A letter from Ishinomaki

July 10, 2011

This letter to volunteers in Ishinomaki and Tokyo recently arrived from a couple running a shop in Ishinomaki.
(While the individual names are not included, this letter is being posted with the authors’ approval.)

 

Dear Peace Boat volunteers,

We are running a shop in Tatemachi in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture.
Thank you so much for helping with the clean up of our shop.

After the tsunami, the two of us discussed trying to clean our shop, and although we did try we were so physically and emotionally tired that we were just full of grief and irritation.
At that time, some volunteers offered to help us. At first we thought that it would just be for one day, however (since the cleanup could not be finished in that day) they even came back to help the next day, despite the fact that it was raining.
My wife and I finally felt that we could start to move forward after we saw our shop becoming gradually cleaner and cleaner.

As the recovery of the lifelines is still taking a long time we are not yet able to reopen our shop, however our computer has been fixed and so we are now sending you this letter of thanks.
We were helped so much, so really thank you very much.

We are so appreciative from the bottom of our hearts, and would like to thus express our deep thanks.

TAGS: cleanup • debris removal • Disaster Relief • Earthquake • international volunteers • Ishinomaki • Japan • Kanto-Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami • mud • mud removal • mudbuster • Peace Boat • Relief • Tokyo • Tsunami • Volunteer • volunteering • Volunteers