ギャラリー

Nadiaの活動はその初期の段階からいくつかの熱い心を持ったグループの協力に支えられてきました。東京カナディアンホッケークラブもその１つです。毎週数多くのプレーヤーが活動に参加して下さり、その大きな体と次を読む頭脳でリーダーシップを発揮してくれています。

自分には人を助けるなんて大それた事出来ないんじゃないか、自分の事で精一杯、と思ってしまい、参加を躊躇しているあなた。ホッケーの神様と言われたグレツキーは言っています。

“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

あなたにも出来る事は沢山あります。失敗を恐れず一歩を踏み出してみて下さい。

救援物資はもう迷惑になるから必要ないと思っていませんか？

皆さんのご家庭はもうすでに衣替えをすませたはず。避難所にも夏は近づいてきているのです。津波が美しい東北の海辺の街を襲ったのは雪振る冬でした。被災者の方は何も持たずに体１つで避難所に逃げ込みました。現在も所持品は何もないのです。

今回は皆さんの寄付のお陰でリクエストのあった３００枚のタオルケットを届けることができました。

本当にありがとうございました。

皆さんのお気持ち、Nadiaが責任もって被災者の方にお届けします。これからもサポートをお願い申し上げます。

ゴールデンウィーク中、テレビなどでボランティアの数が多すぎて被災地に行っても仕事がない、なんて事を耳にした事がある方は多いのではないでしょうか？そして、ボランティアに行きたい、と思っていながらも十分人手が足りていて逆に押し掛けて迷惑になりたくない、と思っていくのを躊躇している人は多いのではないでしょうか？

実際に毎週被災地に行っている私たちからすると、どうしてそういう噂が出るんだろう？と不思議な程です。私たちTeam-Nadiaでは被災者の方からの要望は沢山あり、すぐにでも伺いたいのに人手が足りなくてもどかしい思いをする事すらあります。

ゴールデンウィークの最終日８日は大きな倉庫とオフィス、そして家庭の床下のヘドロ出しのリクエストを受けていましたが、人手が足りなく朝一番から１２人ワンチームで全てをこなさなければなりませんでした。幸い経験の多い人ばかりで、どうやったら効率的に短時間ですべき事を全て完了する事ができるか、一人一人が考えて行動し、皆の呼吸もぴったりあって全ての作業をその日のうちに終わらせる事が出来ました。でも、決して十分な数のボランティアがいた訳ではありません。人手はノドから手が出る位必要です。

ボランティアしたいけれど本当に必要とされているのか迷っているあなた。Nadiaに是非連絡下さい。私たちはあなたのその手を待っています。

２か月前のお昼時、誰が今の石巻の現状を想像することができたでしょうか。震災直後私たちは現実に衝撃を受けすぐに行動に移さなくては、と決意しました。

そして２か月が経ち、テレビでは通常のバラエティ番組などが目立つようになり、震災の報道は徐々に少なくなって来ています。でもこれは決して被災地の状況が良くなっているからではありません。２か月経った今もまだ家の中にすら入れない手つかずの家が沢山あります。避難所にはまだ沢山の人が暮らしています。

石巻市のありとあらゆる時計は全て午後３時５０分を指しています。恐らく津波が石巻市を襲った時刻でしょう。NADIAは被災者の方が、その時計が指す時間から前に進もうという気持ちになれるよう出来るだけの事をして行くつもりです。失った命や家思い出の品など、もう取り戻せない物は沢山あります。でも、被災者の方が希望や夢を少しずつでも持ち続けていく事ができるよう私たちは全力を尽くして行くつもりです。

２か月経ったこの日、あなたの１０分間を被災者の方の為に自分は何が出来るか考える事に費やして下さい。そして出来ればそれを行動に移して下さい。

まだまだ私たちに出来る事は沢山あります。

In Japan, instead of Easter holiday, we are in the middle of holiday season, called “Golden Week”, which started from 29th/April.

Japanese are well known as hard workers at office, and for us, GW is the time to relax and recharge our energy. Some spends time with family, some goes overseas, some goes in a mountain to enjoy fresh early summer air.

Here is a story of people who decided to spend their holiday with Naida, with people at Ishinomaki. Our trip schedule was rather hard, spending night in a bus after hardworking week.

