Before he turned over his bathhouse in Tokyo's Ota Ward to a group of musicians on Tuesday night for a charity performance, proprietor Kazuyuki Kondo gave a brief and somber warning:
Before he turned over his bathhouse in Tokyo's Ota Ward to a group of musicians on Tuesday night for a charity performance, proprietor Kazuyuki Kondo gave a brief and somber warning:
"Follow the directions of the staff in case there's an aftershock, and watch that you don't turn on the faucets by accident. You might scald yourself."
After nearly two weeks of clearing wreckage and cooking at evacuation centers in the disaster-weary Tohoku region, the musicians returned to Tokyo to perform, give accounts of their trip and raise donations for victims in the north.
"A lot of people are depressed by what's going on," says Kondo, the third-generation operator of the Hasunuma Onsen bathhouse. "I want cheer up the locals here. But I also want to do what I can for those farther away, even if it's to turn a bathhouse into a stage for one night."
Kondo kept his business open throughout the earthquake and tsunami on March 11 to serve as a gathering place for his worried customers.
Eight groups took part in the event. Among the performers were Yosuke Arai, who asked the crowd for a moment of silence and later shook the bathhouse with traditional "taiko" drumming.
Kaori Kurihara, a nature tour guide, offered her impressions of volunteer activities in the stricken region. "Many people are hearing that volunteers are no longer needed or that communities can't or won't accept them, but it's not true," she says. "Most of the volunteers are men, but there are some jobs that only women can do. There are also senior volunteers, and there are jobs for them, too." She spoke by candlelight, in order to save electricity, to a hall filled mostly with bathhouse regulars, most of them elderly.
"Ota Ward used to be filled with young families," says Mayor Tadanori Matsubara, who showed up to praise the volunteers. "But now most residents are old and new families on average produce less than two children. That's precisely why we need events such as this--to create a community where we reach out to each other rather than draw away. When the next disaster comes, our response should be on a personal level."
The ward, he adds, has set up a coordination center for municipal workers and volunteers. It's also offered homes in the ward to evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture, yet not nearly enough. In four days, the mayor says, the ward received more than 550 applications for 30 housing units.