Dreaming Big in Japan: 11 Days in 11 Pictures

We have been on the island for about a week and a half now. So much has happened but today was the first real chance for us to take stock of it all.

The island still has no running water. We have received relief supplies of 10 liters washing water and 5 liters drinking water twice. We scavenged buckets and pails from the beach to catch rain water and have been using that for washing and gardening. There is a well behind our house with fairly murky water that we haul up daily to flush the toilet (I see the benefits more and more of using a composting toilet instead!), and there is a much cleaner well near one of the ports that our neighbor draws water from with an electric pump. He delivers that water around the neighborhood and even to the hospital for bathing. We have received two bath-fulls which ended up as laundry water and finally going down the toilet.

We have electricity from a generator truck a few hours in the morning and then again at night. It just went black here a few minutes ago. Thankfully, there is a cellphone signal roughly a half hour after the power goes out, so hopefully this gets posted!

We heard the news this weekend that the water line from the mainland should be fixed in a couple days. Plus, they will increase the hours we get power so it lasts all day from 6 am to 9 pm. We do not have a fridge, and we basically turn in when the lights turn off, so the lack of electricity is not so hard to deal with. I will be much happier and much less stinky, though, once the water starts flowing. We have only had to get by this way for a few days, but the islanders have been in survival mode for two whole months, so we are so happy to see them getting the tools they need to get their lives back in order.

Anyway...on to the pictures...