Life of an ALT: Aftermath

I said in an earlier post, Japan is built for earthquakes. The buildings are made to bend and flow and go along with the earth trying to throw them the hell off. Japan mocks earthquakes, it is advanced and clever and ninja.

The tsunami is what FUBAR'd the shit out of everything.

It will take a long time to recover from, and after a couple of days I started to realize this. I'm very slow to realize things that don't coincide with my version of a happy shiny universe.

I had enough food and juice, after the doomquake and tsunami, to survive on my own for a couple of days. Then I met up with my friend and fellow ALT, Scott, who had no power or water as well, but still had gas and was able to cook. So I took my frozen dinners over there and we would eat those.

Another friend and fellow ALT, David, who lived right next door to me, also had access to food, and we were able to share and ration.

I was convinced we would be all right for the next few days.

On the Monday after, our friend Kevin rode his bike out from Sendai and met up with us, bringing the first word we'd had on the rest of our friends, and our panicking families. Kevin was headed to Ishinomaki to search for his girlfriend, because there was no way for people in our area to communicate with the rest of the world. The phones and internet were all down, and the entire country was worried about their loved ones. Hell the whole world was worried.

He took our picture to send back along with the note that we were alive.

My father had actually contacted the local news people and sent them after me. It was a big shit storm of scary that I did not want to deal with, but I tried my hardest to find a way to communicate to him that I was well and simply incommunicado. I was hoping he would wait patiently for word. My father, however, is as equally stubborn as I am, and waits for nothing.

So Tuesday Kevin gets back to my apartment with a news van, and tells me that if I go with them to Sendai and Skype my father on live television, they'll take me to Sendai, let me shower, and feed me. It was the shower that sold me.

I hadn't bathed in five days and was starting to consider drowning myself in the ocean.

The news people, ABC News' Good Morning America, were really nice, and didn't say anything about me stinking up their van for the ride in. They gave me a hotel room for two nights, and let me shower first thing.

I will forever love them.

The Skype interview--and I had warned them, don't mistake that--did not go as their producers had probably planned/hoped for. Because my family doesn't do melodramatic waterworks. At all. And I'm simply me, and generally incapable of taking things seriously. I also did not want to be on TV, and can be fantastically passive aggressive when I want to be.

Stubborn, remember.

So I felt bad for them, both for that, and for being rushed back by their bosses immediately after because the power plant was exploding and they didn't want to become radioactive mutant zombies of doom.

I suppose I can understand that.

Though a radioactive mutant zombie of doom apocalypse would be just about the most awesome thing to ever awesome, should it happen. I'm totally ready for it.

Anyway. I spent my two nights in the hotel, talked to my family and friends and publishing people, reassured everything that I was alive and well and healthy-ish--though the coughing fits I would get into did little to convince them that last bit was truth--but that I had limited access to things such as power and internet, and would only be able to communicate intermittently.

My family had wanted me to get the news people to fly me home, but I wasn't packed or ready to go. I mean, I charged through a tsunami to save my cell phone, I wasn't going to leave my entire apartment behind just because of an exploding nuclear power plant.

Please.

But my family continued to sell me out to the media.

I got a call early the next morning from 60 Minutes, which I ignored, and then called my family before heading out to do things like find food and my friends. My family called 60 Minutes back and told them exactly where to find me. I was still in my pajamas when they knocked on my hotel door.

I love my family.

I told you we were a stubborn bunch. They were determined to get me out of Japan right the hell now, and I was determined to do things at my own pace.

Obviously I won.

But because they started crying and I can't really deal with that, I agreed to take the 60 Minutes crew around Higashimatsushima and tell them what was what. I also sold them David, because his story was much more powerful and heroic and interesting than mine, and I knew they would like him more.

He thanked me for that profusely. I think he's still killing me in effigy.

But I got more food out of it, so I don't mind.

This was his school:

To get an idea of what he went through, because he was there when it happened. This was the staffroom:

My junior high school looks like this:

Thursday I got a ride back to my apartment, where I continued to pack my things and get ready to fly home. Having seen that even in Sendai there wasn't much power and there were lines for the grocery stores, and that nothing else was open at all, I realized that Japan would not be recovering any time soon in my area.

