KAWAUCHI, Fukushima Prefecture--For the past three years, all Chika Akimoto wanted to do was to hang out with kids of her age at school.
KAWAUCHI, Fukushima Prefecture--For the past three years, all Chika Akimoto wanted to do was to hang out with kids of her age at school.
But that didn't happen. Instead, she was the sole pupil at Kawauchi Elementary School here through the fourth to sixth grades.
On March 23, the 12-year-old graduated to move on to the next stage in her education.
She will be attending Kawauchi Junior High School from April, but that, too, will be a lonely experience as she will be the only first-year student there.
This village had a population of around 3,000 people prior to the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011. Everybody evacuated, and relatively few residents returned.
In her farewell message at the graduation ceremony, Chika said, “Believing that all of my classmates will return, I spent my school life in a classroom which was far too big for a single student.”
The school, the only one at elementary level in Kawauchi, had 29 pupils and 15 staff members, including teachers, in this school year.
After the nuclear accident, Chika evacuated with her grandparents, parents and a brother who is three years older than her. The family spent a year in Koriyama, which is about 40 kilometers away.
In January 2012, the village government declared it was safe to return and that the elementary school would resume classes the following April.
The announcement prompted Chika's family to return to their home. At the time, the youngster assumed she would pick up the threads of her pre-disaster existence and spend time catching up with her old classmates.
The reality could not have been more different. None of her 18 classmates came back.
Instead, she had one-on-one classes with her teacher. Even if she forgot her textbooks, there were no students she could turn to for help.
Satomi Senzaki, 38, was Chika's homeroom teacher in the fifth and sixth grades.
“If there are 19 students, they can relax their minds appropriately during classes," Senzaki recalled thinking. "But with only one student, she was bound to snap one day.”
When Chika was in fifth grade, Senzaki told her in the second school term, “Chika, let’s stop doing our best.”
Senzaki began to chat with her about anime, the atmosphere of the teachers’ common room and other topics.
One day, Chika told Senzaki: “My mother told me a very cruel thing. She said, ‘Give up thinking that your friends will return (to this village).'”
Senzaki replied: “No parent could possibly think a classroom with only one student is a good thing. You should not continue to hope for your friends’ return. You should enjoy yourself now. That was what your mother was thinking.”
As a sixth-grader, Chika made welcome speeches whenever inspection groups visited the school.
In the school athletic meet, she made a declaration as the representative of the other children. She also served as the leader of the cheering squad and the conductor of the drum and fife band. She encouraged younger pupils who were poor at playing drums.
In a school event last October, all the pupils showed their study-related works. Chika created the kanji character “kizuna” (bond) with photos of smiling faces of about 100 people, including Kawauchi villagers, that she herself had taken.
In announcing the work, she said: “Three years ago, I was separated from my friends.” Then, she started to weep uncontrollably.
“She should weep more. She was making so much effort,” Senzaki said.
At the graduation ceremony, Chika’s farewell message echoed across the gymnasium.
“I was asked by Ms. Satomi (Senzaki), ‘Which do you like, a classroom that has many students or a classroom that has only one student?’ My answer was ‘A classroom that has many students is good. But a classroom that has only one student is not bad.’ I like Ms. Satomi very much.
“Though I was the only student, I was not alone. Though I was lonely, I was not pitiful. … Having self-confidence and pride and holding onto my dreams, I am moving on to a brighter future.”
Kawauchi Junior High School, like Chika's elementary school, is the only one of its kind in the village. For the next 12 months or so, Chika faces the prospect of being a solitary student again.
The total number of students at the school will be 13. Chika said she plans to cut her long hair and join the badminton club.