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A lot of things change in 18 years, which was how long it had been since all four of us kids had got together with the folks for Christmas. For instance, I don't remember much about a Jamaican cricketer Christmas tree decoration when I was a kid.

Luckily though, some things don't change. Good times!

It was a rare chance to spend time with the whole family, aunties and uncles, and all seven nieces and nephews, so I made sure I was a good Uncle and kept the youngest of them well stocked with Corona and Grolsch.

This year, we'd also been roped into the Christmas Morning Swim at Coney Beach in Portchcawl. It's a bit of an institution back home and this was its 47th year so I  thought it was a good chance. They reckon 2000-3000 people turned up to watch more than 900 swimmers. I say swimmers, it wasn't exactly a course, more of a run in, scream and shout, then run back again. Not helped by it being low tide and a long, long way to go before you even reached the water. 

 Good fun but bloody freezing! (Last photo by the wonderful Mandy Thomas)


The Blue Anchor in Aberthaw completely burned down a few years ago but good to see it back to its former glory. Like the Plough & Harrow, The Bush and hundreds of other pubs back home, there's nothing like sipping a pint in front of a real fire.

The original Stonehenge, known locally as The Gorsedd Stones. Actually they were put up slightly after Stonehenge but no need to go into the details...

Nash Point and the Sand Bar. Site of many an adventure back in the day. Good to know guys are still getting out there. Timing is everything with the tides round here.

In the time it took my Full Breakfast to go from this...

... to this

The Esp went from this...

...to this.

 Up The Bwlch to meet the locals

 time for a quick duet

before making the pilgrimage to Caerphilly, birthplace of Tommy Cooper

 then over to Castell Coch

 before a pint of Brains, since 2012 is the Year of the Dragon

back over the bridge. Free to get into England but it costs to get into Wales

lunch in a Cornish pub

 then a tour of the manor with KK... and Rudolf.

 Hell's Mouth on the North Cliffs near Hayle. Just round the corner was where this video  of the massive cliff collapse was shot. 

Lunch in The Spreadeagle Inn

 before a look at the other Stonehenge

and to round of a great trip home, thanks to JAL's increased baggage allowance of 46kg each, even in economy, I was able to take all this stuff back for the Knit Ishinomaki campaign. Unbelievable effort from Lianne, Obie, Mum, Gill, Roisin and Jack.

Pics from the delivery of this stuff up to Ishinomaki coming up.

Flights, Radiation, THJ, Fukushima and Home

It's been a couple of months since I've hit the blog and there'll be more later on a cracking trip home for Christmas and my Tohoku trip in early Jan, but first some thoughts about the flight.

Since the Fukushima reactors blew up last March, the flight back to the UK was the first time I'd had chance to take my geiger counter on the plane to see for myself what the radiation levels really are up at 35,000' and also back in the UK. 


I'm not doing this to show how "safe" nuclear power and radiation is. I'm against nuclear, particularly in an earthquake-prone country like Japan and would dearly love to see Japan seize this chance to develop alternate energies. 


There are areas within a few kilometres of the plant,and I'm thinking of Kumagawa, the rivermouth break near the town of Okuma that I used to surf regularly but have to face up to probably never being able to surf again. I may be able to drive (or be driven) up there and wheel my wheelchair up to the seawall and peer out at the waves one day, but since I'm 45 now, the chance of me tucking into a hollow one up there again are slim to say the least.

Kumagawa (Bear River) on a flat day in 2004.  

Fukushima Daiichi is in the distance.

Having said that, the main area where I used to volunteer with Team HEAL Japan was Iwaki City, Fukushima which was directly South of the plant and people here desperately needed help. The more heavily contaminated areas in Fukushima are in the opposite direction, a direct line NW from the plant out as far as Fukushima city, and then back down SW again, most of which are well outside the exclusion 20km and 30km areas. Basically, in the direction the wind was blowing when the reactors exploded. You can see the radiation map here. 