Another couple of days and my cell phone was able to send emails again, and I began corresponding with my company and my embassy.

They were very helpful. I think they were either all in the same building, or they were reading from the same playbook, because this was what I got from both of them:

"Hang in there!"

Exactly that.

Yeah.

I realized that I would probably be on my own for getting myself the hell out of dodge.

My friend Scott is British, and his embassy sent a damn car for him.

To be fair, though, I did have opportunities to leave. The news people offered to take my luggage to Sendai for me, the military offered to fly me to Tokyo and evacuate me--flying out of the country would have to be paid for by me though. Because the US can spend its tax dollars to send government officials to Fiji and buy them high dollar prostitutes that let them put it anywhere, but it evidently won't fork out the cash to get its own citizens out of a disaster area.

I refused all of these though, because I like to do things at my own pace, even if it means becoming a radioactive mutant zombie of doom myself.

I would be the most scary ninja doom zombie ever though, bet your ass.

Even if it also means running out of food, which I did. I lived on rice for about a week, and then nothing but a bottle of highly sugared coffee and some tea one day. A local PTA lady gave me some food--the rice--and helped me get my stuff out of my apartment. She's been the one taking care of me in Japan, for the most part, like a host mother that I don't live with. My neighbors also came and gave me some food and water and money when everything first happened. After a while though I was on my own, because things started to get scarce.

I eventually made my way by bus to Sendai, and stayed with wonderful friends that fed me. I never realized how much I loved food, until I suddenly didn't have it anymore. Going to bed hungry is something that happens when you're seven and you piss your parents off before dinner, not something you experience for a week because there's actually nothing to eat. It really makes you stop and think, and realize this hunger thing, real hunger, not "oh my tummy's grumbly I'm hungry" hunger. Real hunger is umpleasant and painful, and if anything could make a soulless sack of meat that only cares about belongings cry, that very nearly did. And that is all I will say about it, because it's something I prefer not to think about.

I will mention that there are several families in the disaster areas sharing a biscuit among four people, and while the government and Red Cross are doing their best, they could use help. Don't be an asshole, donate something. It will give you good karma.

Now I'm making my way to Tokyo tomorrow (I hope), and will fly out soon after that.

Unless the nuclear power plant explodes and the zombie apocalypse occurs. In which case, well, I will be an excited freaking cactus.

Life of an ALT: Disaster

I'm from Colorado. Granted, we moved there from Texas, but we lived in Houston, and never really had much in the way of dealing with floods or anything like that.

So when my vice principal told me there was a three to nine meter tsunami coming, I didn't believe him. Tsunamis are like Godzilla and the Loch Ness Monster. A myth.

Well, okay, so maybe the Loch Ness Monster could be real. And Godzilla is an absolute possibility. But a tsunami? What's that?

We got tsunami warnings all the time. The big earthquake in Haiti got us a tsunami warning, which ended up just being a little burp in the ocean. My little area is far enough inland that I didn't really believe a tsunami would ever touch it, if such a thing were real.

And then the water started flowing past.

It was really like when you overflow the bathtub, and the water just flows out in every direction, eventually getting deeper. We weren't near enough the ocean for the wave to hit us, just the water flow. But I realized that if it were going to get very deep, it would flood the first floor of everything.

The principal had everyone climbing the stairs of the gym to the second floor balcony area, just in case the water got inside.

And then I realized that my backpack was still on the floor in the school.

So, being me, I ran back across to the school to save my things.

In Japan, the school and the gym are separate buildings, you have to go outside and walk a little path to the gym.

I was chased by a couple of teachers yelling "wait, it's dangerous!" trying to stop me. Like I was going to let my things die in a flood. The water was about to my ankles while I was running through it, so my feet and the bottoms of my pants got thoroughly soaked. But I saved my backpack and went back to the door to get back to the gym, but it was too late.

Naturally I took pictures.

The water just continued to steadily rise, and we eventually had to retreat to the second floor of the school.

Maybe after closing the doors.

