{"id":39,"date":"2011-06-12T12:44:06","date_gmt":"2011-06-12T12:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/laurelraab.com\/?p=39"},"modified":"2011-06-12T12:44:06","modified_gmt":"2011-06-12T12:44:06","slug":"tsunami-relief-orientation-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"Tsunami Relief Orientation Session"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent most of the afternoon today in presentations and meetings about my trip to volunteer for the disaster relief this upcoming Friday. 5 days away!!!<\/p>\n

Dan and I headed out to the JICA cultural center in Shibuya. there wasn’t a real direct route to get there, so we ended up taking 4 trains. <\/p>\n

Dan and I at Sasazuka Station
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Of course I wanted to put my best foot forward, so I wore my new sparkly pink Toms!
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We arrived and I found Yuki, whom I’d been emailing with over the past week. She set me up with an earpiece so I could hear the presentation in English. Dan and I took our seats in a giant room filled with mostly Japanese people. There were 2 ways to volunteer- in Tokyo fundraising on weekends, and in Ishinomaki for a one week period. Most the people there were Tokyo volunteers.<\/p>\n

Where the days’ events were held
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At first it was difficult getting used to listening to a man speaking Japanese on a microphone in one ear, and a woman translating into the earpiece in my right ear. But eventually I tuned out the Japanese, and the first hour and 45 min were dedicated to recapping what has happened, what has been done, and what work still needs to happen. <\/p>\n

As people spoke, a slideshow played with images of Ishinomaki’s condition
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Here are some images I took from the slide show
\nCleaning toxic sludge
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A street cleared, with the rubble pushed to the side
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So sad
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There was a quick recess, and all the Tokyo weekend volunteers left. Many more Ishinomaki volunteers showed up for the 4pm presentation, including many international volunteers. <\/p>\n

We sat through another presentation more focused on the volunteer work and living conditions in Ishinomaki, then divided into 2 groups- Japanese and international volunteers. There were people from the US, France, Australia and other places. It was so great to see! We did a quick roll call then all sat down together in a circle. Yuki then told us we’d be broken into 3 international teams, all with a bilingual leader. I was put on Aska’s team, and my team mates are Joji, Calum and Wesley. We signed a bunch of waivers, declared and paid for insurance and then introduced ourselves a bit. Then we got to talking and everyone seems really friendly and just looking to be part of a worthy cause. We even started planning group potluck dinners together! Somewhat challenging with no stove or hot water, we may look into acquiring a small camping stove.<\/p>\n

Once we discussed everything on the agenda and then some, we parted ways til Friday! All the volunteer groups meet at Shinjuku Park, and we leave by bus at 9:15pm. It’s about a 6 hour drive to Ishinomaki, and that’s if there’s no traffic! Needless to say it’ll be a late first night. Tomorrow Dan and I are going shopping for all the gear I need and food I’ll bring. If I enjoy myself enough, perhaps I’ll do this a few more times and get some real use out of the sleeping bag, steel sole boots and hazmat gear I need to bring!<\/p>\n

After all our meetings we rode a stop over to Roppongi for dinner. In the distance I saw Tokyo Tower
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I spent most of the afternoon today in presentations and meetings about my trip to volunteer for the disaster relief this upcoming Friday. 5 days away!!! Dan and I headed out to the JICA cultural center in Shibuya. there wasn’t a real direct route to get there, so we ended up taking 4 trains. Dan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,78,11],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dan","tag-ishinomaki","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}