to visit the coastal areas with an
epa photographer. We visited Rikuzentakata, Ofunato, Kamaishi, Otsuchi, Yamada and Miyako in Iwate. We met
the biggest aftershock when we were in Taro, Miyako, on April 7th.
Thanks to supports and donations from my Ichinoseki neighbors, my family, my friends in Tokyo, my friends in the World OpenOffice.org community, Team OpenOffice.org e.v., OpenOffice.org Authors, OpenOffice.org ES, we could visit the devastated areas, listening to people there, and supporting students and children in evacuation centers in the devastated areas.
In June we presented dictionaries to junior high school students in cooperation with Iwate university teachers and students.
These months Japanese people have been facing the radiological threat, experiencing extraordinary hot summer, feeling quakes almost everyday, and meeting typhoons and heavy rain.
Reconstruction is slow. The government is slow. But once people get a job to do, reconstruction moves forward powerfully. My project,
Magokoro project, will now start helping create jobs.
:)