I was introduced by Darwin Halvorson to Brad Buxton and Dustin Bond (his son), who came from Salt Lake area to volunteer in Tohoku and gather the information necessary to inform other American volunteers on how to properly go about it. They needed an interpreter to come along and assist their information-gathering. I went Saturday, then again on Monday and Tuesday.
Brad is a successful businessman who has a strong desire to help people, and Dustin is a smart, tough, enjoyable guy. It was a pleasure to work with them and help again with volunteer efforts. They are generous, smart, practical people.
We went to the Kesunnuma Voluneer Center (VC) and went through the registration/orientation process. Processes sound like a pain, but at this point, I think anyone going to help is best off going through a VC. They supply tools, a variety of places to go and help according to each volunteer's ability, and parking and tent sites. They have English-speakers around and do not require Japanese language ability. In other words, go there and do some work, please.
This is the poster they had out showing the volunteer process. It reads (approximately--wish I knew a good translator):
1. Be sure to register at the volunteer registration desk
2. Receive the orientation and an introduction to the activity locations ([and info on] parking spaces)
3. Once your location is set, be sure to go to the materials management area to receive necessary equipment
4. Travel to location (by foot or vehicle)
[smiley face] Please be careful [egregiously Asian-looking, hatted smiley face]
5. After your volunteering is finished, make a report at the activity report desk [this only applied to team leaders]
GOOD WORK!
Before we went to the VC, we went to see Ishinomaki, where Raleigh, Sam, and I went last month. The next series of photos shows the clean-up progression of Abe-san's house:
A large shed had been washed up against the house to the left, the house to the right, and the car hidden behind the shed, which had of course also been washed in. The shed had large bags of ruined rice in it--a good reminder that food storage is probably best stored somewhere that won't get flooded/washed away/etc, if possible. Probably not possible in this case, of course.
Here you see Raleigh and Sam working on the debris, after we'd dismantled the shed that was previously in front of the car at right.
Another shot of where we were after dismantling the shed and other large stuff, but still with cars.
How Abe-san's house looked when I went back--Abe-san was unfortunately gone, so I didn't get to congratulate him on the amazing progress. He clearly worked his butt off to get it this nice.
Our assigned volunteer location in Kesunnuma was an abacus school. We cleaned the second floor, where this photo was taken. You can see that the water line would have reached my chest, even on the second floor. The building survived because it had a solid steel frame.
We also removed the entire counter/sink/cabinet kitchen set and many of the weaker floorboards on the first floor. Under the floorboards we found (and smelled) a lot of oil sludge. I assume a lot of the sludge resulted from the nearby refinery fire and other leakage caused by the tsunami.
Most of the following photos were taken in a low-lying area near the Port of Kesunnuma. The area was very quiet and we saw almost nobody around. Here is a post-earthquake, aerial view of the area where the photos were taken. If you zoom in you can clearly see many of the ships pictured.
An elementary school backpack.
A telephone pole with the lower part of its concrete exterior ripped away to reveal the steel reinforcement. Lots of these around.
An emergency radio/flashlight amid the debris.
A ship on top of a building.
Two ships smashed against one another and on top of a building. Pretty astounding to see in person.
Dustin under one of the ships.
Another ship--you can see on the left where the owner has taped a cardboard sign to denote who owns the ship. I have no idea if the ship could ever sail again, much less be transported the few hundred meters back to the ocean.
The railroad tracks near Shishiorikarakuwa Station. The bend in the tracks in the distance is quite jarring to me--not sure if there was a train right there when the quake hit or what.
The largest ship we could see around--it had to be (100? 50?) yards long. Look on the aerial view to see its distance from the sea.
Be absolutely self-sufficient Be helpful Focus on helping people become self-sufficient Be thoughtful
In further detail:
Be absolutely self-sufficient
Bring absolutely everything you will need while you're up there. See and expand upon our list of recommended supplies (located below). Acquiring these items will require money, which people around you might be willing to help fund. Bring more than you will need, and coordinate to leave what you can (only useful stuff, of course) for shelters or future volunteers.
