Reflecting on 3.11- Speaking to Ishinomaki

A volunteer in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture reflects on the disaster

Could you imagine being here when the earthquake came?
At first you would shake and feel kinda safe,
but then pretty soon you saw a wave coming at your face.
And that tsunami,
Oh mommy!
It’s coming at a face pace.
Maybe you would’ve ran,
but the waves they chased.
And pretty soon you would’ve stopped turned around and shaked.
Maybe in your last time you would’ve thought “oh shit!”
but been glad to be taken away by something magnificent.
Mother Nature had his way,
I said his but I meant her,
But the power thing that she does
Got some people disturbed.
Now I’m looking around the earth that’s scorched.
I can imagine before that a lot of kids would talk.
People playin with their dogs, everybody be happy.
But now we have silence and the ocean and ….
I’ve been around this town and it really hurts my core,
‘Cause the houses that was there, they’re not there any more.
And the people that live there, they’re somewhere else, misplaced.
But a lot of them now got happy smiles on their face
‘Cause there’s a lot of volunteers who came down today,
and they’ve been doing that for a year, or so they say.
So I feel pretty glad to be doing my thing.
I was working and lifting, and now I’m doing it with sing
-ing songs or rapping, how ever you call it.
And if you thought this was stupid,
your attitude is appalling.
We got some garbage over there.
We’ve got garbage piles stacked up high.
A lot of people rest in peace.
They are probably up in the sky.
And it’s cold out here now
but I can remember back then
in Tokyo, blackouts.
I said, “Again?”, but then I thought,
or at least I was reminded that the people up here at no heat,
so I got silent, turned off mine,
used my girl to make some friction,
‘cause I knew the electricity was being distributed
to the people who live around here.
I’m sorry I lost my flow, but you know what, I don’t care
‘cause right now I see a lot of despair in the air.
I see nothing here,
I see nothing there,
I see nothing everywhere,
It’s like, damn, shit…
Now I know it’s been awhile,
so you don’t want to give out donations,
But they still need help,
Don’t be mistaken
And we’re gonna end our rap with a couple of moments of silence.
Listen to the waves, and think if you was there, how would you survive it.

Donations and volunteers are still needed. Consider donating to or joining in with the activities of It's not Just Mud or International Disaster Relief Organization. For a crowd sourced growing list (in English) of organizations contributing to disaster recovery click here, or join in the discussion at Foreign Volunteers Japan.

The rhymer above, known as Rhyming Gaijin, will attempt the record ‘Longest freestyle rap' to raise money for disaster recovery. Information below and more at this link:

The current record is 12 hours exactly.
So he has to go for more than 12 hours.
On March 11th 2012, we will start this challenge at 6:00am in Tamaplaza.
Then we will arrive to Shibuya around 11am.
We will have some charity events in Shibuya and he will stay few hours at each event.
If he can keep raping until 6pm he will beat the record.
But he will keep raping untill he can't rap anymore so we don't know what time we will end this challenge.
This challenge is to raise money for a charity for remembering the 3/11 earthquake.

We will be donating all the money to Its Not Just Mud
http://itsnotjustmud.com/

- Posted by Jen Teeter