Thank you again Patrick for this video about our missions in Tohoku !

He he, I am awarded for the best smile  :)

Participate to the missions of the AFJ to Ishinomaki ! We need you !

The last movie of the Harry Potter series is coming soon - it's not that the movies are so important compared to the books, but it maintains a certain magical expectation : watching the places you have imagined "in real", seeing the costumes, the backgrounds... It's a way to keep living into HP world.

Recently, my sister invited me to do a Sorting Hat test to know in which House of Hogwarts I would have been sent if all this had been for real. No surprise : we are both Ravenclaw girls ! Totally Ravenclaw ! Definitely Ravenclaw !

How could it have been different, for two book-addicted-first-of-their-class sisters?... So I thought about it a bit, and realize that if we had been to Hogwarts instead of stupid Public High School, we could have shared two whole years in the same school. I would have been a 6th Year student when she comes and tries the Sorting Hat. Would have been fun.

Of course I would have been made Prefect, so I could have given her many priviledges like the right to use the Prefects' bathroom, hihihi.

Remember that it started like this...

Third trip to Ishinomaki, Miyagi-ken, Tohoku, Japan, with the AFJ !

What's new in this city that has been heavily striken by the tsunami in March 2011 ? There are still kilometers of ruins, tons of garbage close to the sea, and people volunteering everywhere trying to help a bit. And, as it's summer now, there are huge flies everywhere, and no animals except birds and a few cats. It's difficult to say if the situation gets a bit better or not, for you can not see anything but messy destroyed areas. But with time, you stop considering these broken landscapes as the result of a terrible tragedy, but only as the longest to-do-list of your life. So many things to do for this city, for this region; there is no little work, every small task means something and make the city closer from recovery.

Ishinomaki ghost houses

This time our group was more international - many japanese girls joined - and, I have to say, pretty fashionable. Maybe because it's summer now ?... I was in pink as usual, and my co-workers were wearing very suitable blue, yellow, red, green or purple rain-coats. We were the rainbow of Ishinomaki !

Colourful Volunteers

Now let's work. This time, we went to a work area situated at 20 minutes by footfrom the Volunteer Center. Our mission : trying to unblock the basement of houses and the watercourses on the streets in the neighborhoods. Little by little.

Mud under the floor

This is a very usual case : the house is still standing, the walls and the roof are ok, so the family is trying to save the rest of it ; but there is plenty of stinking mud under the floor, so we have to take the wood off and to clean this mess, putting the mug into garbage bags as usual. I let you imagine how difficult it is to work in thiskind of narrow space, your feet in the mud, removing super-liquid mud with flies rushing on your face. At least you are so happy when it's over.

 Mud on the street

This is a basic but important job to do : unblocking the water courses on the street, because if you don't, you can't use water to wash anything else. And there are kilometers of it, you can't see the end of it. So, eeerr, let's start quickly !

First you have to take the drains off :

Then, in the best case it looks like this :

And in the worse, like this (so full of stuff your shovel can't go in) :

After working hard on it, it gets almost clean :

It sometimes requires a certain flexibility...

Comfort after effort : the military-organised sento, where you can wash for free ! Amazingly clean and convenient... How to bring serenity and refinement in the middle of nowhere...

And guess what ? We got special hats from the AFJ : Tokyo sur Marne ! (ça ne s'invente pas pour une fille du neuf-quatre !)

This is only for the little story, but : here is a bonsai that we found buried deep in a gutter, covered with mud and garbage. As you can see, it is still alive. ALIVE.

A few years ago, I got a bonsai that I killed in a few weeks, despite of all my attentive care and dedication to its health and happiness. This means I am worse than a tsunami for a bonsai. FML.

But it's a nice symbol, isn't it ?...

Made by Patrick-of-the-AFJ ! Thanks to him we also have moving images...

L'Association des Francais au Japon organise des week end de volontariat a Ishinomaki grace au soutien du centre des volontaires de l'ecole Minato.　
Plus d'infos sur nos prochains deplacements
http://www.afj-japon.org/index.php?id=1367

Mamma mia ! Here I go again !

Messy Tohoku is currently welcoming as many volunteers as possible, so here we are. Again. And it's not the last time !

AFJ's volunteering missions are far to be over : as long as there is a way to work without risking an apoplexy (understand : before summer), we will go to Tohoku and do our best to help a bit. We kept exactly the same scheme : leaving from Tokyo all together by bus, travelling by night, reaching Ishinomaki (Miyagi-ken) around 7 am and working all the week-end long in the city. Once again, thank you guys for giving us the opportunity to go in good conditions ! (Our group was twice bigger than the first time, which means more money for the transportation)

Talking about conditions : Oh my, we had a real bus this time ! What's next ? Limousines, maybe ? With a mini-bar inside ? Without kidding, I really felt the difference. I was so fresh compared to the previous trip...

