Ms. Q (a woman in her 60’s) Q さん（６０代）

June 1, 2016 I used to have a produce market by the river. I quickly brought vegetables and fruits inside and locked the door when I heard the tsunami was coming. Later, I heard from my neighbors that they ate some of my produce that were packed in plastic bags and floated in the water. I remember Ponkan oranges were floating in the water when I entered my store on the third day. Although my store was small, I could still see the marks inside the store where the tsunami swirled. I thought of staying with relatives but went to the shelter instead so that I didn’t have to be polite all the time at the relative’s house. I stayed there for a half year. It may be because I was running a store that I liked to talk to people, and cleaning and cooking with others didn’t bother me at all. I heard some people at the shelter were concerned about being watched by others or not comfortable in a communal living. I was totally fine may be because I had many of my neighbors there. When I was young, I was shy around strangers, not found of interacting with people and didn’t like to talk with others. I was learning sewing and knitting as I liked to work with hands when I was young and stayed home without going to work. I married with someone whose family business was a produce market, started to get used to people and it’s been 35 years. I’ve been living with his parents. Produce market is very busy. I bagged vegetables and fruits and lined them up to display. My hands got rough, and I remember my mother used to rub them for me. Since we had a cat, we wanted to move out of the shelter as soon as possible and entered a drawing to win a temporary housing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the one we liked. We lived in a temporary housing for three and a half years. As I saw people leaving after building a new house, I envied them. We considered living in a public housing, but our son agreed to build a new house together. My mother-in- law passed away one year before the disaster. I wanted to rebuild our house before the 7th year anniversary of her death and invite people to thank for their support. I was hoping to rebuild the old house even before the disaster, but my husband was opposing the idea saying we didn’t have money to do that. We had a family meeting with our three children and I was happy that we came to the conclusion to build a house with our son where we could live together. I couldn’t express my joy openly because other people were still living in the temporary housing. We took out our belongings little by little and left without saying anything to others when we moved. There are some new houses being built in where we used to live, but everyone stays inside and no one comes out. I hope for a neighborhood association to be organized soon. I want to see my neighbors again. You can shop and check out by yourself at large grocery stores without talking to anyone. But, there are customers who enjoy talking to store staff while they shop as in the case of this small produce store at a temporary retail complex. While large-scale supermarkets are convenient, it’s nice to have a small store like this one in your neighborhood, isn’t it? Of course, you can buy everything you need at a large supermarket. And it might be a bit inconvenient to customers to come to a small produce store like this one as there are no butchers or fish stores nearby… This temporary retail complex will close in October. And we will close our produce market business too, because there is no guarantee our neighbors will come back to our store even if we re-open it. No matter what, I remain optimistic.