Rough it. Get permission to put up a tent somewhere, out of sight and out of the way, and sleep there. Ishinomaki has a "tent village" at Ishinomaki Senshu University where many volunteers are sleeping. Other towns may also have similar designated fields. Also shelters and volunteer centers may know of appropriate places or may give permission to set up a tent nearby. Or sleep in your car. Or commute in from a hotel in a functioning city like Morioka, Sendai, etc. We found that sleeping in close proximity to the people we were serving allowed us to observe and accomodate their schedules and also maximize our limited working hours.
Don't use any local resources up there, even those for sale. Leave the stores stocked for the locals. Don't accept gifts (water, ocha, snacks, lunch, etc.) in exchange for your volunteering. Japanese will feel obligated to give these. Just apologize with a pained look on your face, saying you know it's rude of you to reject but you have a rule/policy not to accept gifts while volunteering. Japanese people respect rules. Say that if they want to do something for you, the thing you'd most appreciate is if they'd let their friends and neighbors know you're available to help. And/or ask that they return the favor next time there’s trouble where you’re from.
Be helpful
Before going, develop an initial work plan or plan for finding work. Your plan will depend primarily upon (1) your Japanese speaking abilities, (2) your level of familiarity with the region and its people, (3) any affiliations you have with NPOs, churches or other aide organizations and (4) the type of service you are most interested in providing. We suggest making a connection with a particular shelter and then cultivating a relationship with the people and area which that shelter serves. This is perhaps best accomplished through an initial introduction which comes from a trusted resource, such as by participating in an outing organized by an NPO or church to a particular shelter, from which you can strike up conversations with the shelter’s leaders. You will have proven to the shelter your preparedness and alacrity to serve, and they will be more willing to provide you with tips on where to set up your base camp and how to go about building a daily routine. Obviously you will need to discuss your intention with the NPO or church prior to unilaterally branching off from their organized trip.
Develop multiple backup plans. Be flexible and adapt. Proactively ask folks you see how you can help. Focus on helping people become self-sufficient You cannot fix everything for anybody, much less everybody. What you can do is give several people momentum to overcome a massive amount of physical and emotional debris. If you simply try to do all the work you see before you, including smaller tasks such as picking up smaller debris, you will spend too much time in one place. You will just be doing their work instead of helping them move forward. This is a tough distinction that will not always be clear, but once you have helped a person overcome their largest obstacles and the rest seems possible for them, politely say that you need to move on and help the next person. If you aren’t careful, you could end up doing many good things, but not the best things. Remember that you will leave shortly, but affected persons will be there for the long haul and will need emotional strength to persevere. Try to eliminate their biggest obstacles, which will usually be things that require more manpower or special tools that are not available normally. Be thoughtful Go with a Japanese speaker if you don’t speak Japanese, or coordinate beforehand to do work that doesn’t require Japanese (depending on the organization, such work may be available).
Refrain from taking photos when people are around, unless you’ve become friends.
If you come across precious items (photos, etc.) in the course of your work at a home, bring them to the owner's attention. If he/she doesn't know whose photo it is (as is often the case), place it on the side of the street in a conspicuous location. Refrain from asking about the health/safety of a person's family or friends. But, if working at homes, do feel free to ask about the physics of the tsunami (e.g., what was swept in from where and how); people seem to want to talk about this. Don't imply that people need your help or that they're helpless. If you offer help and people say no, accept that. If you get a sense however that they are just politely saying no but really do want or could use your help, very respectfully point at some particular object and ask if they need help with it. If there is nothing in your line of sight with which you could obviously help, mention that you are well-equipped with crow bars and chainsaws and that you are committed to helping - this may trigger a response. If they truly cannot put you to work, ask them if they are aware of anyone else who could, and thank them. Recognize the work that people have done. When appropriate, comment on how orderly their home/yard has become since the tsunami; say they must have been very busy cleaning the place up. Don't engage in activities that are too dangerous. Medical care is limited in afflicted areas and should be reserved for the disaster victims. Think of good things we didn’t and implement them. Things each person should have
Helmet Warm, layered clothing (work gets hot) Steel toed waterproof boots Drinking water Other snacks Work/cold gloves Lighters Rags Sleeping bag Insulated bedroll Mouth/nose mask Raingear Extra socks Strong crowbar Mobile phone charger (both plug-in and battery-powered if possible) Leatherman/Swiss army knife-type tool (preferably with wire cutter) Safety goggles First aid kit Flashlights Group equipment
Gasoline Group drinking water Rope Mop-handled squeegee Shovels Broom Cordless drill Buckets Tents Extension cord Wet wipes Toilet paper Hydraulic jack Mechanic's toolkit Tarps Bungee cords Ladder Face wipes Alcohol hand sanitizer Packing and duct tape Roadmaps Car lighter adapter Gas siphoning thingys Chainsaw Chainsaw chain oil Two-cycle oil (for chainsaw) Paper plates Paper cups Saran wrap Can opener Wheelbarrow Icyhot pads Aspirin Anti-diarrhea medicine Camping sporks Powerbars Garbage bags Alcohol wipes Emergency blankets Small lantern Field operations guide for disaster response
Our food list (for reference)
Bananas Bread (sunflower seed, raisin, wheat, white, rye) Salamis Potato chips Cookies Chocolate Granola bars Juice Canned fruit Peanut butter Jam Smoked bacon Sliced cheese Black Black gum (caffeine) Candy for local kids Amino vital gel pouches Multivitamins Canned sardines/other fish Other canned goods
[Note: I already posted some photos and accounts on Facebook, but a lot of this is new. As explained below, we want as many people as possible to know about what we did, because we think our actions can be replicated by many others. Please feel free to share this with anyone, anywhere.]
