一般財団法人　連帯　東北・西南　RENTAI　TOHOKU-SEINAN

On Sunday, October 20th, we provided Tomodachi Curry® at the NUMA☆FES 2013 (festival) held in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, and took part in the event.

This is a reconstruction assistance event held in Hongo, Kesennuma, and has been held since 2011 when the Earthquake hit. We participated in the 2011 event, and this was our second time to join in.

We were given the opportunity to provide Tomodachi Curry® at the event thanks to Mr. Keishin Kurosawa, the president of Kabushiki Kaisha Hakku, a company in Kesennuma. When we took part the first time, we provided curry and boiled dumplings free of charge, but this time we proceeded with our preparations with a request to provide the curry for a fee.

With a goal to provide 300 servings, we prepared the night before at Senmaya International Club (SIC). As it was meaningless to simply bring the curry all ready to serve, we only did the basic preparations as we do with other events, and did the actual cooking all at the site. We asked the organizer of the festival to allow us to come to the site at 6 a.m. and start our work.

It had been raining since morning on the day of the event, and was also the coldest day of the season. So we used more spice than usual and made our curry hotter so that the guests could warm up.

There were live performances by SCK Girls (local idols of Kesennuma), Lamp Shade (Jazz Band from Kesennuma), and Ikumi Kumagaya, (artist from Kesennuma) at Nakayachi Park where the event was held. The guests enjoying the performances in the rain under umbrellas, and went to the vendor booths afterwards and seemed to enjoy their lunches.

At the event site, there were vendors selling Kesennuma local goods, Korean food, and also a vendor from Senmaya, and Tomodachi Curry® was well received by the guests. As it was requested that we provide the curry for a fee and not free of charge, we would like to take the sales we made as a donation to Rentai Tohoku-Seinan and intend to give back to the residents in the afflicted area through our future activities.

The initial festival, the NUMA☆FES 2011 was the first event where we provided our curry, and was the starting point of our curry events. Although we were not able to participate in last year's event due to our schedules, we are very happy to have been able to participate this year on the third annual event, and to have been of some help in the revitalization effort of the area.

On Saturday, October 12^th, we provided Tomodachi Curry® at the harvest festival held at "Fureai Kizuna Suiden Ganbatta" (a rice field designated to encourage communication among the residents) in Tokuda District, Fujisawa-cho, Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture, and shared the joys of harvest with the residents.

The employment promotion housing in Tokuda District is where the victims from Kesennuma and Minamisanriku-cho live temporarily. In June, the residents in these housings and the local residents came together to plant rice at "Tokuda Fureai Kizuna Suiden Ganbatta", and everyone harvested the rice at this event. This was the third year to harvest as a collaborative activity.

With our relationship with Mr. Hiroshi Chida who is the president of the Fujisawa Community Council, we provided Tomodachi Curry® at the harvest festival. We were asked to prepare about 100 servings, and Tahir and Ms. Lee did the preparations the night before at Senmaya International Club. Mr. Keishi Onodera, the president of the Rotary Club in Senmaya, kindly provided approximately 12 kg of poultry used in the preparation free of charge.

At the venue, residents of Fujisawa helped us prepare the curry and we were able to finish the work in time for the opening of the harvest festival.

Those who finished harvesting the rice came to the room and the lunch time began. There were more dishes in addition to Tomodachi Curry® which were provided by the local residents. For this event, we provided Tomodachi Curry® not with naan but with rice.

Our participation in the harvest festival was thanks to our relations with Mr. Chida, and he introduced us before lunch. As we explained our activities, hopefully everyone was able to understand our activities at afflicted areas and about our Tomodachi Curry®. It would be an honor if we were able to take part in strengthening the relationships among the victims and the local residents.

On Saturday, October 5^th, we provided Tomodachi Curry® at Sato-no-Mori East Housing Complex in Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture free of charge to encourage the residents.

Shingon Buddhism Takekoma Temple in Iwanuma, which is in the south of Sendai, has a history which dates back more than 1,000 years. We were able to hold the event thanks to Mr. Unko Matsuki, the 65^th priest of the temple.

Iwanuma is about 5 km from the Sendai Airport, but on the day when the earthquake struck the area, Sendai Airport was completely destroyed by the tsunami which almost reached the center of the city and to a point 500m from Takekoma Temple. After the earthquake, with the request from the city, tents were set up in the parking area of the temple and became the temporary evacuation area for the tsunami victims.

Nearly 1,000 people who lost their homes by the tsunami in the coastal area still live today at the temporary housing complex in Iwanuma. As we heard that the amount of support for the residents here was decreasing, we decided to provide Tomodachi Curry® free of charge at this temporary housing complex as proposed by the priest, Mr. Unko Matsuki.

Sato-no-Mori East Housing Complex is situated approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes by car from Senmaya, our base site. The preparation was done by our Tahir and with the cooperation of Mr. and Ms. Matsuki, and it was finished the night before. Mr. Matsuki had already set up the tent as well at the work site as he personally considered it necessary. This allowed a very smooth start for our work, since we were able to start immediately on arrival at the site.

Mr. Aoki, the president of Yugen Kaisha Aoki Shoji, and his friend Mr. Miura, the president of Kabushiki Kaisha Morinen kindly volunteered again to lend us a hand and took charge of one pot each. Mr. Aoki is of course well acquainted with the procedure, but Mr. Miura also got accustomed to it as this was his second time to join us, and we thank them for their assistance.

We started serving Tomodachi Curry® at 12 noon.

