誰かが言わなきゃならない

1. Cash for daily life

Most refugees could bring out nothing but their daily wallets, no passbooks,
no seals, no credit cards. Banks took a measure to let them withdraw up to
US$1,000 simply by identifying their names. Every refugee is becoming nervous about expenditures with the decreasing cash in hand.
At the beginning of April, the town office awarded a US$200 interest-free loan for living. Most refugees live a frugal life in the evacuation camp, except for some affordable people who rent a house, stay at a hotel, move to another city, or who dine out. But everything cannot be obtained free for daily life. We need
something from nearby household shops.
We need some food stuff to add to the camp meals of simple omusubi. Additional bottled water is also needed. The vending machines of drinks are constantly filled with new bottles for making up consumptions. A long line stands in
seconds if volunteers offer free miso-soup or amazake.Volunteer barbers visit us occasionally. They can serve only 20 refugees each time.
Not everybody can enjoy their services. Money can solve the problem. Many barber shops and hair stylists stand nearby. At 4.00 a.m. 100 copies of free newspapers are delivered to the camp for distribution. All is gone by 6.00 a.m. A long queue of the people was built when free underwear or clothing for ladies were distributed.
A wonder is why we don’t see much stuff for distribution at the camp, although the media report enormous amount of commodities are donated. I’ve never seen a big stock of donated goods at the Big Palette. Upon delivery, they
are distributed. Do we have too many evacuation camps? Do we have too many refugees? Or are they sleeping in the warehouses somewhere.
Refugees’ mindset: our hardship in evacuation comes from TEPCO or the government; it is unreasonable for us ourselves to pay; the support of the prefectural government or the town office comes from our own tax; or to spend the money of us, victims, cannot be acceptable. Theoretically, daily expenses are needed whether or not in evacuation.
It will be reasonable for them to pay, but psychologically it is hard to understand so.A report says on April 6 that US$10,000 is due to be provided per family as part of compensation, but its schedule remains unknown. The refugees continue their frugal life,consulting with the cash in wallets.

2. A tragedy
Four towns accommodating the NPP (Tomioka, Okuma, Futaba and Naraha) have most of their residential areas on a height above cliffs. The NPP occupy most coastal sides. This isdifferent from their next door districts of Namie-cho or Minami-Soma City. Casualties are relatively limited, but still 33 were killed and 44 are missing due to the big tsunami (as of April 5).
Being designated as the evacuation zone, it became extremely difficult to recover the bodies and search for the missing: impossible by the families, even by the police. Recently,the US Army did a large-scale search operation, but outside 30km from the NPP. For the first time on April 7, the zone (10-20km) was searched by the police, but still no operation within the 10km zone. The people of Tomioka-cho or Okuma-cho are forced to spend days in mental torture. Nuclear accidents cause such unjustifiable consequences.

3. Stresses and trouble

While some people leave the Big Palette and move to a hotel or a rent-house, the total number of people here does not change much. Some of those who had left for their relatives or friends, or those who settled once in Niigata-ken or other settlements, come back to the Big Palette again. Why?
At meeting places in the Big Palette (free telephone corners, for nstance),the complaints of such people can be heard: “We moved and stayed by my relatives upon their invitation, but the things went gradually worse after a couple of days. Gradually it became difficult to get rid of stresses and discomfort.” Such problems can happen even between parents and children or between brothers and sisters, unless they live closely all the time.
There seem many such cases. The situation is more or less the same in the Big Palette. A simple cardboard can be the only wall to separate a family from another. Friendly relations can get worse gradually for many reasons:
snores, loud radio volumes, unfair collection of supplies,lacking in cooperativeness, etc. Some people take alcohols for stress release, but may get drunk and isolated in a separate room or kicked off the hall.
Alcohol is not prohibited in the hall. In all aspects, the environment is not good for children and youths.

4. Fire crew

Traditional teams of private fire fighters still exist in local communities of Japan. Their average ages are gradually increasing and the members are decreasing. But they are still constantly active in daily fire fighting, security keeping and training.
In the first days in Kawauchi-mura, they were in uniform and very supportive, together with volunteers, to us refugees. Since we moved to the Big Palette, they were among us as refugee colleagues.There is an exclusive gathering spot of us in the Big Palette. Always a few of them can be seen there.