Raleigh, Sam, and I went to Tohoku for a week to volunteer for relief efforts.
We have talked a lot about how we should tell people about our trip, and to what degree we should make our efforts public. The conclusion we came to is that we did something a lot of other people can also do, so making it as public as possible--something we wouldn't have been so eager to do otherwise--would be the best way to get others to consider what they can do to help the many people still suffering in Tohoku.
When one member of our team mentioned to a coworker that we planned to go to Tohoku, the coworker said skeptically, "What are you going to do, stand there and hand out bentos [lunches] to victims?" A lot of people seem doubtful that volunteers can go to Tohoku and have a meaningful, positive effect. They are wrong.
We saw various kinds of volunteers in action in Ishinomaki, where we spent most of our time. Some people were there from far away working earnestly, but unfortunately for organizations that seemed more interested in taking pictures of their activities than in actually carrying out effective relief. Some came and were willing to do anything, but had neglected to plan their trips well and bring the supplies necessary to avoid burdening others. Some did it right. At the risk of striking an arrogant tone, we did it right. We spent ten days carefully considering our supply needs, the relief needs of the disaster victims, what equipment would best help us do meaningful work, and how we could channel the resources of organizations (primarily the LDS Church) while remaining flexible enough to adapt as circumstances required, and then spent a lot of time buying or borrowing those supplies while arranging to set aside our affairs for a week. Raleigh and Sam coordinated with their respective law firms and wives to get time off from work and family, and got amazing support from all of those parties.
Before the trip, and then in the course of events, we learned that the two main ways we could help were (1) manual labor on behalf of disaster victims and (2) the matching of LDS resources to evacuation shelter needs.
The labor consisted of helping residents of the Watanoha community of Ishinomaki City remove debris from homes where they wished to continue living. While areas such as Kesennuma and Onagawa had large neighborhoods that were swept away completely, the Watanoha area saw most homes flooded from one to three meters high, but with many still salvageable. The damage and debris were immense, but many victims wanted to stay, so we found a role in helping them get moving toward recovery. Of course, we knew we couldn't fix even one house completely. However, we found that if we could remove the largest obstacle (other than vehicles, which for safety and strength reasons we didn't touch) to the cleanup--a car garage or shed that floated into their yard and blocked removal of smaller debris, or a waterlogged piano that they couldn't remove from the living room--they would be able to see a light at the end of tunnel and gain some momentum from our short, labor-concentrated push.
The necessity of matching resources and needs became apparent as we saw a lot of supplies in Sendai but insufficient information on up-to-the-minute shelter needs. Basically, supplies and funds were ready, but the nature of the situation required people to physically go to a shelter, find the person/people in charge, and ask them what they needed (then, further, physically go to Sendai and bring back the supplies in many cases). There were few people doing this. Since I was the only licensed driver on the team, I often made supply or shelter reconnaissance runs while Sam and Raleigh worked around the neighborhood. This meant I was sometimes deprived of the exquisite 8:00 pm sleep of the fatigued worker, but I did get chances to sing loudly in the car by myself.
