I decided to participate because I wanted to go somewhere and do something over Christmas weekend, and as I'd been thinking about volunteering before, it seemed like a perfect chance! I went on a trip organized by Nanohana Bus Company, which I had found out about via work and which I chose because I could get on at Chiba Station instead of Tokyo, which was very convenient. The fee to participate was also fairly low (10000 yen), which included transportation to and from the site, lunch, and even admission into a hot spring!
So after purchasing lots of necessary items (steel-lined rubber boots, work gloves, masks, goggles, bright blue jumpsuit, etc), I headed to Chiba Station on Saturday night, ready to spend the night on the bus before arriving in Miyagi Prefecture in the morning. The bus stopped at a few places including Chiba and Tokyo, slowly filling up with volunteers, most of whom seemed to be participating on their own like me. Because of a last-minute cancellation, I was lucky enough to have the two-seat row to myself, which made it much easier to get comfortable and sleep (though I can really sleep anywhere, haha).
Around 5:30am we stopped at a rest station to have breakfast and get changed (we did stop a couple of times during the night as well), before getting to our final destination around 8! We didn't find out exactly where we were going until shortly before we got there: a town called Minamisanriku (南三陸町), on the coast in Miyagi Prefecture, which suffered a lot of damage in the tsunami last year. According to our guide, the government has officially declared Minamisanriku as recovered, but there is still a long way to go before things can be considered normal again. On our way to our volunteer site, we could see huge piles of rocks and things still scattered about.
When we got to the site, they split us into two groups and assigned each one to a different area. The day's task: uprooting all the grass and plants that had grown over the land and then going through the soil to remove all the glass, trash, rocks, and other random objects that were buried there. We each had a little sickle (which I've never used before), and after a brief explanation, we set right to work! It wasn't easy - they told us to try and totally uproot things when possible and a lot of the plants were settled in pretty tight (I had to admire their tenacity! ), and it was tough to be constantly squatting or bending toward the ground, but the weather was bright and clear and warmer than any of us had expected (I shed several layers as the day went on), and it actually felt really nice to be outside doing some physical labor instead of sitting at a desk all day for a change!
It was also pretty interesting to see what came out of the ground, though thinking about where they had come from and how they had gotten there was also a little sobering at times. There was a lot of broken glass and concrete/cement/rocks, as well as shells, trash, plastic, and pottery fragments. A couple of interesting things I found included an electric toothbrush head and a little Donald Duck charm bracelet, and I even saw a tin lunch box somewhere.
After working for a few hours (with plenty of breaks in between), we had an hour for lunch, which was a buffet of things like yakisoba, fried rice, soup, spaghetti, etc. I had a big appetite after working all morning, and it all tasted delicious! There was a fire going outside and they were even grilling oysters (though I'm not a big fan so I didn't try any).
After lunch we went back to work until about 4pm, when we wrapped up for the day, having cleared almost all of the area they gave us! After we got back on the bus, our guide explained that the work we did, while helpful in its own right, was just as much to help encourage the spirits of the people who lived there to not give up and to keep doing their best to rebuild, which was a really interesting thought. As the earthquake/tsunami happened over a year and a half ago now, the number of volunteers and visitors to the area has definitely decreased, but apparently still having volunteers come out has been motivating to the locals (and hopefully will continue to be!).
Next we drove to the shopping street to have dinner and buy souvenirs, which was pretty cool even though they were all in makeshift buildings. I had ramen for dinner with another lady who was on my volunteer bus, and enjoyed wandering around the little shops before we left for our next destination, the hot spring!
It was a hot spring inside a hotel, and it started to snow as we went inside. The onsen (hot spring) was pretty nice, with several different baths and even a sauna. My favorite part, though, was the outdoor onsen in the midst of heavy snow! It felt pretty amazing to soak after a long day's work and enjoy the beautiful view of the snow falling at the same time. I also got to talk with a few more of the ladies who had volunteered with me, which was cool.
After I left the bath (I can't stay in hot water for too long), there was still some time, so I bought some ice cream at the hotel gift shop and read some manga from the little library they had there (which I thought was pretty cool) while enjoying a live band that was playing Christmas music in the lobby. And then it was back onto the bus for the night ride back to Chiba! I definitely had no problem falling asleep after that, and managed to sleep pretty well until I got back just in time for the first bus back to my apartment.
All in all, it was a really great experience, though short, and like I said, I'm definitely considering doing it again. The earthquake and tsunami may have been over 18 months ago, but there is still so much left to be done, and I hope that people don't forget about it anytime soon.
