Nine Dogs in Ishinomaki

Guest post by Asako Clark

I went back to volunteer in Ishinomaki for the second time this summer for 3 days with one other YIS parent.

The first day it was very hot and we were assigned to a house with the task of removing sludge from the yard. There was no shade and it was over 30 degrees. As a group leader, it was my job to make sure everybody took a break at least every 30 to 40 minutes. Fortunately without my concern, my team mates couldn’t help but take breaks more often as everyone got thirsty very quickly. Actually it was too hot for us to keep moving. When we felt we couldn’t work anymore, we stopped, moved close to the house for a bit of shade, drank water, and tried to cool down. Each of us consumed roughly 4 litres of water per day.

Much of the region is still frozen in time

We were, of course, happy to be there and more than willing to help. The owner of the house was extremely thankful for our help in spite of the heat and brought frozen orange juice for all of us. They didn’t have a working refrigerator so she brought us the juice from the shop. In a way, we felt terrible for accepting her kindness but nothing ever tasted so good.

On the second day, the heat continued so we were sent to another home to wash dishes. The owners were soon to move to their temporary house. They needed our help to wash all of their dishes still covered with mud so they could use them after the move. We washed dishes and other items outside using the garden hose. Unfortunately, the drainage ditches were still filled with sludge and the ground completely saturated so the dirty water couldn’t go anywhere. An unavoidable big pool of dirty dish water quickly formed in front of their house. The owner invited us to have a break with her. She shared senbei (rice crackers) and tea with us. We had no idea what kind of story she had in store for us during that break.

On March 11th she was at home with her elderly mother and her three dachshunds when the earthquake happened. She couldn’t hear the tsunami warning and just thought she should put leashes on her dogs. Suddenly she heard screaming and a strange sound from outside. She looked outside and saw the black water coming. She took her dogs and ran upstairs. The water surged in seconds later. She grabbed her mother and pulled her upstairs also. Two of her neighbors were washed up onto the roof of the house next door. After the water came down slightly, they crossed over the small gap between the roofs and joined them having climbed through a second floor window.

Shortly afterwards, she heard a voice call “Help me!” on the other side of the house. A woman was stuck up in a tree and calling for someone to help her. She told the woman “I can’t come to get you now. But please stay there and I’ll do what I can.” One hour later, the woman had dissappeared. Night fell but around 1am, she heard the woman’s voice again. Almost 12 hours later, the water was still above the first floor. This time she looked outside and saw the same woman who had now swum onto a section of floating debris and was paddling it like a boat toward her house. When she was within reach, the owner and her neighbors got a rope to rescue her. She climbed through a small broken window which cut through her clothes but eventually they were able to pull her inside. It had taken them 3 hours from the time they noticed her paddling toward them to bring her into the house. Only after the woman was safely with them idid they notice they had cut their arms and hands pulling on the rope. Blood was all over the floor.

The water around her house remained high for a full week. They had no food on the second floor but found a box of Macadamia nuts and ate one each day. During those long days, the house owner, her mother, 2 neighbors, the woman they rescued and her 3 dogs waited on the 2nd floor, one person died. The owner kept telling us the story but couldn’t say who it was. She did mention that she had to keep stopping her dogs from licking the body.

When the Japanese Self-Defense Force boat came finally, she asked them to take away the dead body. They were still trying to rescue as many living people as possible so they were told they would have to wait with the body. After more than a week waiting, they were finally rescued and evacuated. They found out the woman they had rescued had lost her two small children and her mother who had been killed running away from the tsunami. Their bodies were found later. The house owner could see her husband 10 days following the earthquake. She was then evacuated with her husband, her mom and 3 dogs to her friend’s house. We almost couldn’t believe it when she added “and then after all of that, one of my dogs gave birth to 6 puppies at my friend’s place. What timing! We were evacuated with 3 but now I have 9 dogs!!!” As she told us this final detail, she was laughing. It was a very shocking and unbelievable story but her dogs gave me and my team members a laugh, too. I didn’t know what to say but she looked bright and that helped us a lot after hearing her tragic story.

