It also changed my life.

But not right away. It wasn’t until 3 months after the disaster that I made my way up to Tohoku. I can still remember the very long car ride up there. I was worrying a little bit about my finances, as this trip was something I had not planned for, but I figured I would make up the money I spent by taking on some extra classes teaching English when I got back to Osaka.

But it never really worked out that way. I never made up that money, but I gained experiences which are, to me, infinitely more valuable.

If you have never been to the 被災地 (disaster zone), I promise you, you don’t understand how things are here. And having visited, you still won’t be able to understand what it’s like to live here. But even living here, I will never be able to fully understand what it was like to be here for the disaster.

It’s something I consider to be a sensitive subject. Not everyone does, and plenty of people are willing to tell you their experiences. But I’ve just never felt the need to ask. To be honest, I find it to be the very definition of morbid curiosity. To ask someone to relieve what was most likely the worst day of their life.

But I have had experiences shared with me. And quite honestly, it’s terrifying.

When I was watching TV back in Osaka looking at the tsunami, it didn’t really mean anything to me. I’m sure my brain could understand that it was terrible, but I couldn’t really relate to it.

But when someone tells you about the water rushing into their house, and they can point at the still visible line where the water settled? That’s truly horrific.

Today is, for many, a day of remembrance. Millions of people no doubt took a moment to think about the disaster of 2 years ago.But here in Ishinomaki, memorial ceremonies aside, it’s business as usual. People keep moving. And that’s the real point of this post.

Action.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all those people who not only took a moment, but took action.

A quick google brings up this definition of the word action

Action – The fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim

You don’t have to have come to Tohoku and gotten muddy to be counted amongst those who acted. To those who spent fundraised, donated, raised awareness and in general did what they could despite being unable to come yourself, the difference you make is huge.

This is not specific to INJM. There are millions of you out there. People who took action. 

I don’t know you. I won’t ever meet you. And I don’t know what you did. But still, I feel thankful. Because I have seen the results of actions like yours.

And I also know first hand how hard it can be to help people when you don’t have the support.

A few days ago, Choco’s car made a funny noise. I instantly recognized that noise as having something to do with her fan belt, which was most likely slipping. I know this because for what feels like the longest time, the biggest car INJM had to transport volunteers was a 4 seater kei car (red), which had the same problem. And this was when we had a lot of volunteers everyday. It was amazing when we finally saved up enough money to purchase an 8 seater, which was only possible because of the support from those people of action.

Of course, my point of view is that of a volunteer. The help we receive allows us to help others. It’s might be a bit different from that of someone who lived through the disaster, and received aid themselves.

But I feel it’s important to share it. Because we (volunteers) are the lucky ones. We are the ones who get thanked, we receive the heartfelt hugs, we get the wonderful memories that can only be made here.

But it’s only possible because of you.

Actually writing this from the road. We left early this morning, aiming to reach Osaka today so that Yannick can rest up for tomorrows 14 hour drive. I, as a non driver, have the task of keeping Yannick awake for the drive, and making him take breaks. Something I am very well suited for. Got to feel sorry for Yannick though, two days trapped in a car with only me to talk to…

We are very sad to be leaving Kyushu. Not only because of all the lovely people we’ve met and helped/worked along side, but because there’s still work to do there. If it wasn’t for a certain truck driver who destroyed a certain NPO’s Delica, we would just be rotating in members instead of leaving. But without an appropriate vehicle, we have little choice in the matter. Grrr.

We did a lot of physical labour in Kyushu. The mud shovelling, sandbagging and house tear down stuff was easy to predict. But something I really want to talk about is the amount of really boring stuff like moving furniture and tidying up sheds we did. And how important I think it is.

The youngest home owner we helped was in her fifties. The oldest was 95. The vast majority of the rest fell on the greyer side of their sixties.

I’m generally happy to do more or less anything to help out, but I get huge amounts of satisfaction when I move heavy stuff for old people. It might because I was very close to my own grandmother, I dunno. But I remember leaving one persons house after Colin and myself had moved some heavy stuff (chests of drawers, old TV which weighs over 100kg, a safe), and saying to him “man.. it was easy for us but it would have been impossible for her and her friend to do..”.
It’s the same for tidying up sheds. Like elderly people EVERYWHERE, the obachan and ojisan in Aso love to hoard everything. Which isn’t really a problem until a landslide messes it all up and you need to throw stuff out/tidy it up. And when you have a lots of wood in your shed (and EVERYONE has LOTS of wood in their shed), it becomes a mammoth task.

