Fukukiura is a small place not far from Kobuchihama. Although the places are quite close many people living in Fukuiura are in a worse situation than those living in Kobuchihama. For some reason Fukuiura seems to be the place which aid organizations forgot.

We supplied them with work clothes for fishing, water, yoghurt drink, bicycles, etc. It was fun to see a 8-10 year old boy playing with his new bike between houses that were all basically having a big hole where the ground floor was supposed to be.

The major income for Fukukiura is from growing oysters and seaweed. Something that I did not know was that it takes 3 years to grow an oyster, which means that with the tsunami the people that were in the oyster business basically lost 3 years of investment. Another way of looking at it is that if they plant an oyster seed (or larvae) today, it will 3 years before they can harvest that investment.

It took a while before I understood that all the piles of what looked like necklaces for giants were not that but for growing oyster. They put these ropes with scallop shells in the water and plant the oyster seeds on them. You learn something every day 🙂