田野畑村支援活動報告
My name is Aleksander Jankowski.
I am a foreign student (from Poland), currently doing my 1 year of Master’s Degree program at the Furuya-Laboratory.
One of the projects I participate in, as my laboratory curriculum, is the ‘Tanohata-mura Project’.
During the conference at the Tanohata village destroyed by a massive tsunami caused by the Tohoku earthquake we took part in numerous activities, including meetings with the representatives of the local community and people responsible for the village reconstruction. A local vision on the ground zero also took place. Even though it has been past six months since the disaster and the site has been cleaned up, the extent of the damage is still surprising. We were guided through the site by one of the tsunami victims, who made an interesting description of the disaster from the insiders point of view. Moreover he gave a detailed comparison of the sites atmosphere from before and after the disaster. We could also see a new generation of temporary shelters for the victims.
It was interesting to see how communities menage in the difficult times like this, and yet how orderly and pragmatically Japanese society can remain even after a major disaster.
We also took part in the showing of the unique cost of the Tanohata-village area. Astonishing coastline definitely bears a major potential for tourism in the area.
