Newsletter 2012 - Francis Holland School

welcome here for newcomers, especially young ones. For those who come, it is a
huge leap. Those with money and connections who had the will to leave did so by
themselves a long time ago. The people we are helping mostly have neither, and
it’s almost unthinkable for them, in the normal course of things, to abandon their
familiar support networks and their families, the surroundings they have known
since birth: Nagano and Fukushima prefectures are mutually strange countries.
In some cases this tears up families. Amongst others there is a single mother, Kimiko,
with her five year old daughter, Yumi. She had to pretend to her own mother that she will
go back to Fukushima in December, because her mother could not bear the idea that
Kimiko might really leave, which she has indeed decide to do, for Yumi’s sake. Yumi’s
grandmother asked the five year old, on the telephone, whether she preferred Granny or
“those Nagano people” The only thing I could think of doing to help, as she returned to
Fukushima for a short visit and an emotional tug of war she dreads, is to give her a hug.
That was in September. Later Kimiko’s parents came to inspect us for themselves; we all
had a party and they finally seem resigned to the fact that their daughter is independent
– but it has been an exhausting struggle. And there was a pinched and nervous mother
with two little boys who came during the summer holidays, Sachiko. She seemed to
look me through with gimlet eyes – I found her very uncomfortable to be with. Many
months later we heard that her husband had threatened her with divorce if she took the
children away, and removed all her financial support. He has demanded “proof” that
the radiation is dangerous. How many sick and dead children constitute proof? There
is no proof, there is just a invisible risk of deadly disease in the future. All is understood
– no wonder Sachiko was a bundle of nerves. There are probably many more like her.
In trying to minimise this risk, it’s as though we are helping to create a new
world, much more than just dealing with the aftermath of a disaster. It’s very
hard work. We estimate that we will have to continue for at least ten years. The
authorities are lifting some of the restrictions on those they have evacuated, and
allowing them to go home, although they probably shouldn’t be. They want to draw
a line under the whole thing. The radiation in the outside air is gradually going
down now, but it is still very dangerous for children who already have received so
much: radiation is cumulative. Everything that spewed out of the plant since the
accident happened in March has started to work its way through the ecocycle: soil,
plants and the animals that eat them. For a long time we must be wary of internal
radiation damage, and research carefully what we eat.
“Why are we like sheep, unprotestingly doing what we are told?” The K family
came to stay with us over the New Year holiday. As we sat around the fire, drinking
and chatting, Mrs K remembered the immediate aftermath of the accident
and explosion. At first she had not known what had happened; by the time she
understood, they had all been subjected to huge doses of radiation. The first couple
of weeks were much the most dangerous. However, it was hard for ordinary citizens
to get the appropriate information. She wept tears of bitterness as we sat: “Please
write about this for the foreign press, tell everyone about us” Mrs K asked me. We
were watching the flames in the wood burning stove. I could not see her face, but
this was a request I could not ignore. And so I have written this article.