Letter from Japan
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 21 Mar 2011
Kimberlye Kowalczyk – TRANSCEND Media Service
March 14, 2011
The magnitude of this catastrophe is maddening to try to comprehend.
Every minute of every hour, they are showing new images and finding new stories to tell in the news.
Hundreds of thousands of families are affected. Tonight, tens of thousands of people are lacking food, water, electricity; blankets, medicine…
Hospital staff in the Tohoku area have not slept in days, and are running out of essential supplies.
There is a story of a family who held hands as they got washed away by the wave ~ they held each other tight until they landed on a house roof. They hung on all night long, with the water rushing at their feet. The daughter took off her belt and tied it around a part of the house so that her exhausted parents could hang on to it with their arms. They heard the voice of a man from somewhere inside the house, encouraging them ~ saying “hang on! don’t give up!” all night, weakening as the hours went on, and finally falling silent in the morning. When the rescue boat came, they found the man in the house was dead.
Whole towns have been reduced to splinters by the tsunami, the images are unbelievable ~ it looks like Hiroshima after the bomb, but it’s town after town, after town, after town …
Tokyo is running out of food, water, and patience. The tails of human lines entering train stations snake for km after km ~ everyone wants to get out. Those who give up waiting for the trains are walking for days to get home. Tokyo has started rolling blackouts, which means businesses are closed. Japan’s already lagging economy has seen a heavy blow, and everyone is fearing the worst in the coming weeks and months. Food and gas prices are due to jump, and news about the explosions at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima is worryingly vague, at best.
Through it all though, I’m amazed at the Japanese people.
People are running out of food and water, and yet they wait patiently and quietly, in single-file, at supermarkets where they are rationing supplies to 5 items per person. There is no pushing, no yelling, not a single report of looting, anywhere. First of all, can you imagine only being able to pick 5 items after lining up all day, your kids and elderly parents not having eaten a proper meal in two days? It keeps going through my head ~ which 5 items would I chose? And these traumatized, exhausted people comply calmly and without panic. That deep Japanese culture, WA, the “circle of harmony,” is humbling when seen in action.
Supplies are being sent to the area from all over Japan. Huge companies like Sony and Panasonic, who have shuttered their factory lines due to aftershocks, are sending radios and flashlights by the hundreds of thousands. International aid is coming in also, including in the form of rescue teams from Korea, China, Sweden, Germany, … I’m happily surprised to see that nations still help nations, despite all the war and anger and paranoia. Many people hurt many people, and yet here in Japan there is evidence that many people help many people as well. That’s the way it has always been, and that is the way it will always be. I find great comfort in this re-realization.
It has been warm the last couple of days; strangely beautiful days full of sunshine and the promise of spring ~ a little blessing after the storm. I pray that the warmth continues for all those people without heat and lacking blankets, both in Japan and elsewhere. I pray that they find a way to laugh and comfort each other through all of the uncertainty, that they can share with each other their hurt and their hope, both in Japan and elsewhere. I am praying that through tragedy, we learn something about the human spirit, and about our reliance on Earth and our reliance on each other, both in Japan and elsewhere.
Life is so precious! Life is so precious!!
I kiss the air between me and you ~
_____________________
Kimberlye Kowalczyk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and former TMS Resident Journalist. She lives in Kyoto, Japan.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 21 Mar 2011.
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