Our purpose of holding curry events is to assist in revitalizing the communication among the residents, and provide an opportunity to come out of their small temporary housing rooms to an airy space and enjoy food and conversation with others. On this occasion, Mr. Koga, the owner of a music restaurant who is in good relationship with our Representative Director and singer Ms. Fuku performed some songs with the accompaniment of piano.

The piano was especially popular among the children, and Mr. Koga, surrounded by them, was asked to play anime songs and sang "Flowers will bloom" together over and over, a charity song that supports the recovery of Tohoku. We had a wonderful time together.

The temporary housing complexes where we had visited so far for the curry events tended to be in the mountains or inconvenient areas with more people in their advanced age. However, there were a lot of children at the Sato-no-Mori East Housing Complex, and we felt we were more encouraged. One point we would like to think over is the fact that we could not arrange well for the residents to come together at the meeting room as much as possible, and enjoy the exchanges with us volunteers through the meal we provided. We believe this is due to our lack of communication at the preparatory stage of the event. Tomodachi Curry® is a tool to encourage everyone to communicate, but it does not do its work if it is taken back to their private rooms. We hope to learn from this experience in our future activities.

The event became possible with the great cooperation from Mr. and Ms. Matsuki and we send our sincere gratitude.

On Sunday, September 29th, we provided Tomodachi Curry® at the Asupia Fetival held at Mizusawa Community Exchange Center Asupia in Oshu, Iwate Prefecture and took part in the revitalization effort of the area.

This festival has been held since 2001 to better inform the public of the activities of Asupia, and for the users of Asupia to get to know each other even more. We had the opportunity to provide Tomodachi Curry® at this festival thanks to Mr. Tsuyoshi Sato, the president of Oshu International Relations Association.

We were asked to provide about 200 servings, and Tahir and Ms. Lee prepared the night before at our base site in Senmaya. Mr. Keishi Onodera, the president of the Rotary Club in Senmaya, kindly provided approximately 30 kg of poultry free of charge.

Just two staff at the festival site was not enough, so Mr. Daigo Fujinami from the Oshu International Relations Association kindly arranged volunteers of three men and a woman to assist us. It was a great help and our work proceeded smoothly.

Tomodachi Curry® was very well received by everyone at the Asupia Festival. Upon request, we served it for a fee and not free of charge, and we made a little over 60,000 yen for one day. We would like to take this as a donation to Rentai Tohoku-Seinan and intend to give back to the residents in the afflicted area through our future activities.

This was an opportunity to join the event through our relationship with the Oshu International Affairs Association, and it would be an honor if we have been of some help in the revitalization effort of the area.

On Saturday, July 27^th, we provided Tomodachi Curry® at Building 1 of Ajisai-kan in the Otsuchi 5th Temporary Housing Complex in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture free of charge to encourage the residents.

Previously, we served Tomodachi Curry® at Iwate Prefecture Otsuchi Hospital Temporary Clinic free of charge on June 20^th. From this Otsuchi Hospital, the Otsuchi 5^th Temporary Housing Complex is about 7-8 km up along the Otsuchi River toward the mountains. Ajisai-kan is situated approximately in the center of the housing complex, and the Otsuchi Social Welfare Council provides conversation partnership, house-visits, and support on meals and other household chores.

The realization of the Tomodachi Curry® event this time was from a request we received to hold the curry event for the summer festival on July 27^th, hosted by the Otsuchi Social Welfare Council.

Tohoku was hit by a record rainfall from the day before the event. It was also raining heavily in Senmaya where we have our base, and the water level of Senmaya River flowing through the center of the town suddenly rose around 6 p.m. and the river overflowed in an instant. Mr. Ichiro Murakami of Murakami Denki Shokai who always assists us is a member of the local fire brigade, and had to continue patrolling the river late into the night. As such, he joined our event after only a few hours of sleep. After we left Minami Exchange Center, we made a stop at Mr. Hideo Sato's house to received 20 L of fresh milk free of charge again for our chai. Mr. Sato is a dairy farmer (Senmaya) who has been supporting us since we started our activities. We then headed toward Otsuchi, but on the way, the roads in Rikuzentakata were flooded and the cars were only able to drive through on one side of the road.

By the time we got to the venue the rain had weakened, and so we were hoping that it might actually stop after a short while. Instead, it began to rain heavily, and we held the event in the worst weather condition ever. The local residents had been looking forward to our event and even gave us a call several times the day before, worrying about the rain, but we stuck to our schedule in the spirit of "Rain, I will not be defeated, Wind, I will not be defeated".

The residents were enjoying the summer festival held indoors, and we put up a tent outside and started preparing Tomodachi Curry®. We were planning to ask them to come outside at noon to pass out the curry, but the rain poured even more heavily, so with the assistance from the volunteer staff of the Otsuchi Social Welfare Council, we changed our plan to bring the Tomodachi Curry® and the chai inside the building.

When we were planning about the event with person in charge of the Otsuchi Social Welfare Council, we had planned to prepare about 100 servings of curry. However, more people had been expecting the event, and in the end, we ended up providing a little over 150 servings of curry even in bad weather. There were only four of us, and without everyone's help, it would have been impossible to complete everything in time. Mr. Isao Aoki, the president of Yugen Kaisha Aoki Shoji who had been supporting us behind the scenes till now, came onto the front stage in order to take charge, and with his help we were somehow able manage the entire event.

As one of the festival events, a dance was performed by the members of the Usuzawa Shishi Odori Preservation Society of Otsuchi. We also invited them to enjoy Tomodachi Curry®, and served chai afterwards as well.

It was a moment we felt that everyone truly enjoyed the event, and we were happy not to have cancelled it because of the weather.