Good Song!!

Inawashirokos is a rock group made after March 11 Earthquake by 4 members who are all from Fukushima. Its name was taken from a famous lake in the center of Fukushima, Lake Inawashiro.
Now it's like a theme song for poeple in Fukushima. It sends out the message that we all love Fukushima.
Try it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQJuAN2BEY

Today I went for jogging along Abukuma River. We saw the snow rabbit on the side of Mt. Azuma. When spring comes, the snow starts melting and it looks just like a rabbit. We call it "Snow Rabbit". It tells us the time for sowing.

The white part on the left is the Snow Rabbit.

It's also a season of peach blossoms. Fukushima's peaches are very sweet. But this year can we really enjoy them?

I also went to a bridge called "Showa Ohashi". It's unpassable after the earth quake. I saw a gap at the end of the bridge. Maybe part of the road sank about 20 cm.

Children Cannot Play Outside.

Now Prefecture office says children shouldn't play at some parks in Fukushima city over 1 hour a day since the radiation level is higher. At some schools in Date city and Fukushima city, students shouldn't have outside activities. So they are now taking turns in using their gym.

I found the radiation map in the paper as of April 24th. The radiation is coming toward Date city obviously.

I don't like this!



Petals on the ground.

 It rained a few days ago. I was worried about it. I thought the rain includes radiation and it gives us a bad effect. But I was relieved when I heard what Professor Yamashita said.  He came to Date city and spoke about radiation. He says rain cleans the air and washes away radiation on the ground. According to his speech, the radiation level now we have is very low and we don’t have to worry about it. It really eased my feeling.

I was feeling ok until I heard some stories from my husband last night.

One story is about a boy who evacuated with his family from Fukushima to Chiba Prefecture. The family asked an elementary school in Chiba to accept their son. The school asked the family if they want to tell everyone that they are from Fukushima or hide it. The family didn’t understand its meaning. But anyway, the son was introduced to the class and he found his seat was right in front of the teacher and nobody was taking the seats around him. He couldn’t stand it and moved back to Fukushima.

Another story is about cars. Every car has a number plate. It shows where it comes from. So people easily find cars from Fukushima. Some people write graffiti on the car from Fukushima. Some tell the driver to go away.

These stories made me feel down. Those people who had to evacuate did nothing wrong. They are victims. They lost their houses, family members and even their hometown. I was thinking that Japanese people can unite as one and go forth for recovery. But now I doubt it.

I can hear every day some famous people appear on TV and give messages to work together. They say “You are not alone. We will walk together.” Hey, is it true? Are you walking with people in Fukushima? Maybe only with people in Miyagi and Iwate, you mean?

We are not germs. Please don’t treat us like this.

Cherry Blossoms in Fukushima

I went to Hanamiyama on April 14th. Hanamiyama is a very popular sightseeing spot. Until last year too many people came to see the cherry blossoms. It was so crowded that I didn’t want to go. But this year, there were fewer people because of the radiation problem. In this critical problem, cherry blossoms started to bloom. I hope we can also bloom even in this hardship and give some inspiration to people around the world.

Japanese government now says people in Iitate should evacuate because the integrated radiation quantity is going to reach a certain level. And there was a sad story. One family talked about evacuation. They had an old man who was 102 years old. And he was found dead. He killed himself. The news didn’t say the reason. I guess he didn’t want to be a burden to his family. What do you think about his decision?

One month

One month has passed. And today after 17:00, we had a big aftershock. Its level was 5 in Date-city and 6 in Iwaki-city. Then the quake keeps coming back every few minutes. I decided to cancel today’s class and came back home. There occurred a land slide in Iwaki. 3 or 4 houses were damaged. The rescue members are now trying to save people trapped in the rubble.

What a day!

Bad News

I found that Taeko, the girl in my last blog, had to move to another shelter. Oh, no!
The ceiling of the gym she was staying fell last Thursday due to the big aftershock. I heard most of the people went to Date gym. But I don't know if she really went to Date gym.  And that day, some children in the shelter started going to Toryo Junior High School. Now they have to move to Date Junior High School.
They cannot feel settled yet. I feel very sorry for them.

Aftershock!

We had a big earthquake again about 23:30 last night. The level was over 5! I went downstairs. I heard something broke. It was a vase. Until today, we have had over 450 aftershocks. They count only level 3 and over. So if we include small ones, the number should be so big. We got used to the tremor. But last night’s was big. Mt heart pounded. About 100 people were injured, the news said.



Taeko is speaking on skype.



David, our English teacher, is from America. A university in Illinois held a fundraising event. On the evening of April 4th Amrican time, about 50 students gathered and made 1,000 paper cranes. As part of the event, they invited us to talk about the earthquake on Skype. A 16 year-old girl, who evacuated from Minami Soma city, came to our school and talked about her experience. She said she wants “hope” that she can go back to her hometown.

It appeared on the local newspaper on the 7th.

April 4th

Mr. Shunichi Yamashita, a professor at Nagasaki University, visited Fukushima and gave speeches about radiation. His speech is very easy to understand. He also gave us hope, while most of the media was giving us only dreadful facts.

He said:

  "In the area between 10 – 20km from the nuclear plant, those who have already been evacuated might have been exposed to about 1mSv of radiation. However, there is no difference between several micro-SV and 100mSV in terms of their effect in causing cancer.

  "It should also be noted that the effect of radiation of exposure, 100 times of 1mSv and 100mSv at a time, is very different. The people we should be worrying about in regards to radiation exposure are those working at the site of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. We need to think about how to secure their health.  Otherwise people do not need to worry about radiation exposure.

  "It is argued that the effect of low-level radiation exposure on health conditions cannot be demonstrated. However, 'no evidence of no effect', does not necessarily mean we should worry about the effect. It is understandable that people fear the radiation exposure because it is invisible, but radiation can be measured in scientific ways. That is, we have a means to prevent harm from radiation. We should not panic. I would ask you to behave in a rational manner as a member of the society."

http://smc-japan.sakura.ne.jp/eng/archives/1364

But he also referred Fukushima as the third radiation exposed area in Japan following Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He encouraged us to be the symbol of the recovery from the radiation accident.

Tomorrow, some of us will talk with a professor and students in America on skype about the earthquake.
I heard they are now raising fund for Japan and making paper cranes. I hope it goes well.

April 1



My house has no fence now.



The fence at my house was taken down yesterday. It became unstable after the earthquake. So we decided to take it down. Maybe this is the biggest damage we got. We have to wait for the new fence for a while because of the lack of materials.

Today, I went to the gym in Yanagawa, Date-city for a volunteer work. There are 230 evacuees. 4 volunteers got together. We waited in a room, where we were supposed to take care of 15 children. We saw children playing outside. We thought they would come in soon. But nobody came in. What’s the matter with this? After 1 hour, we were just dismissed. I heard the connection obetween needs and helps is messed up.

I know people are working hard. But maybe the way is not efficient. Hey, somebody help!!

Today is April 1. In Japan, usually the new school or business year starts today. I saw on TV that some major companies had initiation ceremonies. They accepted new workers. Great! But we have to remember the companies which were planning to hire new workers had to cancel their offers. Those who lost jobs are 18 after high school or 22 after university. Just sad!