Interview with Apryl Woods

July 14th, 2013By Category: Uncategorized

We were fortunate enough to have Apryl Woods from the US Navy share her experience and thoughts with us!

apryl The Yokosuka Tsunami Relief Team is a large group of American volunteers based out of Yokosuka Naval Station, a joint Japan/American military base. We are sailors and spouses of sailors, US government contractors and their spouses, teachers and their spouses. We are only one of many American volunteers groups here in Yokosuka and around Japan at other military bases.


We have had the opportunity to work with several organizations across several cities devastated by the events of March 11, 2011. Beginning in April 2011, once Japanese officials felt it safe enough for outside volunteers to be allowed in, we have been sending groups up North to work.
 Our first project was a group of five YTRT volunteers. We went up to Ishinomaki on a Friday night. I cannot express in words what I saw or felt during that entire trip. We slept in our van near a public bathroom, one of the only places in town with running water. There was no electricity. There was debris everywhere. There were boats on top of buildings. You could see the water lines on the buildings where the water from the river just sat on the town for days.

Thinking back now, I’m not even sure how any of us made it through the work days—we just knew that the work needed to be done, so we did it. 
During that first trip we tried to salvage a business owners wares for him. We sat by the river with nothing more than sanitized river water in temporary holding containers, buckets, soap and scrub brushes to try and help this man regain a fraction of what he had lost. Others in our group worked to shovel the muck and debris from the store itself.


We also cleared out a century-old Christian church. I found there the church roster. As you can imagine, the cover and pages were saturated, stained and stinking. I felt that it was important for the next priest to have this record, so I saved it. Inside the church we also found children’s toys, old photographs, and a shoe. The area surrounding the church used to be an area of family fun. Only a few structures remained there, including the famous Manga museum. Scattered throughout the area were people’s cars, their musical instruments, their Christmas decorations, rooms of their houses, photographs….their memories.

We collected the photographs we found to be turned in to City Hall.
 At the end of each workday, the townspeople came together for a moment of silence. They conversed later at the temporary bathhouses, provided by the Japanese Self Defense Force. I even met a Japanese sailor from Yokosuka there! It showed me how small the world really is. 
We had the privilege of speaking with many residents living in the temporary shelters. Conditions were cramped, people were depressed — but all around, you saw hope.

They had lost everything. Imagine that—losing everything. Not just your home and your things, but your family. Parents lost their school-aged children who had gathered outside after the earthquake and before the tsunami in a town nearby where the earthquake had knocked out the warning system. Think of that, all of your children just gone in an instant.


That first trip was surreal. As soon as we returned home, I knew I had to get back. Over the next several months and many trips, the area made great progress. The pure determination and hopefulness of the people living throughout the region was, and remains, awe-inspiring.
During our trips, we demolished homes for rebuilding. We shoveled tons of infested and diseased muck from homes and businesses and roads and city drains. We moved cars out of gardens. We brought and passed out needed supplies and food items to residents. We sent musicians and artisans and even a masseuse. We played with the children in the shelters. We listened to the adults who wanted so badly to make sure they were not forgotten. We rebuilt greenhouses, making them ready for the strawberry farmer. We even became farmers ourselves!


Back in the states, our families and friends have supported the region by donating goods and monies, sometimes throwing benefit concerts to raise funds. 
Most of all, we did not forget. 
All to often it is easy to turn a blind eye when you are not faced with something every single day. As many problems are occurring all over the world every day, it is sometimes easy to forget that on March 11, 2011 at 14:46, an earthquake shook the Earth so hard that it shifted on its axis. We forget that Japan literally sank in some places, and that the land itself actually moved several feet from where it was moments before. We forget that moments after that event, one of the most devastating tsunamis of all time occurred, triggering a disastrous nuclear event, creating in its wake too much destruction to even describe here.

We forget that on March 11, 2011 at 14:46, the world was, quite literally, changed. We forget that people still have to live their lives, and with limited resources.
Organizations we have been privileged to work with, such as OGA for AID are on the ground every day with the residents of these devastated areas helping them put their lives back together. Helping them start new lives. Becoming one large family. Every time we have gone to work with them, they have provided us a comfortable place to sleep, tools necessary for the work, and a place to unwind with the local residents at the end of a hard workday. They provide so much more than that to the community. 
I cannot imagine that it is easy to be one of these organizations, like OGA for AID, totally supporting a community with so few resources considering the cost of fuel, seeds, and farm equipment. I am just so thankful that they exist, doing some good in the world and changing lives each and every day.
Thank you for taking the time to read a small summary of my experiences.

 ~Apryl Woods”
United States Navy, Yokosuka, Japan

Thank you Apryl for your kind words!

Author of this article

Angela Ortiz

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