Saturday April 23, 2011 Portable Toilet, Fish Stew, Tatami Mats, and Drowned Rats

Well, the 98 percent chance of rain from yesterday finally arrived. So we put assorted yasai (vegetables) in bags along with two or three other items such as juice or sugar, while we prayed that the rain might let up enough that we could at least pass them out from the back of the van. Today there are six of us: Paul and Ricki Clark, Glen Gibson and his daughter Julie, Beth and Ken. Two cars: the Gibson’s van and the K truck. We won’t be able to lay a blue sheet out, so we set aside a limited assortment of cookstoves, gas canisters, toys, tissues, water jugs, socks, and underwear, for those that might need that sort of thing. As we get it all loaded, including some special request items for specific people, the rain is letting up a bit, so we think, “great!” Plus Maya shows up to help, full of energy.

First stop: delivering the portable toilet with a collapsible tent to cover it and the user. They were so excited—grandpa told us his age—he’s

87—and he lived in Hiroshima during World War II. Anyway, we asked them again if there was anything they needed (8-10 people living on the second floor of the house), and they said maybe if we had some water, and Paul thought we put some on, and Glen says he doesn’t think so, so I’m doubtfully pulling the tarp back, and a truck out of nowhere pulls into this godforsaken parking lot and the guy gets out and says something in Japanese and I say I don’t understand, and then I look at the collapsible water jug that I just pulled out of the K truck and realize that what just pulled up was the local drinking water truck. I carry my jug over and Glen grabs another and the friendly guys fill them for us, and guess what, instead of hoping we might find a couple of two liter bottles of water, now the family gets four gallons. So we’re the heroes for doing essentially nothing, and we say goodbye and walk back to the cars, and the water truck has vanished as mysteriously as it arrived.

Took the charcoal to the temporary shelter in the former JA Bank building, and got a list of some other things they could use. Took blankets and gas stove cartridges to the house where we extricated the shed, then we started driving toward the houses where they told Chad they usually get missed in the distributions. A block away some NPO (non-profit) has set up, but the people told us they only give out emergency supplies, like food rations, etc. As I’m turning right (I couldn’t turn left because a semi trailer was crossways in the street against buildings on both sides), someone in our van behind me yells wait. I pull off, and Beth had just caught a glimpse of a grandma in a back yard carrying something across the yard in the mud. Well, the rain has started up again, and it seems that Yoshiko Chiba and her husband and their grandson Takahiro Oyama had picked this soggy day to start mucking out their house. Wrecked furniture and TVs were piled up against the back wall of the house and mud-soaked tatami mats were sticking out from under everything. The driveway was covered with mud and there was no way the 3 of them were going to be able to carry the dripping, heavy mats by themselves, much less all the big TVs and furniture. I think we worked there for an hour and a half, shoveling the driveway and dragging out all the large stuff.

We’re about done and Julie says, “come look, there’s a dead fish in the washing machine.” Well I pull out my camera, ‘cause that’s a picture you know I’ve got to have, but the fish was not very photogenic, even almost unrecognizable, in kind of a pale bluish soup, so I’ll just have to title the picture “fish stew.”

Now it’s really raining, but we’ve got all this food. So I go, “I’m going to drive about four blocks and pull into the first gravel parking lot I see.” So we do, and we open the hatch and look around and there’s nobody. It’s like apocalyptic or war zone or something, but I finally see a head and shoulders peek out a back porch so I yell at the top of my lungs, “borantia, bushi” (volunteer, relief supplies). And this person just freezes and stares. So somebody says, “take her a bag of food.” So I do and she’s thrilled when she sees the vegetables, and I yell some more, but nobody else comes out. “So let’s break up in twos and just go a block in each direction and call out, I suggest.” And without complaining, our sorry, soggy crew starts out, and pretty soon people start trickling in, some with umbrellas, some without. Along with the food bags, we pull out a

couple of brooms and some socks and cookstoves and amazingly the people keep coming and pretty soon most of the food is gone, and the people must have thought we were crazy or some kind of apparition, and sure enough if you look at the pictures, we all look like drowned rats.

We drop off the rest of the food at the rest home by the drowned rice fields. We reach the dojo and Maya won’t stop; she says, “let’s go” (she’s teaching me Japanese and we’re teaching her English), she’s carrying in boxes and then when that’s done, flattening them, I finally we convince her we’re done. Even the sensei helped carry boxes in; what a great guy!

And we’re sad because this is the Clarks’ and Gibsons’ last night. And now the wind is really whipping and storming outside.

Did I mention the K truck has no suspension?

Did I mention they have heated toilet seats here?

Did I mention my quest to find diet Mountain Dew is surely doomed?

Did I mention the next time somebody suggests I put on rubber boots to work in the mud I think I’ll take their advice?