Tohoku - An
important
experience
(5th
June – 8th June 2012) Part 2
A report by Stephanie Yuko Miwa
Shortly,
before we left, an
old woman thanked me and did not say “goodbye”, but “I hope
you will come
another time and we will see each other again”. These words, I won’t forget.
When
we left the temporary houses, we came close to the coastal
area and here it was,
when I became strongly aware of the unbelievable power and
strength of the
tsunami. Especially, when we went to the former small town,
Minamisanriku,
where the young woman announcer (24 years old) Miki Endo died, because her
mind or heart told her to stay in the building (for disaster
prevention) in
order to warn and save other people, my feelings overwhelmed
me. Here is the city office where she was working:
Flattened
Minamisanriku seemed again surreal to me. The heaps of
tires, the crashed
metal, the damaged buildings which were not completely torn
off, the heavily
boiled banisters… in the lowered ground, you could still see
the remains of
tsunami water. The
people, who lived on the hillside of the small town, were
lucky enough to be
kept from the most damage. It is
just so difficult to understand that there had been once a
whole city and now
everything has just gone and also most of the people, who
lived there.
Even though
almost everything
seemed to be destroyed at Minamisanriku, we came to a small
shopping village,
which was built after the disaster. Firstly, I wasn’t quite sure
about the
meaning of this village, but when I went inside and we bought
hand-made sweets,
food and other objects to give support and talked to the people,
it turned out
to be very positive. I spoke with one family, who had two small
children and
they were very cheerful when I told them about Germany and my
stay in Japan.
They seemed to appreciate my coming and therefore I was so
grateful. Sometimes
you might doubt, if it is good just to go to these places,
taking pictures,
talking to people… I found out for me, that it is, indeed, a
wonderful and very
helpful effort to make. Giving mental support and showing people
that you are
around them, and you care about their matters is very important
in order to
strengthen each individual’s heart.
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