28/April(Thu)

23:00 Shinjuku

Most of us worked until evening, went home, took quick shower, grabbed boots and helmet and masks, and hurried to the meeting point. We were a group of multi-nationality, but working in Japan, we are used to be punctual, all gathered on time!

Team-Nadia, here we go!

29/April(Fri)

8:30 Ishinomaki

Again, we arrived at Ishinomaki on time, unload our baggages, and changed to working out fit. A bit nervous and shocked to see the reality. Some lost his words, some tried to hide their upset.

After briefing, each group went to houses where they were assigned. Each group were well mixed with female/male, veterans/un-experienced, JPN speakers/ENG speakers. 50 days after Tsunami, many houses still remained untouched. Most of us couldn’t sleep well in a bus, but no one complained seeing how people enduring under this situation.

Sakura survived tsunami and welcomed us at their garden.

15:00~15:30 Finish work

Some group completed cleaning, and some promised to come back next day, depending on house condition.

When we met house owner in the morning, they were a little shy so as we were, but at the end of the day, all of us became like family, promised to keep helping as long as they needed, and promised to visit them when they really returned to their life in the future.

17:00 Matsushima

Matsushima is a group of islands near Ishinomaki. There are some 260 tiny islands (shima) covered in pines (matsu) – hence the name – and is ranked as one of the Three most beautiful views of japan .

Despite the proximity of Matsushima to the Tsunami, the area was protected by the islands and suffered little damage. They were damaged by earthquakes, but tried to be recovered before GW, and they just reopened their ryokan, we were the first guests after earthquakes!

Open air hot spring the best view in Japan on my back…

30/April(Sat)

7:30 Departure to Ishinomaki

8:30-15:00

Some continued work of previous day, some were assigned to new house. On 2nd day, no one needed to be told what to do, we all worked proactively, taking extra caution to avoid injury. There were broken glasses and nails and spikes everywhere.

One thing I noticed living in a metropolitan city like Tokyo where we often don’t know who’s living our next door is, here in Ishinomaki, we exchange greeting everyone, everyone show our sincere appreciation for their commitment both in words and in attitude.

1/May(Sun)

Some of us enjoyed after work beer too much the night before, I saw many were taking aspirin at breakfast table..

One more work before going back to Tokyo.

And as an important mission during GW, we delivered 1200 pairs of brand new shoes to Ishinomaki and Watari-cho. A generous company let us use a truck for free and volunteers delivered them driving for 30 hours going up and down.

12:00 Finish work

13:00 Departure to Tokyo

In exchange of our crew, 17 Nadia crew arrived from Tokyo, and 15 more coming next day. They took over our mission, and we left Ishinomaki.

Despite the fact that we had very tough days doing physical work, we are somehow refreshed, recharged our energy.

Having a break a few times on our way back to Tokyo, I bought a famous Miyagi prefc. sweets made with green beans.

20:00 Arrived at Shinjuku

72 hours ago, we were total strangers to each other, but after spending time together at Ishinomaki, we all became comrades. We hugged and promised to see each other at Ishinomaki soon.

This is how our GW became literally Golden….

22/April(fri)

15:00 : Departure for Miyagi.

According to weather forecast, we’ll expect some rain during weekend, not cheerful condition for house cleaning. But we still have hundreds of houses to clean. Team-Nadia, c’est parti!

19:30 : Arrived at Akiu-onsen

Tonight lodge, Iwanuma-ya. Famous onsen made me relaxed after 4h30m drive. And we found great soba-restaurant in front of ryokan. The owner prepared us a fresh made soba with tempura. And offered various dishes and rice for free, this place is definitely to come back!

We went to bed early for next day’s activity…

23/April(Sat)

07:00 : Departure hotel

09:00 : Arrived at Ishinomaki Minato elementary school

After briefing with all 47 crew, we are divided into several group, each group went to houses which were hit by Tsunami. Our team went a house close to Minato school. the weather condition wasn’t so good, but our motivation was very high, eye witnessing the power of natural disaster… All we want is that they can go back to their house and re-start their life as soon as possible. To move out a rotten piano took us lots of physical energy, but very glad to know owner still has a beautiful grand piano at other place so that one day she can enjoy playing it. We had a lunch break at Minato school and kept working in the afternoon until 16:00. We couldn’t finished all the work, it remained a store house to be cleaned, but we promised that we would come back as soon as possible.( And we came back next day!)

