Earthquake alarms sounded on our phones in the teachers room and I didn't think much of it because I'd had alarms before and they were only ever followed by small earthquakes.
We went outside and maybe a minute passed and the ground shook and then it shook harder and harder still. Three of the women held on to each other and they started crying and there was a sound like horses stampeding, horses from under the Earth which still shook and it was getting harder to stand.
Everyone crouched to the ground as we could no longer stand and I looked around and saw on my left one man standing stoically with his arms folded and on my right the three women crouching together crying as though they were grieving for something.
People evacuated from the coast because the tsunami was coming. Not knowing what was happening beyond our school on the hill was frustrating. The unfolding March 11th disaster seemed to be happening somewhere else. My girlfriend, Chie worked in an aquarium next to the sea and I assumed and hoped that she had evacuated somewhere.
A line was drawn under all the things that mattered ten minutes ago and they were forgotten. People talked about a 7 metre tsunami hitting the coast of our town and I didn't believe it because I couldn't imagine what that would look like or what it would do and I didn't want to. An big aftershock scared everyone and shook everything and these would become regular. Teachers started to drift off to do different things and I was still standing in the same place I was during the earthquake.
Me and three other JETs hung around in the gym for a while and asked if there was anything for us to do and we were told no. Feeling more out of place and useless than usual I went home.
There was no water in my flat or anyone else's and every TV channel was talking about the earthquake and there was a map of Japan warning of tsunamis pretty much across the entire east coast. Me and the other JETs, now four, decided to head up to another school on a hill to be safe. I took some bread and a pack of grated cheese with me. The road up the hill was cracked and the pavement on the other side had collapsed into the hill.
We were greeted warmly at the school because we all knew teachers there and a third year girl called Mika who had just graduated junior high school that day was there and she didn't know where half of her family was. I tried the school phone to call Chie but it didn't work. Mika helped me by talking to teachers and telling me what was going on.
I sat in the gym and used someone's iPhone to facebook my brother and tell him I was okay and he called my parents to give them the good news. The JETs, Mika and I sat in the gym for maybe an hour talking.
The teachers said the tsunami threat had subsided so I went home again. On the way back we went to a convenience store and it was completely empty apart from cigarettes and Japanese style snacks like rice crackers and seaweed. Which proved my point once and for all that no one likes those Japanese snacks, not even Japanese people.
My phone rang and it was Chie. She was already back in my flat. I got home and I opened the door and she was sitting on the floor and she looked up and it was anticlimactic. There was a pile of wet and muddy items salvaged from her destroyed car on the floor and they were of no value and my floor was a dirty mess but it didn't matter. There was no water and little food and neither of us had a helicopter or a time machine.
We went outside and maybe a minute passed and the ground shook and then it shook harder and harder still. Three of the women held on to each other and they started crying and there was a sound like horses stampeding, horses from under the Earth which still shook and it was getting harder to stand.
Everyone crouched to the ground as we could no longer stand and I looked around and saw on my left one man standing stoically with his arms folded and on my right the three women crouching together crying as though they were grieving for something.
People evacuated from the coast because the tsunami was coming. Not knowing what was happening beyond our school on the hill was frustrating. The unfolding March 11th disaster seemed to be happening somewhere else. My girlfriend, Chie worked in an aquarium next to the sea and I assumed and hoped that she had evacuated somewhere.
A line was drawn under all the things that mattered ten minutes ago and they were forgotten. People talked about a 7 metre tsunami hitting the coast of our town and I didn't believe it because I couldn't imagine what that would look like or what it would do and I didn't want to. An big aftershock scared everyone and shook everything and these would become regular. Teachers started to drift off to do different things and I was still standing in the same place I was during the earthquake.
Me and three other JETs hung around in the gym for a while and asked if there was anything for us to do and we were told no. Feeling more out of place and useless than usual I went home.
There was no water in my flat or anyone else's and every TV channel was talking about the earthquake and there was a map of Japan warning of tsunamis pretty much across the entire east coast. Me and the other JETs, now four, decided to head up to another school on a hill to be safe. I took some bread and a pack of grated cheese with me. The road up the hill was cracked and the pavement on the other side had collapsed into the hill.
We were greeted warmly at the school because we all knew teachers there and a third year girl called Mika who had just graduated junior high school that day was there and she didn't know where half of her family was. I tried the school phone to call Chie but it didn't work. Mika helped me by talking to teachers and telling me what was going on.
I sat in the gym and used someone's iPhone to facebook my brother and tell him I was okay and he called my parents to give them the good news. The JETs, Mika and I sat in the gym for maybe an hour talking.
The teachers said the tsunami threat had subsided so I went home again. On the way back we went to a convenience store and it was completely empty apart from cigarettes and Japanese style snacks like rice crackers and seaweed. Which proved my point once and for all that no one likes those Japanese snacks, not even Japanese people.
My phone rang and it was Chie. She was already back in my flat. I got home and I opened the door and she was sitting on the floor and she looked up and it was anticlimactic. There was a pile of wet and muddy items salvaged from her destroyed car on the floor and they were of no value and my floor was a dirty mess but it didn't matter. There was no water and little food and neither of us had a helicopter or a time machine.
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