Previously, when everyone was making their way to the gym, everyone had grabbed all the bottles of water and tea and juice and taken them along as well, so those of us trapped in the school were without much in the way of drinks. But we did have all the sweets and stuff the sixth graders had prepared, so we at least had food.

I had been sick the previous week, but was slowly recovering. However, because my feet were wet and the school was cold, my cough came back with a vengeance. So me, and possibly more so the young mother with the baby, warranted the special treatment of someone finding the kerosene heater to try and keep everyone warm.

It sort of worked. They kept having to turn it off for the aftershocks, to avoid risking it toppling and setting our asses on fire. Because that would have just topped everything, right there.

Power was naturally gone, and we had little in the way of flashlights, but we managed to make do. We spent the whole night alternating who was by the heater, and some of us kept going to the windows to see how the water was.

Then the car alarms started going off. Because the water was so high it was flooding the cars.

My car died a sad tragic death. And it was such a shiny car.

I was optimistic though! I kept thinking, the whole night, that eventually the water would go away and I would be able to drive home (I was not yet aware that my car had died, just that it was crying unhappily. I thought it would still work, and drive me off into the sunset. I thought this even as the sun went down.) Obviously I wasn't mentally equipped for the situation, because I was convinced that in a couple of hours everything would get better.

Ha.

I spent the whole night and most of the next day waiting for the water to go away. I was cold and wet, and my cough had become a source of concern for everything in my near vicinity. They gave me a surgical mask and sat me in a corner and left me alone.

I gave up.

I wanted my bed. I didn't care if there was no water or power in my house, my bed is a warm place no matter what the outside temperature is. I could change into warm clothes and get into my warm bed and die a peaceful death all alone, rather than stay in a place full of strangers and no food (we ran out during the night). So I informed my teachers that I was going to attempt to walk home, after seeing several people out walking around in the water.

Granted those people had waterproof pants and goulashes, and I was wearing a business suit, but there should be no underestimating my stubbornness.

And if it had been very dangerous, my teachers wouldn't have let me do it anyway.

So around three o'clock, I was escorted out behind the school, where a nice man in a canoe took me across the way to the train tracks, and told me to follow the train tracks home. This is what the train tracks looked like:

The water was a little higher than my knees, and freezing cold. I waded for about half an hour, and at one point I was convinced that I was going to get frostbite and lose my toes. This was not enough to deter me and send me back to the school however. My bed is worth a couple of toes.

I made it past my junior high school, and ended up walking with some of the students and their parents for part of the way. I also ended up falling, and that on top of the scrapes and bruises I got during the doomquake made my legs look super sexy for days.

Eventually we got out of the water however. It had only flooded the area by the river very badly, and in fact that area stayed underwater for nearly ten days. So it was good I hadn't tried to wait until the water went away, or I never would have made it home.

After my students turned off to get to their houses, wishing me good luck, I ran into another couple of guys that chatted with me and gave me food, walking along with me. They made sure I got to the road to my apartment safely before heading off in their own direction. Japanese people, in my experience, have always been super kind. It's one reason I was so not excited to be leaving Japan.

I made it to my apartment, and as expected had no power or water, but I did get to change my clothes, and I did get into my warm bed, and I did sleep for about sixteen hours. Though this did not heal my cough; it remained bad for...it's still bad, actually.

I thought the worst was behind me. Now I just had to wait for them to get power and water up and running again, and everything would get back to normal. In my silly, optimistic little world, such things as food and water shortages didn't exist. I mean seriously, food and water are everywhere. I had food in my fridge. Enough for the couple of days it would take for Japan to recover, naturally.

Because seriously how bad could the damage really be?

Life of an ALT: Doomquake

This year was my last year as an ALT. I had cards made for all my graduating junior high school students, I had presents and cards and pictures from the last days of two of my schools, and I was slowly but steadily packing and getting ready to make my way home. Slowly but steadily there pretty much meant procrastinating any way possible however, so I'm not quite sure it counts.

I really didn't want to go home. Japan has been wonderful to me; I have great friends that I made here, the people are amazing, the country is beautiful, and the toilet has a butt warmer--fabulous in winter. But I really didn't want to stay another year. Conundrum. But there you are. Also my father has really been playing up on his cancer and treatment, and guilted me into the decision.

