For those of you who remember this post and my rantings...
Well, they have done it again...Three times now.
Words fail me.
Story One: 'We were so lucky'
Leonora Sophie is a British teacher based in Kasukabe, Saitama. She has lived in Japan for five years, and was at the immigration office in Saitama renewing her visa when the earthquake struck.
I have never experienced anything like it before and I was scared. I was lucky to be with my husband and together, we knew that we had to abandon the visa renewal process (he, too is British) and get back home as quickly as possible to check on our pets.
As we walked, the ground shook more, but thankfully, less vigorously. The trains had all stopped and crowds of people were collecting, hoping that they would be able to get home somehow that evening.
We passed some buildings with cracks at the foundations, shops with their displays on the floor and some window fronts with cracked panes. We were so anxious to get home to see how the animals were, but I was scared to go inside. The day before we had bought shelving that was all downstairs near the dog cage. Miraculously, none of this had fallen over. Our dog was clearly frightened and our hamster didn't come out for two days, but, we, the family were fine. Thank goodness.
The television, much crockery, and possessions weren't, but we learnt, very quickly, that material possessions mean nothing at a time like this. And that was before we had heard about the tsunami.
As soon as we logged onto the computers and found out the news, I spent at least the next 48 hours pretty much glued to every news source with tired but wide eyes. I used to live in Sendai, my friends were all around Miyagi and Iwate, I didn't know what to think. It took a while for the good news to filter through, but it did. For that, I am so happy. It took a lot longer to found out about friends in Ishinomaki, Miyagi, for the situation there was just the worst.
While our good news filtered in, so many other bad reports did too. As the whole Fukushima saga unravelled, I was more interested in the news that Sendai airport had been fixed enough to let relief fly in. Then, the Tohoku expressway was fixed, which meant more supplies, more aid and also gave families the chance to reunite. And this was all just 13 days after the earthquake, an impressive feat for sure.
By March 14, one friend had decided to leave, but at this stage, things were very much under control. We were closely heeding the advice of the British government and listening to reports from a government nuclear specialist, John Beddington, who has quite clearly explained what would normally be a tricky situation to understand. But, with his help and his phone conversations with the embassy here, we have, at no point, felt at risk.
By March 16, however, we had been hounded with so many phone calls and emails from family and friends abroad, that we decided to leave our house for a while and visit our friends in Nagoya. We were very happy in Saitama and feared nothing, but people we knew were reading all sorts of ridiculous stories that were totally different to the ones we had seen, and had put so much doubt in our minds.
We had a nice time in the south, where we could start organising things to send to those in the north. But suddenly, it seemed that everyone had forgotten about the killer tsunami and the damage it had done and all the focus was on a nuclear fallout.
A lot of foreigners have left Japan to wait till it "blows over" but the reports are the same each day. The power plant is in an awful state, and it will take months to fully clean it all up. So, some of these foreigners have returned to the same situation they left behind a few weeks ago and others have just left.
I appreciate that not everyone calls Japan home, so if they want to just leave, that is their choice. But, to me, Japan is home. It has offered me so much and our life here is great. We both work here and feel a responsibility to our jobs. I have already covered for a co-worker who has left the country, and it makes me wonder how bigger companies are coping. What about the people who have to do the jobs of those who have left as well was their own? And then there are our friends. We are not the only ones going through this. We must be, and are all together, united on this. How can we abandon the ones we care for, the country we care for, the life we have built up? And why would we when we do not feel we are at risk?
We are not stupid, and we are very much aware, that, in if the situation gets worse, we can take the necessary precautions and actions. The British embassy have provided us with potassium iodide in the event of an emergency and we are sure to have travel money should we need. All these things come from preparation. Japan is a country of preparation and practice.
While the stories still lurk in the (foreign) press about Fukushima, I cannot find (m)any of how people really are getting on with things. Houses are being rebuilt, new lives starting again. These are the people we really need to think about.