This isn’t something you can ask the city to help you with. Which is understandable. And as the community is all elderly, the neighbours can’t really help much either. Kids are in their sixties, not that great at heavy labour. Grandkids are in University, or simply not around. So there’s not really anyone to rely on.

In the month + we were in Kyushu, we become close with the community we worked in. While we didn’t know everyone, everyone recognised us as volunteers and thanked us for coming. While the fact that most of our volunteers weren’t Japanese, everyone treated us very warmly, to the extent that I really feel moved by it.

I’ll miss everyone all the friends I made in Aso, but I’ll definitely go back one day to say hi, and eat some more Aso beef too.

Thanks to everyone who supported us, both financially and with their best wishes, to our team in Miyagi who had to work extra hard to pick up the slack we left when we left and to all the volunteers we worked with.

Edit – Argh! I forgot to click publish! This should have been posted last week! Sorry everyone!

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INJM are calling for more volunteers to come to Kyushu, but only those who are able to arrange their own transportation and accommodation. If this is you, then please check out this page for more info on volunteering in Kyushu.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the photos below!

- Jamie

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Lee san has left the building! He has other commitments in Ishinomaki, so couldn’t stay here and play with us in Kyushu any longer. He worked here for 2 weeks, doing the same very physical work of guys half his age. Thanks for all the hard work buddy!

Our host Rene wanted to show Lee the sights in Aso (we hadn’t done any exploration of the beautiful scenery, just admired it on the way to and from work), so took us on a tour of the most famous site here, the volcano.

I don’t usually post pictures from off days (they would just be pictures of us sleeping), but these were too beautiful not to share. Please enjoy some of the beautiful sights Aso has to share!

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I’m very happy to say that today we were joined by Mio, one of our volunteers who was with us for four months in Ishinomaki last year!

Below you can see a lot of pictures, but let me just talk about the mud for a moment. I’ve shovelled plenty of mud in my team, but today was the first time in a long time that i’ve shovelled really thick wet mud while standing inside it. Which sounds really specific. That’s how much mud I’ve shovelled!

It’s the type which makes a noise when you lift it up (kind of like a reverse squelch sound, if that makes ANY sense at all..). It’s very easy to get stuck in, I almost fell over a few times today (luckily, there were plenty of people around to point and laugh)! It also has the awesome characteristic of being a bit runny, which means that it gets onto your shovel handle. That, in combination to being quite heavy, significantly increases the chances of you (and by you I mean me) accidentally punching myself in the face when shovelling by quite a lot. Allow me to explain in more detail:

A lot of force is needed to lift the shovel when it’s full of mud (i’m talking about when the mud is in some kind of mud vacuum/black hole, regular mud diggers will know what I’m talking about) , and when the handle of that shovel is covered in mud and is slippery, and you’re wearing gloves, it’s really easy for your hand to slip off. And punch yourself in the face.

Enjoy the pictures!

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The work in Kyushu continues. It gets pretty hot down here, so we have to be very careful not to dehydrate! Luckily we’ve been working indoors over the past few days, so we’ve had some shelter from the sun. There’s maybe one day of work left at Ino san’s house, tidying up stuff, and then we will move on, leaving lots of repair work to do for the builders who will come in once we leave. We took these pictures over the course of a few days.

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We’ve been down in Kyushu for a while now, but there has been very few updates on the website! Sorry! It’s not that we aren’t doing anything, nor is it that we don’t want to let you know whats going on, rather it’s that it’s just so much easier to upload pictures and stuff on Facebook! No excuse, I know! We’ve found a great plugin (that’s a magical website tool to the less geeky) which allows us to easily show the photos we’ve been taking and share them on our website. We will add an additional page under our Kyushu relief operation, and update it regularly, as well as update our front page when we make updates!

Enjoy!

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I know not everyone likes to look at Facebook (if you’re one of those people who have managed to resist joining Facebook, kudos to you, you’re stronger than I am), so for you people, here are some pics you might have missed from the last month, as well as some you might not have seen yet! Please click on them for the full captions/descriptions.

These are pictures taken by me (Jamie), if you want to see a lot more, you should definitely like our Facebook page, and join our Facebook group. The group has lots of silly pictures and “in” jokes from our daily life, but it’s definitely worth joining if you’ve ever worked with us, or are going to, and want to know what you are getting in to!

Or at least, to this website.

