Misawa is lucky. We are far enough away from Fukushima to avoid dangerous radiation. We are on high enough ground that we avoided the tsunami. And we are perfectly positioned to be helpful to our neighbors.
Since the very first week after the Earthquake, Misawa has been able to send busloads of volunteers into the local community to help with clean up. At first it was just short trips right outside the gate to the local beach. Now, in addition to the local trips, there are trips venturing further and further south to villages and towns that have been completely devastated by the tsunami.
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| These are a few of my friends that went on a trip last Friday to help clear out a rice field. They posed for this picture when they got back. Since March 11, Misawa has been able to send 1,848 volunteers, on 46 different clean-up trips, for a total of 21,254 volunteer hours. |
I've only been on one clean-up trip. It's hard to get away during the week since I'm working, and the weekend trips fill up pretty fast. The day that I went, we had two busloads of volunteers that went to a local strawberry farm.
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| This strawberry farm once held two greenhouses made of metal piping and heavy clear plastic sheeting. Inside, the strawberry rows had been lined in plastic to keep the weeds down. When we got there, the plastic and metal were buried under a couple feet of heavy, damp silt. I took this picture during our lunch break. If you look closely you can see all the shovels waiting for us to return to our work. |
The work was frustrating, because the more plastic we dug up, the more plastic we uncovered. It seemed never ending, and there were at least 70 of us. I can't imagine the farmer trying to do it all alone.
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| Towards the end of the day my friend and I started walking back and forth through the field picking up pieces of plastic and metal that others had unearthed. Every time we crossed the field we filled our barrel. |
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| Outside this house was where we gathered for our lunch break. The water had come so high here that it took out the entire side of this house. If you look closely, you can see the waterline right below the horizontal brown trim. |
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| This was the farmer. He had all 70 of us gathered up so he could take a picture. Seeing his appreciation made our frustrating day seem worthwhile. |
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| As we walked back to the bus (which was parked facing the road, just in case we got another tsunami warning) we got another glimpse of just how much work there is to be done to clean up our local area. The park on either side of the road was full of trash that had washed up in the tsunami. It was a sobering end to our "feel-good" day. |
