Remember March 11
Remembering March 11
3.11 is an unforgettable day for many of us. For the last few days, news have been broadcasting the shocking image of Tsunami and the rubbles of Tohoku, and it is still too much for me to bare the pain of eight years ago, so I switched the channel. Am I running away from the cruel fact from the past, pretending to be blind? Actually it is the contrary. I don’t need the news to discharge those images of the past to remind me how tragic the incident was. It has never left me, and I think it never will.
I was 27 when it happened. I was working at a 24 hour-English daycare in Ginza. It wasn’t a big school, probably maximum of about 20 children during day time, so it was always very busy.
As a head teacher of the school, I was 27 years old bilingual and 2 years old as a teacher. I worked day and night, in the school, on the train, and at home. Then came the day.
It was nap time and teachers were having lunch in the play room with a few children who were too old to take a nap, and some children waiting for their parents to pick them up. The rest of children were taking a nap in the sleeping room. Then it started to shake. Staffs were great. A few of them gathered the children in the middle of the play room where nothing would fall on them, one of them ran to the door to secure the exit for evacuation, turned off the light, and grabbed the disaster hoods for the children. I ran into the nap room to be with the children who were sleeping. The nap room wasn’t secured enough. I threw myself on top of the children, in case anything would fall, it wouldn’t hit them. I think we had about 15 children sleeping. I knew I couldn’t protect all of them by myself, so I shouted to the playroom asking for someone to come and help me. Fortunately, the partition was only a curtain and not a thick wall, one of the teacher came running in and threw herself on top the children as well.
It felt like the shake went on forever. I said to the other teacher laying on top of the children next to me, “It’s been shaking for quite long”. Then I realized my voice was trembling and then realized my hands were shaking with fear too. The building was making squeaking sound. I heard children crying in the play room.
What felt like forever had finally stopped. We woke the children up quickly with help from other teachers, gathered all of them in the middle of the play room, put their shoes and disaster hoods on, and packed all their jackets in a bag while few teachers went downstairs to prepare the trolley for evacuation.
One of the parents who owns a restaurant in the neighborhood came to school and saw us preparing to evacuate to a closest elementary school. She told us that we should wait to evacuate since the glass from office buildings could break and rain on us. She was right. We were in the middle of Ginza, and there were skyscrapers everywhere. But our building was old, and I didn’t trust the resistance of it if a bigger shake hit us. After a while we decided to go to the elementary school. We brought futon mattress with us so we could cover the children in the trolley in case another big shake hit us.
When we reached the school, we saw people gathering around the gate of elementary school. We asked if they could open the gate and let all of us in. They looked puzzled but they were kind enough to let us in since we were with the children. When we started crossing the gate, another big shake hit. Glass windows were shaking, we prepared our futon to cover the children. I heard screams behind me, and I looked back. One of the teacher or staff of elementary school shouted “Just open the gate! Let them in!!!” Some of the people in suits ran inside with us, I wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe this was real. It was like watching a very realistic panic movie, but it wasn’t. This was real.
We evacuated and stayed at the school yard for a while. Some parents came to pick the children up. After a while, the elementary school offered us to go inside and let us use one of the vacant classroom. They even played the DVD for us so that the children would not be bored. Teachers sang songs, read books, while parents came to pick them up one by one. Most of the children were okay, but few of the sensitive children burst into the tears once they saw their parents. We stayed there for hours, not knowing what to do, not knowing when we should go back to our own school. By 6 o’clock, we decided to go back to school and wait for rest of the parents to come and pick children up.
Most of the teachers stayed at school overnight. All modes of transportation were halted and we couldn’t go anywhere. One of the children’s mother couldn’t come and pick him up, since she just had given birth to his little brother, and his father worked a bit far from school, it took him all night to walk to school to pick his son up. One teacher who got on our school van to drop a child off to Kachidoki, came back 12 hours after she left the school due to traffic. We were lucky to be in daycare, since we had mats and blankets to sleep, some extra food in the fridge for all of us to share. Convenient stores were empty, but one of the parents brought us some rice balls and fried chicken.
Once we turned on the TV, we froze. Horrible scenes were showing on the screen one after another. We didn’t want the children to see the news, but we needed a source of information. Alarm for aftershock kept on going all through the night as well. Staff were dozing off, but I couldn’t sleep at all. Being the head teacher of the school, I was responsible for all the lives in the school. At eight o’clock in the morning the next day, the last child got picked up by his father and went home. Trains were moving again. We all packed away and left the school. Ginza wasn’t so different from usual. No broken glasses, just a little bit quieter than usual. I didn’t feel like going home and be alone in my small one room apartment, so I decided to go to my sister’s place in Shibuya. Once I saw her face after the door opened, without my expectation, I suddenly burst into tears and wept like a small girl. I was relieved that every single child and staff got to go home safely.
The next summer, I was blessed with a chance to go volunteering to Minami Sanriku to pick up the rubble from farm field so the people could start farming and go on with their lives again. I was expecting to pick up stones, rocks and sticks, but I kept on finding pieces of broken plates, toys, faded family portraits, bricks and so many other personal things along with huge tree trunks or fences. Every piece of broken glass and toys felt so heavy. I could feel the weight of people’s lives that were lost, maybe forever. It was a hot day, but I couldn’t stop picking up, and didn’t want to stop either. The day went so fast, I was exhausted and devastated, but was glad I was able to do this. Unfortunately, this was the only time I got to go to Tohoku.
I wasn’t the victim of the 3.11. All my family and friends are safe, and my home is still here. I barely experienced it. Yet part of me still carries the pain. Try to imagine the pain Tohoku still carries. 2533 are still missing, 3418 are still living in temporary dwelling, 50,000 are still evacuated, over 330,000 square meters of polluted soil from radiation that hasn’t been cleansed is left in Tohoku. It might look like Tohoku is getting much better but the reality is that Tohoku is still a stricken area, and people living there still carry the unbearable pain underneath their gentle smile. Tohoku still needs our continued action as well as our prayers.
images from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/05/national/for-kesennuma-real-recovery-may-never-come/
