March 11th

March 11th, the day I left my winter internship in Wellesley, Massachusetts, I was supposed to make the drive from Boston to Raleigh, North Carolina, spend a week at the beach, and then spend a week at home making my final preparations before departure. However, that all changed when I woke up to the devastating news of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami that hit off the coast of Sendai, Japan. The world watched as entire towns were wiped out and the tsunami then knocked out power to the nuclear plant in Fukushima, leading to a massive scramble as Japanese workers have heroically worked around the clock to attempt to prevent a major nuclear crisis. Despite their best efforts, however, some radiation has leaked into the atmosphere, adding to the growing concerns surrounding the safety and efficacy of a study abroad program in Tokyo at the current time.

I spent the first week after the quake learning as much as I could through my phone's painfully slow internet and TV's basic cable, as I was at the beach without internet or a cable box. I watched as the toll of dead or missing climbed above 20,000, with estimates that as many as 15,000 bodies may eventually be found in the Miyagi prefecture alone. I read updates on my phone about how several U.S. universities (Duke included) have canceled their study abroad programs in Japan and pulled their undergraduates from the country. However, my study abroad partner, CIEE, sent me my first program update on the day the news of the earthquake broke in the U.S., and they have continued to communicate with us as we all work to make the best decision about our participation in the program.

I fielded many concerns from family and friends about whether it was safe to come to Japan at this moment. Tokyo suffered almost no structural damage, and it appears that the situation at the nuclear plant is stabilizing (even so, Tokyo is about 150 miles away from the nuclear facility). As my dad pointed out, if it were "any foreign country other than Japan" he would be really worried, but amid the continued reports of death and destruction have come stories and videos of the Japanese waiting calmly in long lines for food and fuel, and working together to assist any survivors they can find. Despite the tragedy the country has endured, it is by no means in a state of "chaos."

CIEE and Sophia University decided that my program would proceed as planned, with a two-week delay so I arrived in Tokyo on April 8th instead of March 28th. I had been looking forward to this trip since I decided in the fall of my sophomore year to go to Japan, instead of a Spanish-speaking country, but the earthquake and tsunami have really put things into perspective. I'm hoping to be involved in some relief work this semester. Please check out the Red Cross website for continued updates or to donate to the relief efforts. The estimates of direct damages range from 16-25 trillion yen, while donations as of March 30th, 2011 had reached only 0.05 trillion yen, so Japan still needs a lot of help. Please give what you can! 


Over the next semester, this blog will serve as a publication for what we are working on in my anthropology class (Nature Culture Technology, with a special topic on the 2011 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster). Check back soon for more information!