When we left her house, she asked us to leave our name and addresses. She said “I don’t know when, but I would like to write you a thank you note when everything settles down.” We left our name and address and told her we would be back in Ishinomaki again.

The third day, we went to clean apartment rooms. Volunteers are, understandably, not permitted to go inside rental houses until both the property owner and tenant give permission. In this case, finally after 4 months, the building owner got in touch with the tenant and we were allowed in to clean. The resident was in his early 20’s and asked our help in finding his photo albums. Time had frozen here since March 11. The inside was a mess. The bed, desk, refrigerator, toilet, books, everything was covered with sludge. It had filled with Ttsunami water inside and the windows had hemorrhaged under the incredible water pressure. A mirror had been crushed in the surge and was shattered all over the floor making clean-up particularly perilous.

Salvaging some memories

The building itself seemed sound enough, but they would need to replace everything. Our mission was move everything out and shovel the sludge from all the rooms – hopefully, we would find something of the photo albums. We took everything out right down to the toilet. We checked every book and inside every box. We hoped to find the albums in the bedroom or living room area… but we didn’t see any sign of his photos. The heat continued unabated and this apartment was very dusty and muddy. We took frequent breaks but were getting very tired.

Even though it was not a big apartment, we worked all morning and thought we would probably need to come back to finish. Right before the noon, one of staff let loose a big scream. “Atta!!!” (I found it!) He found a photo album (a high school year book, in fact) from the bathroom floor! All of us delighted in the news and were so happy to find the photo album that our energy returned and we were able to finish the job that day.

We met some wonderful people while working on that apartment. 4 young people had come from southern Japan to volunteer but hadn’t linked up with any of the volunteer organizations. They helped us carry larger items like the refrigerator and a large kitchen cabinet. Thanks to their help we finished quickly and could start another apartment in which the tenant had unfortunately been killed. We prayed for her before we went inside the room and started our work.

We also had a chance to go to the Hiyoriyama park where many people evacuated when the tsunami happened. It is on the top of a high hill. From that point, we could see a huge area that had been devastated by the tsunami. We prayed again for the victims and looked in awe around the Ishinomaki area. Even though we had been working in the wake of the tsunami all week, it was here that we could begin to appreciate it’s incredible power. A whole town, village and community had been washed away.

Strange as this may sound, I had a wonderful time the day I left Ishinomaki. During my previous visit, I had helped an older couple at their home. For them, we removed muddy tatami mats and furniture from their house. The woman had also told me of her experience following the tsunami on my first visit. She didn’t have enough clothes because she couldn’t go to get them with her bad leg. In my bag, I still had a few clean clothes so I left them all for her and told her I would come back to see her again. Before leaving Ishinomaki on my second trip, I stopped in to see them again. They were living in a small cabin not far from their original house. I had brought some additional clothing for her. She was surprised to see me again, welcomed me in, and served green tea and snacks. We caught up and had a very nice visit.

A month later, I got a twitter message from one of the Peace Boat staff asking me if he could give the woman my phone number. I wrote him back “of course” and a couple of days later, I got a phone call from her. She called to tell me that she would be leaving the next day to have her leg operated on. She said she had wanted to hear my voice before she went into the hospital. It was wonderful to speak with her and we had a nice chat. I wished her luck with her surgery and she wished me luck as well.

She wished me luck…Each day there, now dwindling numbers of volunteers set about helping to clean, repair, and rebuild the community. Then, in spite of inhospitable conditions, the people of Ishinomaki show incredible hospitality. In circumstances where there can appear to be so little to be thankful for, they show tremendous gratitude. In a time where tens of thousands of lives have been fragmented, the enormous difficulty we face in Tohoku brings us all closer together. We are not simply volunteers going to help, we are completing our side of our obligation for hope. The heat, the frozen orange juice, the sharing of unfathomable stories, the photographs miraculously returned, the phone calls, all affirm our connection to one another. I would like to go back there again. In fact, many more of us must continue to go to Tohoku to help if we are to recover. For the volunteers that go, it doesn’t remain just Tohoku anymore, it becomes a place for hope where our friends live…

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