Fukukiura

Early in the morning Chie and I arrived at Aeon in Ishinomaki. Aeon was where we have decided to meet the Toyota mini-van and the truck that also were bringing things to distribute in Kobuchihama and Fukukiura. We were the first to arrive and the big parking space outside Aeon was not open yet. So we parked on a nearby parking space of a beauty salon and waited.

Once the other have arrived we continued towards Fukukiura on curvy and somewhat bumpy roads. Crossing a harbor area on a dirt road since old road is under water on high tides. Then some more curvy roads and beautiful views over the ocean before arriving at a temporary home complex outside of Fukukiura.



At the temporary homes we unloaded a few things. And met with a guy that showed us the way to the “office” of one of the fishing communities here.



We unloaded a few desks and chairs for their office. And a sofa that the guy that met us at the temporary home complex tried at once. Though it looked a bit uncomfortable so Toru-san and Chie hurried to get the sofa pillows in place.



Next we went back to the temporary home complex where we unloaded some more furnitures for the common room. And some shelves that we also helped assemble while the old women in the complex watched curiously.



Around noon they had a celebration for a girl that was about 5 years old. Dressed her up in a pink kimono and wanted to take pictures of her. Everything went well until her mother was done and walked away so that all us paparazzi could take pictures of the girl on her own. Then she run away. Everyone was quite impressed that she could run so fast in her kimono and sandals (I know it is not an easy task :-))



Shortly afterwards we said our goodbyes and continued to Kobuchihama.

Shipped Heaters to Fukukiura

Today we used almost 30.000 JPY of donated money to buy and ship 4 heaters to Fukukiura.

Winter is coming.

BTW, did anyone recognize the quote? Anyway, you can find detailed information about the donation and shipping here.

Fukukiura

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 🙂