Her neighbor kindly let us wash our hands and boots, since they had a water well, we never appreciated water so much..

19:00 : Back to Akiu-onsen

There’s nothing better than onsen after physical work for whole day …

20:00 : Dinner time!

Get some energy for next day..

Positive energy come from good food and good sleep.

23/April(sun) Easter day

Another full day work before going back to Tokyo

Yesterday’s rain still remained on a road, water came up until knee high.. A hundred meter walk took us 10minutes. But it was a clear sunny day. Tohoku spring day really cheers us up.

Today is Easter day, it’ christian holiday and family gather at home and have a feast all together, but seeing a manu at Minato elementary school shelter on this day, I felt the needs of immediate help.

15:00 : finish the work, and going back to Tokyo

On the way back to Tokyo, we stopped at Nasukohgen to have a little break, and there we saw a beautiful rainbow… We believed this was a good sign.

When we arrived at home after 6 hours drive, I was exhausted, but somehow I was full of positive energy. And totally motivated for coming week.

I’ll be off for Miyagi-ken during golden week vacations, can’t wait to lift more wet tatamis….

April 15th, Tokyo

5:15… Akihabara station. Half asleep I meet my friends organizing the trip. We will be trying to help a bit for 2 days in Ishinomaki, Miyagi. We split the helmets between cars, hand over shovels and wheelbarrows and head North, overthere where Nuclear Powerplants and giant waves live on TV.

9:20… nice conversation in the car, too much water, we have a toilet break at the Asaka Service area in the vicinity of Koriyama, the closest point to the Fukushima reactors. My Geiger counter indicates a worrying 1.88 micro Sievert/hr on the parking lot. One of our friends is a bit nervous, it is down to 0.35 inside the building, hardly an issue.

12:00… our GPS shows a peaceful blue area to the right of the screen… the name 石巻  (Ishinomaki) shows up, we’ll be there in a few minutes. The landscape around us is mostly normal. It is hard to tell that a disaster hit the area.

12:05… a few hundreds meters further… we turn right and suddenly enter a different world. Beirut in the 80s… a war zones reveals itself to our shocked eyes and leaves us speechless. On the other side of the bridge a blue boat sits between houses, some buildings lie on their side between huge piles of debris and lines of workers wearing helmets walk along the sides of the streets to some unknown destination. Few people unrelated to the rescue effort are to be seen. We drive slow.

12:10… we finally reach the school ground where work is going to be distributed by the local volunteers. 2 cars are lying in the swimming pool but that sounds almost normal. We are close to the river beds but still 500m away from the shore… we cannot imagine the situation on the sea front. A quick check of the Geiger counter confirms our belief, the level is down to 0.1 micro Sievert/hr, same as Tokyo. We dress, wear our industrial masks, bullet proof safety glasses and start working in the school ground per the indication of our charismatic leader.

15.00… we finish cleaning up the drain system of the school and head for assignment #2. 3 volunteers having arrived from Nagoya after a 14 hours night bus ride decide to join forces with us. We walk through the village once more. Same feeling of desolation, I don’t have the strength to think about the consequences in terms of human lives. A large truck is parked in the garden of a house on the way, resting on a concrete wall, still lifted 1 meter above ground. We will be helping the owners of a large house by the river. Adjacent to the house is a public pavilion used for events. It looks almost normal until you see the cracked concrete base and collapsed flooring. Access is prevented by a strange mix of debris brought from the river just 30m away. We will be clearing the access and removing debris from a storage area that cranes can’t get to.

16:30… we are already 30 mins late but cannot seem to be able to stop working… there is so much that remains to be done. We know our friends are waiting and must start to be worried. We end up leaving a bit later after a warm exchange with the house owners. Going back to our accommodation in Sendai takes 2 hours. We will try to regain some strengths tonight before another day of physical labour.

We are exhausted, a bit depressed by the extend of the work that is left to do, but somehow happy to have contributed a tiny little bit.