Name: Shigeo SASAKI

Age: 71

(Age 58 in March 2011)

Birthplace: Namie Town

Home address: Utsunomiya City, Tochigi Prefecture

Occupation: Agriculture, Storyteller

(Land improvement district staff in March 2011)

‘Hearts connected by supporting each other’

① I was the head of the secretariat for the Land Management Office, so when the shaking died down, I let my staff go straight home. After letting them go, I went by their houses one by one, to make sure they, their families and houses were OK. My own house has an old-fashioned strong build, so it did not collapse.

② On March 12^th, as it started getting light out, I went out to see the shore at Namie and the Odaka-district of Minami-Soma. I came back to Namie by noon, but there was no one around town. It appeared that there had been an announcement on the town speaker system to evacuate, so my wife let me know she had gone to the Namie High School Tsushima Branch in the Tsushima-district of Namie Town. I headed for Tsushima afterwards too.

③ During the day I was always out and about because of my job, and I only spent time in the gymnasium-turned-evacuation shelter in the evenings. Whenever I got back to the evacuation shelter, they would tell me what had happened that day. I would also tell them about my day, like, “I went to Minami-Soma city today” or “Today I went to the Saitama Super Arena and Kazo City”. it helped spark conversations among evacuees.

④ I put Buddhist articles and albums into a 45 L bag. Having that checked for radiation felt very bitter, and it drove me to tears. “What happened to this world?” I had nobody to be mad at, but my mind was a total blank. After the first visit my home, I decided to go to a bathhouse before returning to the evacuation shelter, because I wanted to go home with everything (including clothes) refreshed and replaced.

⑤ When I evacuated to the city of Utsunomiya, the people of the neighborhood tried to console my wife, telling her “we’re so sorry there’s nothing we can do to help.” My wife said, “It’s OK. Thank you for letting us live our lives here.” We were always worried that people would look at us strangely, but having people say these things to us made us feel very grateful.

⑥ In order to let other evacuees who owned land in Fujihashi district know about the situation there, we started the “Fujihashi Newsletter”. By sharing news like, “rice planting has started” and “rice production has been started for the first time at a decontaminated field,” we wanted to make people think “Ah, I’m glad farming is being done like it always was” and share our love for our own hometown.

⑦ As our vision for the future, we want to keep sharing updates like “the rice planting in Namie Town has started again”, “it’s time for harvest”, and “the flowers are in bloom”. I want to convey the beauty of the farm life and create processed farm products, to provide the means for people to come back.

⑧ At the Fukushima Ajisai Kai, we organize rice planting and other agricultural experiences, get-togethers, and volunteering activities, through which we facilitate communication between evacuees and the local community. For the people who return – often having returned by themselves, with their families scattered – we also have set gatherings for people to talk and hear all kinds of stories.

CAPTION

・A bulletin from the Fukushima Ajisai Kai, an association of people who evacuated mostly to the southern area of Togichi Prefecture. It was distributed among members and other evacuees, to inform them of monthly meet-ups, as well as other news. The number of issues published in near 200, shows the actual situation of long term evacuations.

・The Fujihashi Newsletter about the Fujihashi district of Namie Town. It shares updates on things like the state of rice planting and other project in the Fujihashi district, for people who evacuated from there. The aim of this effort is to make want people want move back someday.