The first post on this site (which can be found by clicking here) was made a year ago. INJM has no official birthdate (we were registered first as a volunteer group, then later as an NPO pending official status, and then as an official NPO), but I’m going to observe our birth as the first time new content was put onto this domain.

One year ago I was preparing to dive into an adventure, definitely something which was out of my comfort zone. That adventure took me I’ll take this opportunity to reminince over the last year, and then at the end, maybe (definitely) make some appeals regarding current INJM activities. It’s going to be a long post, so I suggest setting aside a bit of time to read it. Or skipping to the bottom for the tl;dr version (several thousand words compressed into a sentence or two).

It’s hard to decide where to start. So let’s start at the beginning (a very good place to start).

I first came to the　被災地　(area affected by a disaster) over a year ago, in late May 2011. The decision to come at all was pretty impulsive. I just jumped at it. When the time to go actually came around, I realized that the trip would probably eat quite a lot into my bank account, but didn’t want to back out at the last minute. I’m very glad I didn’t. Without a doubt, it’s the experiences I had in May which made me want to come back. Actually it made me not want to leave…

When I got back to Osaka, I started trying to get everything sorted for my next trip (I didn’t know that it would turn into me moving here, in my mind it was just “trip 2″, and my early posts are tagged as such). Little did I know that there would never be a trip 3. Making a new website specifically for this blog was one of the first things I did, but before I could even start, I had to think of a name. Big thanks to all the friends who helped me decide on this one, as a name for a blog, it works very well. For an NPO? Meh, maybe not as well. But there are even sillier sounding NPO’s out there, so I guess it’s ok.

I clearly remember my first few days in Ishinomaki. I spent a lot of my free time with Souji, a young Japanese boy who had arrived on the same day as me. I think having someone to spend time with helped keep me sane, although often times we would just be sitting side by side surfing the internet/blogging (I was the blogger).

But after those first few days, everything else starts to blend together. I did the normal work in the day and PC stuff in the evening. While I still remember pretty much every place I worked that summer, I have no sense of time about it. It all just blends into “Summer”.

Something I made a point of (and still make a point of) doing was putting myself out there. Letting people know what I was doing. Twitter/FaceBook were in use from very early on. YouTube too. And of course this site. Someone told me that I’d be able to do a lot more by keeping this site updated, connecting people from the outside to those in Ishinomaki. And I took that advice and just went crazy with it. And then I said to the internet “Hey, why not come and join me?”.

There were no grand designs, or any designs at all. There was just a lot of stuff to do, and a need for people. Knowing how hard it was to come without knowing anyone, I thought I’d make it that little bit easier for them. I was also doing what I could to help connect those who were able to offer assistance to those who needed it. It’s something I (and we) still do, the idea being that goal is not to help ourselves, but the people/communities of Tohoku. There is a long list of different organizations we have worked with, sometimes with small things, sometimes with big things. I’m glad that we’ve been able to keep our egos in reign, and keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak. And it’s this mindset that has allowed us to, for the most part, stay clear of the pointless bickering and chest thumping that unfortunately does go on between various NPOs/NGOs/volunteer groups.

I was incredibly fortunate to meet amazing people who not only pushed me to work hard and to dream bigger, but who threw their lot in with me. If not for Marci, Manish and Masae, INJM wouldn’t exist in it’s current incarnation. While I might officially be the top dog, the truth is, I am the only one who could be replaced. Without Marci’s organizational skills, Manish’s inhuman work ethic or Masae’s inexhaustible supply of energy and enthusiasm, INJM would not have gotten very far. They are the men behind the curtain, making all the magic happen. I am merely the handsome face of the operation. And some wouldn’t even give me that much.

On top of our wonderful directors, we have had amazing long term volunteers and “staff”.

I think the majority of people out there won’t fully appreciate the amount of work they actually do. Even if you’ve volunteered yourself, I can assure you,  you don’t know how hard these people work. While we’d like to put a million pictures up a day, and write long rambling posts, it’s not possible. We’re just too busy. All of us. A fairly typical day for a team leader might be:

• Wake up.
• Maybe pick someone up from the station.
• Eat.
• Prepare equipment for the day.
• Get your team out the house, drive to work site (8am departure).
• Work. Break. Work. Lunch. Work. Drive home.
• Make sure people get to the onsen / Cook dinner. Sometimes both.
• Eat.
• Make sure dishes get washed by someone.
• Check the next days schedule.
• Make sure anyone who is leaving that day gets to the station.
• Go to bed.