Here is how the truck looked loaded before being covered with a tarp. We spent a lot of time planning what to bring by e-mail and phone--we didn't want to bring unnecessary items, but we didn't want to get to Tohoku and wish we'd brought a certain tool. The list of things I brought in the truck:
150L gasoline 60L drinking water 50m rope 30 bananas Several loaves bread (sunflower seed, raisin, wheat, white, rye) (more bread can be sent to Sendai for us with one day notice) 3 cans Chip Star 5 pkgs tiny cookies 2 pkgs Country Ma'am cookies 1kg indv. wrapped peanut chocolate 20 100g packs kakinotane 48 nature valley granola bar two-bar packs 3 mop-handled squeegees 5 shovels (4 square, 1 round) 1 broom 1 cordless drill 1 chainsaw3 buckets 1 3-man tent 1 50m extension cord with 4 outlets (for charging if we spend time in a powered location) 2 pairs steel toed rain boots 1 pair steel toed sneakers100s of wet wipes (from a friend) 1 gallon grape juice 5 cans fruit 6 pairs work/cold gloves 36 rolls toilet paper 30 rags 4 lighters 1 3.5-ton hydraulic jack 1 mechanic's toolkit 3 3x5m tarps 5 bungee cords 1 3m ladder (1.5m folded in half) 2 2x3m reflective thin bedrolls 1 sleeping bag 1 container gatsby face wipes1 container alcohol hand sanitizer 25m packing tape 1 Tohoku roadmap 1 crappy lighter to outlet adapter 1 netbook pc 1 music player fm radio adapter/USB charger 1 large jar chunky peanut butter 2 medium jars strawberry jam 2kg smoked bacon410g sliced cheese 2 gas siphoning thingys (1 battery-powered, one manual) 1L chainsaw Chain oil 2L two cycle oil (for chainsaw) 25 small paper plates 40 paper cups 100m Saran wrap 1 larger container Black Black gum (caffeine) 100pcs candy for kids 30 mouth/nose masks 3 sets raingear 10 pairs packaged socks
2 weapons-grade crowbars
The crowbars were purchased by me at Raleigh's behest on my final trip to the home improvement store (Cainz Home). They proved to be arguably the most useful thing we had. Crowbars are amazing.
Raleigh and Sam also both brought several important items. Perhaps the greatest of these were the several salamis Sam brought.
The truck with tarp, at a rest area on the way to Sendai. The truck was impeccable. It got us around easily, had 4wd for rough patches, got well over 30 miles per gallon, and held as much as we needed at any given time. I borrowed it from a friend of a fellow parliamentary aide. It is owned by a Buddhist temple, whose leader was very happy to have it used for humanitarian service, and had no problems with it getting a little banged up in the process. I was a little nervous to be driving with 150L of gasoline directly behind me along stretches of Fukushima and Miyagi where the expressway had significant earthquake damage, but the truck ran perfectly.
At first, the three of us got around by having one person in the back, under the tarp, in the manner Raleigh is pictured here. Then the 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit on the evening of the first night we were there, and thereafter we squeezed into the very small cab so we could keep on the same page for decision-making and information sharing. This is as good a place as any to point out how lucky I was to have two very smart people to turn to for good judgment and situation assessment. That they are both lawyers was forgivable in such circumstances. I felt like our team was very well balanced, with each member bringing valuable assets.
The damage started to become apparent once we got into the areas of Ishinomaki City which are closer to the coast. Most restaurants and other businesses were shut, though a few remained in operation.
In one family's yard, Sam found a taiko drum owned by the junior high school that lies about a kilometer away toward the ocean. The family planned to give it back to the school, of course.
This cat was swept away by the tsunami, only to return three days later, despite being 16 years old! It sat blocking my path when I was hauling stuff out of their yard, and did not budge when I walked toward it in a "get out of my way, cat" way. Now I realize the cat's tsunami experience far outweighed any fear I could put into it.
Sam working to dismantle the roof of a shed. This was taken after he and Raleigh had removed all the sheet metal and outer panels to get to the skeleton. The crowbars were indispensable to get to this point. As you can see, we had to work in some precarious positions, but we were lucky enough to avoid any major falls. I nearly fell off one shed we were dismantling, but my protruding belly caught on a beam and saved me. Thanks are in order to each of my favorite ramen shops.
