Left camp at 8:30 with four loaded vehicles. Expressway was slow, so we tried the old highway. Bad idea. 30 miles and an hour and a quarter later we arrived at the dojo—not in Ishinomaki, but only 15 kilometers north in the countryside. I think the sensei was a little skeptical at first, but after hearing Chad out, he was very helpful and accommodating. The place had a lot of relief supplies inside—it is a staging area for this neighborhood. It took a while to work out which part of the gym we could partition off and explain our typical routine and staffing, but I think this will be a good base, as a one month trial basis.
Finally got away to our first delivery area. It is a street of 6 story low income apartments. But in Japan these would still have been perfectly clean and neat. . .before. . .
The Be One Team had been here before, and the people there continue to be very appreciative. We laid out two tarps full of supplies and food and my job was to limit batteries to 2 per person. (I think a few people got away with more than that.) We probably gave out 30 or more cook stoves, but I think the children’s books and toys were the most special things we gave out.
We had the army and a private company from Osaka also handing things out on that block, so we just helped them hand out their stuff too. Afterwards Paul headed home, Beth went to spend the night at Chihiro’s house, Chad and Dave went to the hardware store, and I got to drive alone in the dark through the countryside to the dojo.
No comments:
Post a Comment