“We should create the place where our grandmothers will not feel being served all the time, otherwise they will not come back to the gatherings. Then, they will stay inside the temporary house without socializing with others…”

“We should build the cafe where our elders are the ones to serve tea, rather than being served. They like to do be useful to others ”

The Tsunami victims who live in the temporary housing communities, repeatedly, made these comments.

Although the contexts are different, it reminded me of the elders in long term care facilities in other parts of the world. I have been pondering about “what does it mean by helping elders not only in disaster areas but also in our neighborhoods…” It is quite ironic to learn that issues around caring for elders are universal.

I am so inspired by the fact that the people whom I met at the disaster area were so excited to work with ibasho team to create ibasho cafe with elders as a part of the first step of re-building (and strengthening) their community. We have a wonderful group of people to develop this project to truly support the vision of local community, and I cannot wait to learn from each other throughout this process. Clearly, local residents including elders are generously giving me such a wonderful opportunity to “feel useful to others”.

As you can see in the pictures below, one of the temporary housing communities organized a wonderful dinner party with delicious seafood for us. I still cannot belive how resilient they are… All the people with smiley faces in the pictures have lost everything they had by the Tsumani (their house, furniture, shoes, clothes, and pictures… I mean everything). Yet, they welcomed us with limited food supplies that they had.  One lady told me that “I lost everything, but we have each other. We want to show the world that we appreciate all the help and love that they gave us.”

I was speechless… could not find any words but just hold her hands.