Here Sam chainsaws a piano in half so we can get it out of the living room window. It was a very solidly built, expensive player piano. We used crowbars to get at the insides and removed a lot of screws with the cordless drill before having to cut it in half.
The 60-year-old man at this house was not its owner--he said his older sister was. We didn't see her around. There were two cute little boys playing out front, one five and one three. They were horsing around in the wreckage, and when we started working, they followed us around, watching with great interest as we worked using our tools, the way little boys do.
In the course of working, I asked where the man was from. He said he and the boys were both from Onagawa, a coastal area to the north that was hit much harder than Ishinomaki. He said their house had been completely swept away, and that the two boys' mother had not been seen since, meaning that she was very likely killed. This hit me really hard, and I had to turn away for a minute and try to gain composure, wiping away tears as I thought about these boys that had just lost their mom but were now following us around with admiration. The man had a hard time keeping the boys out of the street and the dangerous debris as he worked to fix the house.
Once we got the piano apart and dumped the heavy piece with the exposed strings onto a pile, the older boy started to bang on them and make piano-like sounds. He quickly figured out how to bang out rough melodies of kids' songs, and asked his little brother, "What song do you want me to play for you?" I wanted to hug them both and tell them things would be okay, but I had no idea if that was true.
This home had a piano (center left), a freight truck (upper right), a forklift (lower right; one of the heaviest items on earth), and a roof from some building in it. We came in contact with the family through the wife, who saw us working on another yard a street or two over and begged us to come help remove at least the piano and roof. When we began working there, the husband came out and really dove into it. He smelled like alcohol. I don't know about their situation, of course, but putting the wife's urgency and his state together, I wouldn't be surprised if they had felt overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to cleaning, and kind of got stuck wondering what to do. As I mentioned, we were well aware that we could work for one week on one house and not finish it, but if we could come in and remove the biggest, toughest obstacle (excluding cars--too heavy and too dangerous to push out of perches since they contain gasoline), the family would get some momentum and hopefully finish things on their own.
The chainsaw was another item we were sure could only end with us either very relieved to have brought it or guffawing that we'd brought such a useless, cumbersome tool. It turned out to be the former. The man of this house related to me that he'd had a chainsaw just like ours, but it had been washed away with all his tools. He was crestfallen to have lost his tools, and by extension, a large part of his ability to remedy his own problems.
We stayed next to an ad hoc shelter called Negishi Kaikan, which was a small meeting hall. It was tiny, but housed 60-70 people, only two of whom were children. The girl pictured here was named Himawari (12), and her little sister was named Anna (9). They were lively and probably very bored with life in such cramped quarters. We gave them piggy back rides and treats from time to time. They had two pet parakeets that they kept in a shed next to the shelter and fed potato chips. We went to their home one day and helped the father, who was a fisherman, remove their soaked tatami mats. This was a job we helped with at many houses. I estimate that soaked tatami mats weigh around 300 pounds.
After we finished, we sat down in his house and listened to him talk about his experience. He was on a fishing boat when the earthquake happened. He saw strange ripples in the sea that indicated a seismic event. In the ensuing tsunami, their propellers became entangled with fishing nets, which paralyzed their boat. Eventually (after a few days) they were rescued by another fishing vessel and got to return to land and find out about their families. His wife and daughters were fine.
When we got back to our campsite, 12-year-old Himawari asked, "Did you see my house?" I said I did, and she said, "It used to be cute, but now it's not." I told her I thought it was a nice house. She then revealed plans to go shopping for new stuff and do everything in pink this time. She seemed ashamed of her house's condition but excited to fix it.
Our camp. The two temporary toilets to the right were unused by the evacuees, so we used them. If you look directly above the smaller tent, you can see the crows' nest that served as our de facto 5:30 am alarm clock. You can also see the blooming plum tree above the larger tent. The place was actually really nice; it had trees and flowers and rice fields. I will visit Ishinomaki in the future just to enjoy it properly.
One of the said piggyback rides. Anna looked on laughing, which was of course the point. On another day, Himawari and her dad left together in their car. She was dressed up and had a shiny purse. I don't know where they were going--maybe to start school--but Himawari seemed really excited to go out with her dad somewhere. Since he's a fisherman, I imagine there are times where he's not around, so spending time with her dad must be a really fun thing.