 Still, after 7 hours on the road... it's 6 am, we're just arriving at Ishinomaki, and we will be working hard in in two hours. *LOL*

Ishinomaki is more or less in the same shape : huge areas are destroyed, and little (or big) WALL-Es are working on it everywhere.Work in progress...

The group on the sea wall, which coul not prevent the wave to flow in...

Day 1 - First Challenge : cleaning the gutters and watercourses around this house, which still proudly stands whithout huge damages.

The watercourse is covered with these super-heavy concrete slabs, that we have to remove before getting access to the mud... It requires several strong men each !

After that, same old job : get you shovel and put off the mud. It's sticky, stinky, and the gutter is too narrow for our tools, but we did it ! At noon, the watercourse was clean - and we were dirty.

Day 1 - Second Challenge : Back to the graveyard ! Remeber, it was the first my group has been given during the first mission. Surprise : the broken cars vanished (how did they do that ? With cranes ?) and the cemetery was absolutely crowded woth Japanese volunteers from the neighborhood (Yamagata and so on). During the break, I realized that they all brought "useful food" like collagen bars and salt candies to fight dehydration or something. So sophisticated...

We didn't know it, but one hour later we have been supplyied with mikan-flavor water ice-creams to keep fresh while working under the sun... Yummy ! Thanks to A-S who takes her desires for reality, and who made the dream come true !

The big moment of my week-end : I drew water from the well, for the firt time of my life ! I was so happy to do it !

It's 6 pm, this is the end of this long day... And we have been allowed to go to the sento again, so we were fresh and clean for the evening !

Little walk in sunshine-kissed Ishinomaki : so beautiful, so sad at the same time... But even if empty, I could not think of death and pain there. I had the feeling the city does not ask for nothing but healing and living again.

Sleeping beauties in the back classroom, our shelter for the night...

Day 2 - Challenge : doing something for the marsh in front of the Volunteer Center. We had to walk along the walls to reach the entry all day long before. Here is the school playground was looking the day before :

On the morning, a digger came and pushed the mud in the corner...

... so we "just" had to put it off and to fill the garbage bags. But actually it's an easy job because the mud was not mixed with garbages nor difficult to reach with the shovels... The only difficulty was about doing pretty intensive exercice under this sun...

And finally, clean it is ! Good job ! The mud mountain turned into a garbage bags one...

I have lost liters of sweat but I enjoyed working there, exactly as the first time. Not only it's useful for this broken city, but also the atmosphere of th AFJ's group is really pleasant and funny - just as the summer camps I definitely refused to go to when I was a little girl. As an adult - never too late -, I appreciate !

If by chance you are living in Japan (French or not, that's not mandatory at all) and you wish to come with us next time, please send a mail to the AFJ and join us ! The less we can say is that there is plenty of work for everyone ! So welcome...

Pour les amis francophones, voici mon petit rapport sur le site de l'AFJ : ici !

(Credit photo AFJ)

I don't need a lot to fall again into manga/drama/J-pop culture again ; I just need to have a look by chance at this kind of flyers :

Paradise Kiss the movie ! (Sister can you hear me ???)

Flash-back : I am a French student (with no money), dreaming about coming to Japan one day. My only ways to be linked, more or less, to this country are : 1) learning nihongo in a small-but-still-expensive language institute after school ; 2) reading manga and watching anime and drama. Now I am living in Tokyo, I have to say I am not so attracted by the J-subcultures anymore; but at that time...

So, Paradise Kiss (by Ai Azawa) is a really good memory. Not only the design of the manga, but the scenario was amazing. This is the story of Yukari, a high school student, who struggles to keep performing at school. Actually, she is totally inadapted to the "normal way" (studying, studying, studying to get a proper future) and it makes her tough and even a bit bitter. By chance, she meets a group of fashion-design students who are trying to make their dream come true : creating their own fasion brand, Paradise Kiss (or Parakiss for the fans). As Yukari is slim and beautiful, she becomes their fashion model, and she falls into fascination for the group's leader, Joji, who is a talented as manipulative.

Parakiss is not a funny story. First, it is the perfect image of painful and destructive first love. Joji is a total artist, which means he doesn't exist for human relationship nor love feelings. It is going to be very hard for poor Yukari to undergo his special kind of violence to her (a mix of attraction, indifference, and superior point of view on people and life). I found their relation really interesting when I read the manga, and very original. Then, this is the story of Yukari herself, who needs to realize and accept that she is not done for a traditionnal lifestyle. But getting involved into modeling is risky and it deals with self-confidence - something which is not easy to get when you are in bad romance...

For the movie now : just watching the CM below, I am afraid it is far to be as deep and striking as the manga - it seems to be done for the fans who will be pleased to see the people and backgrounds "in real"; but the actors play so bad, Joji is not disturbing enough and the kiss seems to be everything but paradise. Anyway. When you're a fan, you're a fan. Enjoy !

Ghibli faces at the baker's shop