Name: Yoshihiro YOKOTA

Age: 64

(Age 51 in March 2011)

Birthplace: Namie Town

Home address Miharu Town

Occupation: Storyteller

 ‘Kids and school in the middle of a disaster’

① The kids were panicking. They must have gotten scared when we all hid under the desks during the big quake.  When we got outside to the schoolyard, the ground had been spilt in places, creating bumps and cracks, and on top of that it had started snowing. By the time the parents came, the younger kids were crying in fear, and the older kids did their best to console them.

② When I saw the line of cars, I became clear to me: “This is it, we have to evacuate now.” I wasn’t sure what danger I was evacuating from. “Is there a problem at the nuclear power plant? What’s the danger at the power plant? What’s going on there?” That’s what I couldn’t manage to figure out.

③ The kids who would go to school for the first time needed clothes for their opening ceremony, as well as things like backpacks and writing utensils. We managed to get supplies, because the parents from local schools helped out by gathering things like utensils and gym clothes. Among the clothes, there were special clothes for the entrance ceremony in various sizes, and even suits for the mothers to wear.

④ Having faced a disaster, and amidst all the emotional hardship, seeing the kids try to adapt to their new schools and classes really left me in awe.

⑤ Equipped with protective gear, a dosimeter and transceiver, we were allowed to bring back all we could fit into a garbage bag from our own homes. Looking at the house we had left behind, thinking “How long will it take for us to be able to go back? Is that really my house?”, it felt heartrending, especially during the time I was first allowed to go back.

⑥ It was a very touching realization: “As long you have kids and teachers together, you have a school.” We did our best to provide an educational program, as we looked for a facility for the kids to use. We had to depend on our own ingenuity and creativity, which was very thrilling and stressful, but extremely fulfilling at the same time.

⑦ If you don’t know the place you live, and don’t take an interest in it, you don’t have anything to base decisions on when the time comes. Even when you decide to evacuate, your judgment gets clouded. The lessons of the disaster differ from person to person, but if you don’t take the time to process what you learned, you can’t put them to use going forward.

CAPTION

A backpack with emergency supplies sent to Naraha Town under evacuation. The newly enrolled and transferred children used the backpacks, textbooks that were sent as emergency supplies.

Chalk sent to Naraha Town under evacuation as emergency supplies. Various school supplies were sent as emergency materials to school teachers who were forced to start classes without anything to work with.