May 24th: Where are those young men I had yesterday???!

Well, I feel perky today.  Yesterday, I did just a light work and rested well.

You get to be awake around 5:30 am every morning while living in a tent since the bright sun light lets you know it is the morning - time to be up and to get ready for our breakfast after 6:00 am.

Here is our daily morning drill.
Step ①  Heat water for coffee:  I personally can not live without a cup of coffee in the morning.
Step ②　Measure appropriate amount (very important !!) of water and soak rice before cooking.  We used "wash-free rice" - it is very easy and no waste of water at the tent site.
Step ③　After 20 min of soaking, start cooking rice.
Step ④　Make some "rice balls"for lunch.

cooking rice

Breakfast - Rice and soup

Rice balls with Nori - for Lunch

Well, once rice balls are made, we are ready to go to work.

Today, again, we decided to work in a separate team.  As we gathered at the registration desk, I heard that we might work as a smaller group because there were less volunteers available today.  Availability of volunteers varies day to day, today was 564 people worked according to the Ishinomaki Volunteer Center website.  Until mid May, there were about 1,000 volunteers working each day.   As many residents are concerned, the number of volunteers are clearly declining.  It is not a good sign....

This is my second day of mud removing operation.....

Oh my,,,,  I thought we never finish that house in one day.  As I said, I had 9 guys with me yesterday, and I missed them so much for today's work.  The job sheet says to remove mud under the floor with 5 people.  Well, we only have 4 people due to the shortage of volunteers -  two men in 60's, and two girls.   Then the house was twice big as yesterday's.  And.....there are big gravels, another layer over the dirt.....

This house was installed with an interesting heating system, which keeps heat under the floor (with layers of dirt and gravels on top of a sheet of plastic) and distributes heat along the side walls with special groove.  That means that air circulate all over the house with heat.... We have to remove the mud and all dried gunk under the floor completely, it is going to be not pleasant being the house, very smelly..

So, our job today is pretty much removing the gravels to outside.  How many sand bags we made??   I don't know...  Maybe 150 bags for four of us..  Floor was removed already, but floor frame is still there and we can not squat down completely, which would be easier for my back..  First 15 min, we were chatting and working.  Then we all became quiet... focusing on gravels;  we just scoop the gravels and put into sand bags.
We took a 10 min. break every hour and an hour break for lunch, thank god !  My back felt like stuck bending after about a half hour of shoveling.  I thought I might break my back as I tried to straighten it up at the break time.  Where the heck of those 9 young men who worked yesterday ???  They should be working at the site like this !!

shoveling out gravels

oh yes.....we worked hard ... we really did work hard with four of us.
About 2:30 pm, we asked the owner to check our work, any other things to do, then we were done by 3:00pm.  I was happily surprised that we were able to finish this site in one day.  We really did a good job.  My back was telling me that I did work hard..  Well, I was so looking forward to going to the bath house after the job.

Well, the treat for our hard work was waiting for us at the tent site.

Kyushu Ramen "soup-kitchen" for volunteers ! Yeah !!

 There was a Ramen stand, very tasty Kyushu Ramen, for volunteers !!  Sometimes a group of people, a store or some people set up a counter and offer free meals to volunteers, like a soup-kitchen. We got lucky today - it was a very tasty Ramen.
You know.... your hard work is always rewarded.  You never know how and when, but I always feel this is true.  A feel of tiredness, satisfaction from hard physical work, and full tummy.... that was a good feeling.  Addictively, good feeling....

Arty picture of Ramen   taken by Kiki

My friend came later, and she ate her Ramen in our tent.  As I watched her eat, I reached to the energy drink my friend parent sent with us - "Tiobita"   Every Japanese knows this drink (like a Red Bull here) - popular TV commercial for last 40 years or so in Japan.  My parents has their stocks at home, too. 

After we took this little break, and off to the bath house.  I hope I can wake up and stand up tomorrow morning...