This graveyard was next to Minato Elementary School, to which we delivered supplies from the LDS Church. Seeing cars piled on graves was a surreal, sad sight, and it was even more discouraging to think about how low a priority fixing it would have to be.
Geographical surveys indicate that the land in many affected areas has sunk. This, combined with high seasonal tides, placed this road under a foot or so of salt water. Crews worked hard to raise the road bed with fill as we came through several times.
Coming back from one of my supply runs, I hit a traffic jam and found myself across from some US Army personnel. They were really friendly, and I enjoyed a handshake with the soldier that had his arm out the window. They had been in Tohoku for 3.5 weeks, so pretty much since right after the disaster hit. Great people.
One of the supply runs I made was to get 80 liters of milk and 300 eggs for Minato Elementary. I had called this order into the LDS church in Sendai just 16 or so hours earlier, and Brother Joji Suzuki had miraculously procured the items, both of which were unavailable in Sendai, from other parts of Japan. The folks running the LDS church relief efforts were extremely capable and helpful, and they gave no thought to whether the people they assisted or worked with were church members or not. They simply worked hard to help everyone.
After making a couple of supply runs for shelters in Ishinomaki, I asked the bureaucrat at Minato Elementary if he could issue us a document certifying our vehicle as an official aid vehicle exempt from expressway tolls. He hemmed and hawed, saying it would take two days to get, and explained a kafkaesque procedure for doing so. The person in charge of supplies, a scruffy guy named Endo who was missing several teeth, was standing next to me, trying to assist in my quest for certification. I got impatient (okay, pissed) at the bureaucrat and said "That's Japan's problem--people starve while bureaucrats make procedures." Endo-san then also piled on the poor official, and together we hounded him into calling City Hall and making the people there crank out a certificate immediately. We went there and picked it up, and Raleigh and Sam took this picture as I emerged victorious.
In the meantime, we had found out that my advocate, Endo-san, had lost his home and everything he owned, except his mobile phone, in the tsunami. He told us--in the presence of the said bureaucrat, to whom we had shown an increase of love and befriended--that he felt bad for living in the shelter and eating the food there, but all he could do to earn his keep was work to make sure the other evacuees got supplies. I felt pretty small in his presence, and if I had met him on the street under normal circumstances, I am afraid I wouldn't have been able to see his greatness. His righteous indignation toward red tape destroyed any justification for following silly procedures.
Raleigh cuts his chainsawing teeth. One might wonder why we were cutting trees; a lot of them had collapsed brick walls leaning against them, or just needed to be removed to expedite cleaning, so the owners asked to have them cut. Obviously, the difference in effort and time between chainsawing a tree down and cutting it with a hand saw is significant.
Teamwork. It's what's for dinner.
Sam sat down for a very short break while he and I waited for Raleigh. "What was Raleigh doing?", you ask? He was extricating us from a home with three very happy lady customers that wanted to feed us (sushi, we think). Our rule was not to take anything from anyone. We probably offended a couple people, but we felt really strongly that taking food or drink was inappropriate.
Rows of houses meant giant rows of debris waiting for a yet-to-be determined pickup by the city.
The lady who arranged a lot of work for us as the de facto leader of the Negishi shelter, Koza-san, asked us to help at her house after we'd finished all the other work for others that she could muster. Her place was on the very edge of where the tsunami hit, meaning a great deal of trash, plant material, and other debris got plunked down in her yard. While most areas we worked had been searched for bodies, she told us this area had not. We didn't find any, or really go out of our way to look. Koza-san had four cats, one of which is in the center-left of the photo and named Ichigo Daifuku, for his/her resemblance to the eponymous Japanese confection.
This house had drifted into one lane of traffic on a major road.
It's hard to see here, but Raleigh was perched in a very precarious position, trying to crowbar boards and dismantle this tangle of wreckage that rested against a house and on top of a truck.
Sam working on the left, Raleigh working on the right. notice the truck wedged on the left between two homes. How it got there was the subject of spirited theorizing by relief workers and victims alike. We removed large structures and debris entanglements to uncover both the truck at left and car at right.