To put the pic above in perspective:
The readings on the flight averaged 4.25uSv/hr. (I'd heard it was 6-7uSv/r)
The usual level in Tokyo is around 0.15uSv/hr or less. 
At Iwaki Volunteer Centre, we'd usually average around 0.25uSv/hr. 
The volunteer locations usually  averaged 0.4uSv/hr peaking at 0.6uSv/hr 
The readings on the flight were 4.25uSv/hr!!


These levels in Iwaki were what I saw on all THJ trips until the last trip where one reading at a new location peaked at 0.7uSv/hr.  


What I measured on the plane meant that if you combined all the additional radiation I was exposed to from volunteering in 2011, I still got more radiation on this 12-hour flight from Tokyo to London... and I went up there a fair bit. That's without the 12-hour flight back a week later.


Friends and family with the best intentions would understandably ask if it really was OK to volunteer up in Iwaki. Friends of other friends were stopped from volunteering in Iwaki either by their own concerns over radiation, or their partner's concerns. One girl I know who was born in Iwaki but now lives in Shibuya, Tokyo was forbidden by her Tokyo-born husband from ever joining us even though she desperately wanted to help.


We would take geiger counters with us though and check the area was reasonable for a day trip, which was basically 9 hours volunteering. Even so, the image of an excessive radiation danger persisted, not helped by possibly well-meaning but unqualified people uploading pics of totally unecessary gas masks, perpetuating the idea of a dangerous environment, proving again that it's much easier to scare than inform.


Put another way, you'd get a similar amount of radiation on a one-way flight from Tokyo to Osaka than you would have from spending the day with THJ.


The same partners who stopped their other half volunteering in Iwaki probably wouldn't think twice about joining them on a free trip to Okinawa (about 3 hrs flight from Tokyo) yet that return flight would give you at least 24uSv. A typical trip to Iwaki, Fukushima with THJ would probably give you just 3.6uSv.


The concern over the higher radiation levels should instead be directed to towns like Date and Fukushima City itself, miles outside the exclusion zone and far from the tsunami relief efforts, but areas where families are still having to live, kids are still having to play and go to school with radiation levels much higher than I saw on the plane. Airlines have limits covering how many hours their crews can fly due to the radiation risk, but still these families in the highly contaminated areas have to struggle on with no evacuation assistance from the government, forgotten and ignored. 


To finish up for now, here are another couple of radiation pics from my time back home. The first pics were taken in my old bedroom at my folks' house back in Wales, UK. It averaged the same as Iwaki Volunteer Centre in Fukushima, and peaked up to what we'd see as a low level reading at the actual volunteer sites. I never thought of needing a gas mask when I was a kid... probably because I didn't!

The photos below were on the drive back from Cornwall, one of the UK's prime summer holiday destinations, about as far SW as you can go in England and 3-4 hours drive from Wales. The average of 0.2 was what we'd see at Tomobe Service Area about an hour before getting to Iwaki, Fukushima. For those that know the area, this photo was taken on the A30 between Bodmin and Launceston.

30 mins later and the readings took a huge nose-dive. This was the lowest I measured anywhere but was still in Cornwall, still on the A30 but between Okehampton and Exeter. 

Next: the trip home
Next,Next: the trip to Ishinomaki

The Event

Last week’s trip up to Iwaki on Saturday Nov 11 was a bit different. The official volunteer centre run by the council has now officially closed, although they are still keeping a core of staff who will continue to liaise with volunteer groups to get help where it’s still needed. This time though we’d been invited up with about 500 others as part of a thank-you event the volunteer centre and council had arranged for those who had volunteered since the VC first opened on March 16.

The numbers were interesting. Since March 16, 14,452 volunteers had registered with the centre. The total number of participations was 49,986 in around 8 months which meant each volunteer had volunteered an average of about 3.5 times each. There had been 6,869 individual clean-up jobs requested of which they'd been able to fulfil 6,853, so if you include weekdays and weekends, there was an average of something like 208 volunteers per day, assigned to over 28 jobs per day, for nearly 8 months.

Since the event wasn't starting till 1:30pm, we were able to leave at a much more reasonable 9am and planned to pick up 21 takeaway lunches from Hataya supermarket in Hisanohama where we’d been so well received on the last trip. Also a way to give some money back to the local businesses instead of bringing food up from Tokyo. This time Daisuke was with us. Daisuke was one of the nine THJ members who helped with the original cleanup of the supermarket back in June but he missed the reunion last week so I was looking forward to re-introducing him to the mother and grandmother. Everything had been pretty much prepared in boxes for us to take and eat on the bus heading back to Iwaki as time was running short.