With the addition of more long term volunteers, now there is a chance of taking a day off. But there were times when days off were few and in-between. And this is an environment where you are sharing a house with relative strangers, often times 20+ at a time. Which can be tiring, to say the least.

For our staff/long term volunteers, both past and present, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. To say that you are vital cogs in the INJM organization would be an under statement. Without you, we simply would be unable to function. More or less everyone who lives in Japan or knows Japanese will know the phrase お疲れ様です. We use it a lot in Japan, but it wasn’t until I came to Tohoku did I really start to feel it. Words which I have said thousands of times only now have real meaning to me. To all the amazing long term volunteers and staff of INJM, お疲れ様です。

I also need to thank our supporters. Your support has come in all forms. Of course, there are those who are have made monetary donations, but there are also those who have supported us in other ways.. You’ve translated documents/webpages, had a look at project proposals, given advice, shared our Facebook posts, retweeted our twitter updates, attended fundraisers, held fundraisers for us, donated your professional services to us, sent biscuits, told your friends about us, the list is endless. Thank you. If the INJM team are the engine, you are the ones who both figuratively and literally fuel us. We aren’t a big organization. We don’t have any sponsors or corporate backers (although we would welcome some!!!!!). If it weren’t for you and your support, we wouldn’t be here. This isn’t an exaggeration or some sort of lip service, this is a fact. Again, thank you.

I have many memories which stand out, but here are some which stand out to me. Some will have featured on the blog but the majority will be new (but not news) to most.

I remember:

• The antiseptic spray I used on my shoulder when a lot of the skin got torn off it after a bicycle accident. And the pain that followed after applying that spray to aforementioned shoulder.
• The first trip to the JSDF bath.
• The trip to the hospital for a punctured lung, and the painful long walk back from the hospital.
• The pillow I got from Virginia “Because you don’t have one, but you should have one”. I still use it, should probably wash it actually.
• Finding Maltesers in my tent when I came back from a long day.
• Long hot summer days covered in mud.
• Bubbles!
• The time my tent collapsed on me due to typhoon winds.
• Buying over 30 gari gari kun to share with volunteers to celebrate Oide san lending us his house.
• Meeting the people who would make up the members of my “local” family.
• A very cold winter.
• The incredible happiness I felt when we got running hot water in Oide sans house after camping all summer.
• Playing frisbee at sunset in a flooded soccer field after a typhoon.
• Being moved to tears at the happiness I felt that I had studied sign language when meeting an old lady who was deaf, and hadn’t been able to have a conversation with anyone for months.

I’ll stop the list here, as I can just keep on going..

Since the first volunteers with INJM came up, there’s always been an INJM presence in Ishinomaki. Which is a pretty huge achievement. While many other organizations were shutting down during holiday periods, INJM was crammed full of people who wanted to use their time off to support those in Tohoku. And we managed to do it not with a lot of staff, or huge funding, but with blood, sweat and more than a few times, tears. And with the help of thousands of people from around the world.

Amazing.

__________________________

And now, it’s appeal time.

15 months on from 3/11, there is still work to be done. And we still want to do it. And to do so, we need your help. Although INJM doesn’t charge people to volunteer with us, we do request they donate 500yen a day to go towards operations costs. But the truth is, that only covers a fraction of the real cost. Here is an approximate breakdown of SOME our costs, based on the average costs we incurred during January-April 2012, supporting an average of 3400 volunteer-hours per month:

• Transportation (fuel, insurance, maintenance) – ¥190,000 / month
• Tools (rent, purchase & maintenance) – ¥35,000 / month
• Food – ¥125000 / month
• Gas (heating, cooking) – ¥34000 / month
• Volunteer house maintenance – ¥26000 / month
• Water – ¥20000 / month
• Electricity – ¥15000 / month

Given the amount of work we do, these costs are actually pretty low. But without your help, we can’t cover them.

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this..

Please check INJM’s current donation drive by clicking here!!

Not only do your donations allow us to operate (by paying for our costs and projects), a large amount of the money goes to local businesses. Whenever we can, INJM uses locally owned businesses. Not only does it help the local economy in a healthy way, it’s often times cheaper than the big chains.

Click on this link to see some of the local businesses INJM uses regularly!!

As always, even if you aren’t in a position to support INJM financially, please spread the word!

Thanks for taking the time to read this extra long birthday post.

And as promised, for those who don’t have the time to read the whole post, the tl;dr version!

TL;DR: +1 year. Yay. Good job everyone. Need money plz. TY.