Oshima Island

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A few weeks ago I got in contact with a Japanese guy called Kimi, who runs a Saturday kids club called KanKan Kids, with his wife Michiko, a few other Japanese volunteers and a couple of other English teachers. I went along to one of their local club days and had a great time. This led to an opportunity to take part in a volunteer weekend in Oshima Island, Miyagi prefecture. Kimi and his wife have friends on the Island and have been visiting there every month since April to help in any way they can. This particular trip was to run a two hour Halloween party for forty of the island's kids.

We left Iida at 5.30pm in the KanKan minibus on Friday afternoon, and arrived just in time to catch the ferry over to Oshima at 7am the next morning. Oshima is a small island just off the coast opposite Kesennuma, north of Sendai. The island has a population of around 3,000, but lost 25 people during the tsunami, with 6 still missing. This is considerably less than the loss of life on some of the mainland areas, but the islanders faced some pretty harsh weeks following the tsunami as they were virtually cut off from mainland contact and were finally rescued by the US army. They suffered some pretty bad forest fires caused by sparks floating across from warehouses in Kesennuma. There is still a long way to go on the low land areas of the island to repair all the damage.

The Halloween party was great fun. We did lots of fun games like apple bobbing and pass the parcel. I painted the kids faces and put novelty Halloween tattoos on them. A few of the kids asked if they could have them on their faces - to which I obliged....it was only later when I tried to wash one off my hand with soap I realised how stubborn they were - so I think a few kids must have gone to school with pumpkins on their faces!!

Sunday we woke at 6.30am and set off for home. We took a longer route back down the coast to Sendai to see the extent of the damage in the area. It is pretty horrific still. Got back home at 11.30pm and was so tired at school the next week - but it was definitely worth it.

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