Mr.

I arrived in Ishinomaki, Miyagi on June 17, 2014, for a summer volunteer internship that lasted until August 9. This was the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Harvard, and I came to Japan with seven other Harvard undergrads to do re-development work in Ishinomaki and the surrounding area. We worked with and were hosted by an organization called the Ishinomaki Christian Center (ICC), which was made up of staff who had been in the Tohoku area since the disasters of March 11, 2011. I came to Japan because I felt a desire to serve and because this trip to Ishinomaki was the opportunity that was put in front of me – I had received an email from a friend during the previous year about a volunteer internship supported by Harvard’s Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies, and I joined the team. I knew only a few Japanese words and had only been outside the U.S. once, so I knew it would be an adventure for me. Ishinomaki was, for the most part, cleaned up and rebuilt when I arrived in the city. I had not seen Ishinomaki at any other point before or after the tsunami, so I could not judge how much had been cleaned up, but I can say that, throughout much of the city, there were not many signs that there had ever been a disaster. I lodged at the ICC base in the Watanoha neighborhood; the area looked beautiful, clean, and peaceful. Around where I lived, the main reminders of the tsunami were the empty lots scattered throughout blocks of houses. These lots had once been the sites of homes and businesses, but now were empty apart from the weeds that smothered them. Construction was common as well, with both large and small buildings going up throughout the area. In other parts of Ishinomaki, however, the tsunami’s work was still quite apparent and quite saddening. Next to some sections of the ocean shore, the foundations of houses were all that remained from destroyed neighborhoods. Out on a peninsula where fishermen lived and worked, not only had the tsunami destroyed all but the foundations of dozens of homes, but it had carved up the landscape itself, cutting into hillsides and roughing up what were formerly gentle slopes. The re-development work in which I and the other members of my team participated consisted in both physical labor – building new structures and repairing old ones – and supporting the people of Ishinomaki through music, community activities, and simply being present to talk and listen. I went out to the peninsula five times to put up permanent tents that could be used for work or storage by fishermen. Two other times, I helped local fishermen string shells together for use as oyster nets. Other days, I stayed closer to Watanoha and worked to renovate a house (mostly by putting up drywall) in an area close to the ocean shore, where several structures were still abandoned. The house ICC was using as a base also needed work, so I helped there, too. I brought my alto saxophone to Japan, and I played it several times in the Ishinomaki area in schools and at community festivals, often along with other interns. We were able to play in schools through the Liberty Music Project, an organization partnering with ICC that conducted music workshops in schools and children’s centers. The kids definitely were appreciative – at a preschool we visited, it was hard to keep some of them away from my instrument and me. A few special events took place while I was at ICC, and I was able to help with those. In early July, ICC put on the Ishinomaki Gospel Festival, which drew hundreds of residents to a local park for a great day of music, food, and fun. Later, in early August, I helped with soccer and basketball camps for local kids. This was a good deal of fun for both the kids and for me. For the most part, I liked the work I was doing, but I liked the people with which I was working even more. I spent time with a large number of awesome volunteers from Japan, the US, and Taiwan (just to name a few places), and we were able to get close through working together and living together. I enjoyed the Japanese food (udon was my favorite), the combinis, onsen, and the beautiful mountains. Many of the weekends I was in Japan, I joined other Harvard interns and friends to explore some of the Tohoku region. We walked around Ishinomaki, visited beautiful Matsushima, shopped in Sendai, spent the night in a cabin at a place called Takayama, and even made it down to Tokyo for two nights. We when couldn’t travel far, we’d have fun by riding bikes, swimming at the beach, playing soccer or basketball, setting off fireworks, going bowling, doing karaoke, visiting onsen, or eating new foods. Many nights we walked to Family Mart for some delicious ice cream. Overall, I was well prepared for the trip. Though I did not speak Japanese well, I was often around bi-linguals, and so there were not too many difficulties. Furthermore, I asked a good deal of questions about the language so that by the end of the trip, I could have a very short conversation with the Japanese people I met. I had had some previous construction experience and was ready to help on the manual labor front. I was able to interact with several Ishinomaki residents, and though the area had recovered physically from the tsunami in many ways, the people of Ishinomaki were often hurting very much from the disaster. Friends, neighbors, and loved ones had passed away. Memories of the waves still brought pain. One man I met, Utsumi-san, was sad that his large collection of jazz records had been almost entirely destroyed by the wave, save one last, warped record of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Though I didn’t speak much Japanese, we were able to have a conversation simply by listing names of jazz musicians and learning that we both liked a lot of the same artists. I hope it gave him some happiness just to talk to someone. It was a wonderful trip for me, and believe I helped spread some love and encouragement to the people I met. It’s important that, though many of the visible signs of the tsunami have been removed from Tohoku, people do not forget the many people who are still struggling because of the disasters and are suffering under the pains of moving on.