Christmas 3

 

Standing on a chair and with the help of her mother, this little girl takes care of turning over the hot cakes made with powdered milk.

 

Using ready-made whipped cream to put a 'smiley' on the hot cakes

 

The serious business of Christmas Cake decorating ...

 

 

Each of them created an individual design.

 

 

The final result 

‘Making a Christmas Cake’ event for children: even two- and three-year old children took part. To make the gateau, we used ready-made sponge cake. In the beginning, the children were romping around, but when we left the ingredients before them, they became the epitome of seriousness. In the end, they took home what they had prepared.

 

Christmas 2

 

We put the ready cake mix and the powdered milk in a plastic bag, shook it and then stirred. 

 

 

 

Our hot cakes are ready!

In order to improve the diet quality since the disaster, I took advice from a nutritionist and then proposed to make more use of highly nutritional powdered milk. So I also used it in making Christmas and hot cakes.

Cooking utensils aren’t necessary. You can easily prepare it by using only a rice-cooker, some powdered milk, pancake mix, a can of fruits, and a bit of ready-made whipped cream.  

Christmas 1

 

Christmas decoration at the assembly hall

 

Our youngest 'taster' - 2 years old

 

Actually, I was supposed to take oysters out of their shells at this time ...

 

The Christmas Cake assembly-line

 

 

Just waiting for Santa's delivery

On the wintery road, our women volunteers embarked to the Christmas Cake bakery event. We made cakes for all the families in the temporary housing unit. Matching the size of the household, we made whole, half, 6-cut versions of these special Christmas Cakes. Then, Santa took the cakes around to each family.

Keeping the community together

 

We held a salon meeting at the Jonet office. We would usually hold it in the communal area at the temporary housing, but there isn’t any place at the Minashi temporary housing for community activities. So we decided to hold the salon at the office instead. As it is nearly Christmas, we made Christmas wreaths which each family could use as a decoration.

When we think of solving community problems, activities that bring the local people together play a very important part. However, the children living at the Minashi temporary housing cannot enjoy events like Christmas with their friends. So we held a Christmas party for the children. Jonet provided prizes for Bingo and welcome wreaths, which were handed out at the entrance to everyone who came. 

Early snowfall

 

17 December: Snow has fallen early this year. 

When I woke up, I found the landscape white in front of the window.

Lecture on information dissemination

 

As soon as we left the office, snow began to fall

 

 

Along Shizugawa Bay:

more and more fish-tanks, seaweed and oyster racks have been set up.

 

 

Today we learned how to take good photographs.

A participant takes photos of the notes.

 

 

The little boy 'volunteered' as our photographic subject.

With his witty talking (not to lose out to the adults),

 he made our meeting very enjoyable.

 

 

Taking pictures of everything at hand such as these crayons

 

 

A person bringing donated goods brought a huge amount of large radishes.

The friends at Jonet also received three big radishes. 'Oh, we shall give these to the persons taking care of delivered goods, when nobody is in our office,' I thought and quickly packed them into our minivan. 

The Jonet bag this year includes a 5kg bag of rice.

 

 

At the Omori shop, windbreaker construction is underway.

 

 

There are still many areas without new traffic lights and street lights.

The light glimpsed from afar, turns out to be road or building construction lights when we approach.

Current state of Omagari Beach in Higashi-Matsushima

 

This ship landed on top of a house

 

 

Almost all houses in this area have been swept away,

the few buildings that remain, have turned into uninhabitable ruins.

Delivery to a primary school in Kesennuma

We delivered long-sleeved sportswear, sneakers and other items to a primary school in Kesennuma. With our Jonet minivan, we could not deliver everything so had to postpone delivery again and again. But now that the long overdue task is completed, we feel relieved.

 

Snow cap on the mountain

 

Debris removal is progressing everywhere,

but  there are still many places which have not been cleared on the inside.

 

Reconstruction of roads is in progress everywhere.

 

Businesses operating from container shops are appearing.

 

Covering for the side ditches is renewed.

The diesel oil for the work vehicles is delivered to the construction sites

 

Just delivered: diesel oil

 

The number of new construction sites is increasing, too.

 

Unless signage like this one are put up in the ruins or the surrounding debris,

it becomes difficult to discern the site of one's former home.

 

Storage place for polystyrene trays etc.

The disposal of polystyrene trays that became unusable due to tsunami damage is quite time-consuming: before this rubbish can be brought to the intermediate processing site, it has to be put into waste recycling bags. In front of the huge amount of waste polystyrene, those bags look rather meager. 

 

This might be a small ship, but the dozens of neatly lined up glass flasks illustrate well the vigorous squid fishing pursued by the boat and its owner.

 

Work has begun, but the sea level is just about sufficient

 

Water inside the town has not receded and thus forms a playground for birds.

 

Tree trunks torn asunder by the tsunami.

 

In the premises of a high school:

boats, cars and even a house were swept in by the tsunami and piled up.

 

In the high school grounds:

frightened by the stench and eyes of wizened fish

 

A 2nd floor classroom

 

 

 

 

Today is the 11th

"It is nine month today, isn't it," a caller to our office said. "I am sorry, I live so far away and cannot do much to help," the person said. But the fact that this person shared with us the remembrance of the disaster of 3.11. means a lot to us.

We at Jonet have received so much support for our work from people all over the country and abroad, and we are very grateful to you. We shall continue  in our work with great care.

 

Making wreath for Christmas

 

We arranged branches of fir tree into wreath and put Christmas ornaments on them. It might look easy, but one has to think carefully about the colour arrangements and the weight of the ornaments.

 

 

At the Salon, we offered this specialty from Mino City: Momiji Tempura (deep-fried momiji/maple leaves). "I had Momiji Manju (steamed bun in the shape of a maple leave, with a filling of sweet bean-paste), but not these ... oh, these are delicious." The Momiji Tempura taste like Karinto (brown-sugar candied sweets) and they have indeed one maple leave inside.

 

At this particular temporary housing unit, 

the residents can keep rabbits and chicken.

 

The state of the parking lot next to Sendai Airport.