Always blame the parents for difficult decisions.

My second to last day at one of my elementary schools, my students and I were having a great time. They were really energetic and excited about the games, we took pictures together, and the graduating sixth graders spent the entire day getting food and decorations ready for a party for all the teachers. The rest of the students were sent home a little early for this reason.

On March 12, I and all the other teachers were sitting in the second floor of my elementary school while the students prepared to feed us sweets and entertain us with songs and a play. It had just started when the earthquake hit.

As with all the earthquakes, there is a slight pause while everyone figures out how bad it's going to get, before either shrugging it off or diving under the nearest protective covering. As soon as the students realized that this one would be rough, they were under the desks.

The children in Japan are much better trained in logic than the adults.

The teachers, at first, stayed in their seats and made sure all the students were safe.

Until of course the quake refused to end, and in fact got worse. Then they did the best they could to keep shit from falling over, and keep the students under the tables--which were on wheels. Everything was on wheels.

I stayed in my seat for a bit and held the two tables together, to keep them over the students, because the tables were sliding everywhere. Then I saw a cup of tea about to slide off the table, and because I'm brilliant in situations like this I stood up to keep it from spilling.

I ended up on the floor covered in tea and sweets. It was a special moment.

I'll describe this doomquake as best I can: it was like an intense amusement park ride, with broken seat belts.

Which I've done, so I know from experience.

You know those graviton rides they have in some carnivals? Have you ever tried to move around while they're going? It was kind of like that. None of my limbs seemed to be able to do what I wanted them to do, because my body didn't understand what gravity was trying to tell it. Moving was extremely difficult. Luckily I am extremely stubborn.

I managed to right myself, though it was difficult with the earth attempting to throw me off--ironically in my youth I used to love this t-shirt I had that read "stop the earth, I want to get off!" and for a moment my brain flashed back to this, thinking that maybe I had offended it and it was going to oblige me. Then I noticed a large television stand, with an equally large and heavy looking television on top, rolling around the floor. Because it too was on wheels.

See the structures in Japan are built for earthquakes. They're made to sway and bend, to keep from breaking. It's very efficient. But evidently no one thought to do anything logical or efficient with the shit inside the buildings.

So I tried to maneuver over and hold onto this television stand, as well as the two tables, and avoid getting tossed around myself like a rag doll in a dryer. It sort of worked. The TV stand fell over anyway, barely avoiding crushing me, and I sat there and listened to all the teachers yelling at the students to "hand in there, it's almost over, just hang in there!" and the students crying silently and trying their best to be brave and support each other. They were terrified.

Even I got a bit nervous.

Normally I'm fine with earthquakes. The first big one I experienced in Japan was three years ago, and I woke up at the end of if, grunted, rolled over, and went back to sleep. The next big one was the previous Wednesday to the doomquake, and it was during class. It was kind of fun. Earthquakes don't bother me.

This one was rough. And it took for freaking ever. I started laughing quietly because I really had no idea what to do, and it seemed like the earth was just going to shake forever, or rattle itself apart and leave us spinning in space. It might have been my version of hysterics, not sure, but the teachers seemed to take a moment to look at me in a concerned way.

When it finally ended, everyone took several breaths before the mad rush to get the hell off the second floor of the school and into the gym, which is the designated safe earthquake zone.

Some of the students were still crying and clinging to each other. Two really small students, maybe first graders, had been trapped outside during the whole thing, crouched down by a concrete wall and holding on to each other for dear life. A teacher ran out and brought them into the gym, trying to calm down their hysterical crying. Every time an aftershock occurred that was even a little rough they would start crying again.

People who had been out on the streets and passed students walking home brought them into the gym, and parents and other children started trickling into the gym as well. Families from nearby houses came in to either find their children or seek shelter themselves. I helped out as best I could keeping the kids calm while they waited for their parents to come get them.

But I eventually started to feel useless, because there really wasn't much I could do once everyone had calmed down, and I began quietly trying to make my way to my car, to head home.

And then my kyoto sensei, the vice principal, told me I had to stay, because there was a tsunami coming.