Saturday April 16, 2011 Reinforcements, Recalcitrant Pianos, and Refrigerators

Yasusuke Kashiwa, Peter Thomson, Gavin and Hiro arrived in two vans from Osaka. I added my small assortment of vegetables to the produce, rice, tuna, natto (fermented soybeans--very popular), etc brought up in the vans. Also threw on wheelbarrows, buckets, shovels, and gloves. Picked up Chihiro in Ishinomaki. Left my sweat shirt behind it was so warm (turned out I would need it later).

First stop: the rojin (old folks) home out near the mouth of the river. We gave them the baseballs and manga comics that Paul had bought for the boy there. Some houses that remained below the rest home were flood and mud damaged and were still (hard to believe the tsunami came over a month ago) being cleaned out, so we left the wheelbarrows, shovels and buckets (turned out we would need them later).

A spring shower blew in as we were leaving. Stopped by the riverside village. The post office was closed, but no one was out in the light rain except for workers shoveling muck out of the concrete trench gutters.

Drove back to Ishinomaki in our caravan of 3 vans and the big truck. Near a neighborhood we'd visited before, we asked some people what they needed and what would be a good place to set up.
They led us to a gravel parking lot where the debris was mostly cleared to a big pile in one corner. By this time the wind was really gusting cold, but we quickly got the blue sheet out and organized the food and clothes and let people start getting their stuff before we had fully sorted it. It was a great drop because we got to the end of the dry goods and food just as the last people went through the line.

Now the wind is really, really gusting (made folding the tarps a real trick), and just as we're putting the last boxes on the truck, a piece of metal roofing comes flying down the street. Peter is standing right in its path, but he doesn't see it. Just before it gets to him, he turns and ducks slightly as it sails by his head. He never saw it. If you don't have a hard hat, it's nice to know that God is watching over his servants, even amateurs.

A scoop loader was picking up debris and putting it into a dump truck. We decided to walk the neighborhood and see if we could help clean up. The single family homes not destroyed by the tsunami were not really habitable.

The first floors probably need to be gutted. But some of the families were there throwing out their furniture--much of it looked ok, but inside they were saturated by polluted mud. The first family that asked for our help had a piano sagging through the floor and wedged against the wall. Complicating things, the floorboards and joists had rotted through over the weeks. All they wanted was the piano out of there. As we discussed the possible odds and ways of tipping up the piano and getting it out the woman began to stress out about someone getting hurt. So--we decided we weren't equipped to do it safely. Piano - 1, Osaka team - 0. We did carry out the curio cabinet, and as she took the photos off, she was trying not to cry.

Next assignment was another house where the refrigerator had floated up onto the oven and gotten wedged against the ceiling. We tried lifting and twisting it in that small, foul smelling kitchen. We were trying to avoid removing the compartment drawers because of their unmentionable contents. Finally we had to face the inevitable and started pulling out drawers and running out to the junk pile, holding our breaths. Poor Beth--got the rottenest drawer of all and nearly gagged. But then we made quick work of the refrigerator and it joined the rest of the debris outside.