JAPAN RELIEF TESTIMONY BY CHUNMI ARAKI
Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu! Greetings from Japan! The weather is humid but the spirits are high in the Ishinomaki City Volunteer Camp. My name is ChunMi Araki, and as part of the first international relief effort team sent by WFWP USA, I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for all the support that went into sending this team here from America.
I have been involved with the Northwest Chapter of WFWP for about two years and am the Executive Secretary under our Northwest Chairwoman, Friederike Buczyk. When the call came out from New York that WFWP was looking to send some women to volunteer for tsunami cleanup, I was ecstatic! I am half Japanese, and my family had experienced a similar disaster in the Kobe earthquake of 1995. And when the tsunami first hit Japan, I remember watching the TV in horror, and feeling deep within me that I must help these people. We are a global family, and families take care of one another. So it was with gratitude that I received the call that I was one of the lucky ones who could travel with the team to Japan.
Right now, it is just past 10:30 pm, and our team is preparing to rest. Today was our first day of cleanup, and it was a day so full of different experiences and emotions that I hardly know where to start. The team was assigned to muck out the house of Mr. and Mrs. Abe, a couple who had lived in Ishinomaki for 40 years before moving to their now-destroyed house four years ago. It was hard work shoveling mud and rocks and oil, but satisfying to see how a team of eight could clear a wide expanse in the time given.
The first thing you notice when entering the disaster site is the smell. And that smell, combined with the dust and heat, is a punishing combination. However, our team created such a positive atmosphere that one couldn't be beaten down by the external environment. I was actually surprised at how clean, relatively speaking, the streets and the buildings were! And it was not until we drove just about 20 minutes away, and I saw the real, untouched destruction, that it hit me how much these people need help. And also how grateful they are for the help we are giving.
The main disaster site was a deserted graveyard of broken buildings, cars, and houses. The scale of the destruction was overwhelming and left me speechless. Walking away from the team, I just hugged my body and prayed in tears for the people who had lost everything because of the tsunami. We can never know the true value of life until we see how easily it can be taken away. I had never seen such a site before! And, as a team, we felt much more in our hearts that, through our service, we could pour out the love these people so desperately needed. And it was with this determination that we concluded our service work for the day, enjoyed a wonderful dinner, and returned to our cozy tent to prepare for the next day's work.