Villagers’ needs
May
On May 2, we visited to the Osu elementary school, a shelter in Ogatsu town. The school had remain standing on the hill, but the center of the town in the bay area was completely devastated. There were enough relief supplies but they hadn’t been able to put them in order yet. So they needed to get a lot of big plastic boxes to be able to split things up and get organized to actually use them and to be able to distribute them effectively. Takahashi-san, one of the core members running the shelter, said, “We most appreciate long-term support in one place. It is hard to ask many things to a volunteer who come here for the first time, but we can talk to the same person that we know and feel safe.” Another thing he was concerned about child care in affected areas. As an example of how children are being overlooked, he said, “There are things like tea in the relief supplies, but there isn’t any cola. The children have been tolerating this with little complaint. I feel sorry for them.” Later we had an opportunity to talk to an elementary school girl. She told us she was bored with eating the same instant noodles all the time.
Almost two months has passed since the disaster, but these people are still in need of a great deal of assistance on a very basic level.
