Harvard Workshop at ASIJ

I was only in 3rd grade when the triple disaster hit Japan. I was at my friend's house, in her car, ready to be driven home when the car started swaying from side to side. I remember being confused as if it was a joke, that someone was actually pushing the car around like that. My friend's dad opened the door and quickly told us to get inside, we walked back inside, our balance off from the occasional sways of the earthquake. Under the table, we "duck, cover, and hold" just as we were taught to while we watched the TV. One by one we flipped through the channels and saw every news reporter talking about the earthquake, then the tsunami, then the nuclear meltdown. As a 3rd grader, I was terrified, I wasn't allowed to go home for another day and a half, and when I did get home some of our vases, were broken up and put outside. While we heard more about the radiation and the spreading, my mom decided to ask our uncle to take us kids to Kobe, where it was cleared from radiation, while she stayed behind and worked and took care of things. We stayed there for the week-long break we were given from school. I got back 2 days absent from school and my class only had 8 of the 23 kids there. I was shocked, many foreign kids and family's moving away because they were scared. By the end of the year, there were only 16 of us left. Now, I still feel shocked as to so many people who are still scared of the people and stuff from Fukushima. I know for a fact some Fukushima farmers are trying to get back on their feet and start over. I know this because, I went on a Hands on Tokyo trip, helping these farmers start their harvest, or help them farm. Hearing their stories of sacrifices they made me feel empathetic. One specific story was of a farm family, who had asked their young son whether he was willing to see one parent less, do to them being gone and helping out in Fukushima or if he wanted to risk being sick just so they could be together, and he chose the latter. I think sometimes people forget they are real people with emotions, they are just scared of what the radiation has done. But little by little, I think Japan will fully recover.