Unfortunately the first chance to re-introduce him to the family came as Sean was trying to pay for the lunches. You can imagine what followed with them refusing to take any payment and us nicely telling them that we didn’t come for a free meal and really wanted to pay. I mean we wanted to help them out , not make them pay for 21 lunches! Sean could see they weren’t going to just take it off us so he thrust two 10,000 yen notes under the till and we all ran out of the shop before she could give it back. What followed was like something out of an old black and white film where they came running after us, managed to grab Sylvain and roll up the two notes into his T-Shirt, so Sean had to once again run back to the shop, put the 20,000 back under the till and then run back to the safety of the bus. Not the best time to introduce Daisuke perhaps.


It was all good natured but there was no way we weren’t going to pay. We thought we were home and dry, but they came up to the bus to wave us off smiling and looking a little embarrassed at taking the money before granny spotted her chance and threw the money back into the bus onto the stair-well as we were closing the doors. Once again Sean had to push it back into their hands, jump back on the bus and shut the doors sharp-ish. Lovely people and the lunch was well worth 1,000 yen each.

We made it back to Iwaki with a few minutes to spare and made our way to the very swish looking arts centre where the event was being held. The mood was certainly more upbeat than previous trips. The focus for this one day seemed to be on celebrating how far we’d come, instead of how far there was to go. There were other days for that, today was meant to be a thank-you and a celebration.

They opened with a couple of speeches from the head of hte organizing committe and the city mayor before showing a collage of volunteer photos set to the sounds of “I Love You Baby, Fukushima” which is a regular sing-song on the bus on the way back. I took a dodgy shaky video which I'll try to upload on YouTube at some point.

 There was then a panel discussion hosted by the main organizers of the VC with ten folks who had been heavily involved, one being the THJ main man himself, Sean Muramatsu. The others were teachers, a long-term volunteer, a surfer, a real bunch of characters. There were a few serious moments but overall the tone was of sharing good memories and stories. One guy said it was hard to describe volunteering as “fun” after the thousands of people that had lost their lives in the tsunami, but for him, looking back, the teamwork, the friendships forged, the memories made, meant that in hindsight there really were moments of “fun”. I know what he meant.

They closed with a concert by The (big-In-Japan) Gospellers. A young doo-wop five piece who could actually sing and spent as much time telling stories and chatting as they did singing. The guy singing the bass-lines sounded like Barry White but I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil. He was a skinny little bugger but couldn’t half hit those low notes.

I had chance to chat to the surfer from the panel discussion during the interval. He lived in Kooriyama, Fukushima and said he hadn’t surfed since the tsunami and was saving the rest of 2011 for volunteering. He might get back in the water in 2012 but hadn’t decided yet. We’d both surfed at Toyoma and both knew the little surf-shop on the front that had been swept away. It was good to hear the guy who owned it evacuated in time and managed to survive. Today was a time for looking forward though. He was drinking Guinness but the bar had run out of beer. I refused his kind offer of a swig of his and toasted him with my fist and a smile. Good guy, hope we both get in the water more in 2012.


The trip back was a little more subdued than usual, mainly due to there being only one beer each and no time to stop to buy more. I’m sure Sean did this on purpose to avoid us peaking too soon since we were heading back to our own THJ celebration event in Tokyo where another 20 or so would be turning up, including the woman who’s grandmother’s house we helped clean-up in Hisanohama, who I miraculously bumped into on the train in Tokyo 3 days later.

Back in Tokyo in the shadow of Phillipe Starck’s awful Asahi beer building, or as it’s known locally the Unko (Turd) building, we kicked off our own event. During my opening toast I was wishing I’d had more than just the one beer on the bus but everything seemed to go OK. I tried to convey the feeling that we were all lucky to have been part of the THJ effort and this meant anyone who had ever attended, donated to, publicised or supported THJ in any way since their first missions in April. The team have become like an extended family and I know I've made some friendships that will probably last a lifetime.