The owner of the house at far right, Abe-san, with Sam and Raleigh. We spent an entire day on his house and the one to its left, owned by a man named Matsumoto-san. We felt closer to Abe-san than perhaps any other person we helped. He lived alone and had no family, and talked about moving to a landlocked prefecture like Gunma. His neighbor and good friend, Matsumoto-san, tried to talk him out of it. We could hear a sadness in Matsumoto-san's voice as he tried to keep his friend from leaving. Their heavily accented conversation in Tohoku dialect was pretty poignant to hear.
Abe-san and Matsumoto-san got us to break our food/drink rule, mainly because Abe-san went and got yakisoba especially for all of us. We knew it was time to just take it and enjoy it when he showed up with food in hand and made it known he'd be really mad if we didn't partake.
Sam, Abe-san, me, and Dave. Dave had planned to come up with us originally, but then contracted a nasty illness that delayed his arrival. He came on Wednesday and stayed until Saturday. Unlike us, he came alone and stayed by himself in the tent. I really admire his determination to get to Tohoku and help people despite being very busy with a new job and just getting over a sickness.
The pants I am wearing are silly, I know. But they are the pants worn by construction professionals in Japan. I found that when I showed up to a shelter wearing these clothes and a helmet and asked about their needs, the people in charge could see from my gear and filthiness that I was serious and working hard. That gained their trust quickly and helped us to work efficiently.
My obligatory commemorative photo on the last day. A week without showering or changing clothes had me feeling very manly and itchy.
The team.
On the morning of April 7, as I drove through Tokyo on the way to Sendai, I saw a beautiful sunrise. My feelings at the time were admittedly cheesy and sentimental. I love Japan. The Japanese nation and its people have treated me so well, and have provided me with many of the things I cherish in life. I am unabashedly proud to have done something for Japan during its greatest crisis. As I drove through Tokyo on the way home, I saw the sun setting and took the above picture. It was a nice bookend to the sunrise.
Below are some videos of the wreckage. They give some idea of how widespread it was. We could have gotten a lot more video, but we tried not to film things when people were around. Like the photos, they were all taken on my iPhone, so quality is low.
We went to the Kesunnuma Voluneer Center (VC) and went through the registration/orientation process. Processes sound like a pain, but at this point, I think anyone going to help is best off going through a VC. They supply tools, a variety of places to go and help according to each volunteer's ability, and parking and tent sites. They have English-speakers around and do not require Japanese language ability. In other words, go there and do some work, please.
This is the poster they had out showing the volunteer process. It reads (approximately--wish I knew a good translator):
A large shed had been washed up against the house to the left, the house to the right, and the car hidden behind the shed, which had of course also been washed in. The shed had large bags of ruined rice in it--a good reminder that food storage is probably best stored somewhere that won't get flooded/washed away/etc, if possible. Probably not possible in this case, of course.
Here you see Raleigh and Sam working on the debris, after we'd dismantled the shed that was previously in front of the car at right.
Another shot of where we were after dismantling the shed and other large stuff, but still with cars.
How Abe-san's house looked when I went back--Abe-san was unfortunately gone, so I didn't get to congratulate him on the amazing progress. He clearly worked his butt off to get it this nice.
Our assigned volunteer location in Kesunnuma was an abacus school. We cleaned the second floor, where this photo was taken. You can see that the water line would have reached my chest, even on the second floor. The building survived because it had a solid steel frame.
An elementary school backpack.
A telephone pole with the lower part of its concrete exterior ripped away to reveal the steel reinforcement. Lots of these around.
An emergency radio/flashlight amid the debris.
A ship on top of a building. 
Two ships smashed against one another and on top of a building. Pretty astounding to see in person.
Dustin under one of the ships.
Another ship--you can see on the left where the owner has taped a cardboard sign to denote who owns the ship. I have no idea if the ship could ever sail again, much less be transported the few hundred meters back to the ocean. 
The railroad tracks near Shishiorikarakuwa Station. The bend in the tracks in the distance is quite jarring to me--not sure if there was a train right there when the quake hit or what.
The largest ship we could see around--it had to be (100? 50?) yards long. Look on the aerial view to see its distance from the sea.
Here Sam chainsaws a piano in half so we can get it out of the living room window. It was a very solidly built, expensive player piano. We used crowbars to get at the insides and removed a lot of screws with the cordless drill before having to cut it in half.
