Every few hours the chimes of a xylophone can be heard throughout the city, then begins the echoing voice of a Japanese man giving public notification of power outages and recovery plans, because he only speaks in Japanese, the goose bumps rise as you strain to listen in on something/anything within his foreign words but then chimes start again and he is finished for now...I can only wonder if he speaks of calm or panic for the growing fears about food, water, and fuel...we are afterall, on the outskirts of Tokyo, so it is only natural for us to be on the edge both figuratively and literally. I do not fear the panic, Japan is extremely orderly and harmonious, even with scarce supplies, they remain fairly calm and collected...I am amazed that if this had happened in a America that panic would inevitably consume us with looting and violence...We as American's see ourselves so high above the rest of the world but infact a very sophisticated Asian culture has many life lessons to teach us...As always though, I am very proud to be an American and blessed to have such a gracious host country.
Some of the bases have been hit with a lack of water, heat, and fuel but we all will have to take on our share of the rolling blackouts to conserve energy. In less than an hour , my neighbor with bring her little girl over here to eat dinner by candle light while we wait for the power to be restored. Of course dwindling resources can be overcome but the progressing nuclear problems are not something we can run from. I was alerted this morning that a blast had occured at the Fukushima Daiichi's plant's No. 3 reactor building and this would bring the total nuclear blasts to two. As a mother, I refuse to let my son outside, to protect him from any exposure possibilities. It's fine if you call me paranoid, but I won't take chances with his life....besides any major nuclear threat, there is the 70% likelihood of a 7.0 or greater earthquake striking us within the next 3 days (issued by the Japan meteorlogical agency)....everything has just become a waiting game.
We have also been advised not to go out into the rain/snow tomorrow for fear of chemical particles being carried by the weather from the oil fires up north.
Currently we are stocked in the house with the essentials and we are catching as much sleep as possible to keep all the stress at bay. Things are continuing as normal as possible with the ocassional hiccup of events or warnings but the days have started to blur together and I'm doing my best to stay grounded in reality.
We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family, who constantly give us support through the internet and phone calls! I'm so grateful for that kind of love and friendship from across the globe, it really does keep our spirits up to know so many people pray and care for our family as well as for people of Japan. :) Thank you so much!!!! It's also amazing to see that so many people are reading this blog and hearing me voice all of this from within the isolation of disaster and far away life.
By the way, my mom is still planning to come to Japan the first week of April!!! Let's hope things will get a little better by then.
I really hope that things are better when your mother gets there. But mostly, she is coming to spend time with you and Riordan and John. I wish you did not have to go through this right now but unfortunately, we can't control when natural disasters happen or whether we're around to see them happen. Watching the coverage that's still going on there breaks my heart. Every time I turn on the tv to watch it, the death toll is still rising. It's so awful. I love you guys.
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