An ayoda in Noto

  (click on any photo to enlarge) If I've learned anything from the past trips, it's the need to be flexible. So for us, we learned that moring we were shifting our cleanup efforts from taking down concrete walls to do a different sort of cleanup aht the Animizu Christian Center. The building is currently deemed "unsafe," still the plan is to do the repairs and bring the center back for service. As is often the case, there are weeds surronding the building which need to be removed, thus our task for the day. As Aaron was cutting back some of the branches of the tree, there were other surprises including some wiring, debris, and other items. It became a personal goal to chop down the overgrown bush (tree?) by lunchtime. Note we didn't bring a full-sized saw, nor any power equipment. All we had to work with was a smaller hand saw. Yet somehow we got rid of the tree, leaving a short stump (sorry, I tapped out after getting this far). We were successful in getting mos...

  (click on any photo to enlarge) This is a view of the kasetsu jyuutakuu (temporary housing) that still dots the Noto Peninsula. I think each unit is maybe 200 square feet including kitchen and bath. We became familiar with these units at every place we've done our volunteer work, though so far we haven't done any community building. Not yet, anyway. This time our team was led by Egawa-Sensei, who is on staff with Noto Help and a Pastor at the Uchinada Church. We again were removing walls, this time it was a retaining wall that was collapsing. So that meant more digging and breaking down concrete. Both boys have been fantastic. They've done everything they've been asked to do and more. It's all been about physical labor. Fortunately the weather cooperated, we encountered only brief showers. This is Peter working with Choi-San, using the jackhammer to break down the wall. Let alone this is a challenging task, the jackhammer itself is quite heavy. The chunks of the b...

(Please click on any photo to enlarge.) FYI, the flight here was no problem, we flew United Airlines' partner, ANA (All Nippon Airways) who served us well. My wife Donna purchased a "newly designed" web pillow. It felt a little weird, but I actually got to sleep on the flight, something I rarely do. Getting to Ishikawa Prefecture was a bit more of a challenge, there's no direct route from the airport to our eventual destination, but we used a couple of buses and local trains to get to Kanazawa, which is the city right next to Ishikawa. After a day of settling in, we were sent out to a residence in the Noto area. It may be slightly difficult to see, this is sort of a cross betwen a curb and a ditch. Our guess is the original wall collapsed during the earthquake, but the base of the wall is still there. To rebuild the wall, we need to dig out the dirt, then remove the remaining wall. Note Peter digging out the dirt while also in his rain jacket. A jack...