Even though we were from very different backgrounds, with different interests, there are things that we won’t forget. More than just the devastation up North, there were the people we’ve been lucky to meet up there, the characters, their stories, their hardships, their optimism. The team work, the buddy system, the mud and the sweat. The kids we met, Dirk with his balloon animals, and the smiles on the kids’ faces. The emotional goodbyes after a job and the tears of gratitude. The speeches in the bus coming home, all the songs that were sung, and the new facebook friendships forged every Sunday morning after every trip. And at last, the first signs of a slow recovery.

This was what I remember from the trips so far, and a big hats-off to Sean, Daisuke, Taki, Sylvain and all the other Team Leaders for kicking off Team HEAL Japan, keeping it going and making everyone feel welcome.

Sadly I didn’t win the 17-year old whisky bingo prize we kept after being given it by the bear of a guy who’s house we cleaned up on June 4, but fittingly it went to the lad who threw out the most tatami mats that day and probably sweated more than any of us. Who knew he was a black belt in bingo too?

 
Till next time! There's still plenty more to do.

Hisanohama Halloween

It was the 16th Team HEAL Japan volunteer trip up North yesterday and the 12th one I've been able to join. The immediate needs of debris removal are thankfully decreasing now but this trip was memorable for another reason. 

Our job was at an elementary school in Taira where the kids were having a Saturday afternoon baseball practice. Since there were 30 of us we were able to finish not long after lunch. A couple of veterans from other volounteer groups joined us for the first time along with another five or six first-timers. As usual, everyone got on like a house on fire. 

Before we left we had a photo session with the kids who were all running around, cheering, laughing and high-fiving the five foreigners in the group. It didn;t seem a good time to explain that a high-five is not something we do a lot in Wales... so of course I just went with the flow.

Lyndon and Matt, the Ishinomaki veterans, were both big fellas. Chuck's an action-movie martial artitst and stuntman so after Lyndon picked one of the kids up clean off the ground with a growl, all the kids were crowding round the three of them, begging to be next. I'm sure they got through all 20 of them... maybe four or five times each.

 

The early finish meant we had time to head back to Hisanohama, an area where we've volunteered five times before. We'd been invited to a kids' Halloween party at the small shopping street near the new temporary housing area.

When we got there, the festivities were in full flight with all the kids and most of the adults dressed up in fancy dress, playing party games and just running around having fun. After all our previous volunteer trips here being so focused on damage and loss, rebuilding and recovery, it was quite powerful to see all these families, especially the kids, having a chance to just have a bit of normal fun like everyone else for a change.

 

We'd only been there a couple of minutes when Sean brought over the mother and the grandmother who ran The Supermarket which we helped to clean up last June. It turned out that this is where they've been running a mini-mart business since September 3rd. Three THJ volunteers from that June trip were there yesterday so there was a lot of catching up to do.

They took us over to their new mini-mart where they seemed to be doing a pretty good trade. The mother reached under the desk and brought out an envelope with some 8x10's taken the first time we met.

 It wasn't long before her and her grandmother were both smiling through their tears again.

I'd called into the original supermarket for some food on a surf-trip up to the Yotsukura area in 2008 and remembered seeing the grandmother as she had quite "distinctive" dental work. To see her again last June when she'd lost everything was one thing, but to meet her and her daughter again yesterday as things are very slowly starting to come together made me feel very close to them.

They were both an incredible example of positive thinking, of not giving up. After 100 years of the family being in business at the same spot, they'd lost everything but have found a way to get back to work out of a small portacabin, and just get on with it, working towards getting back to their original site one day. They knew others had been dealt a much worse hand.

Outside, the party was showing no signs of running out of steam. Chuck once again went above and beyond by dressing up in something that looked like a too-small joker's outfit and posing for anyone who wanted a picture with him. He needs to give up the action movies and stunt-work, and get a kid's show instead.

We had to get the tools back to the volunteer centre by 4pm so after some long goodbyes and some more photos, we made our way home with a detour past the original supermarket to see the progress that had been made around there.

June 25, 2011

October 29, 2011