"When the flowers are in full bloom, the moon is seen only in its entirety." A passage from Tsurezuregusa that touches the heart.

At the beginning of spring, the snow melts and turns into rain, moistening the soil. As the mild weather continues, plants sprout and blossom one after another in the fields and mountains. The treetops are the white and pale pink of plum and cherry blossoms, and the fields sparkle with the yellow of daffodils, dandelions, and rape blossoms, and the scenery jumps out at you against the backdrop of the withered fields. How much I have longed for this enchanting season during the winter, when the sweet scent of flowers drifts on the soft breeze and the chirps of hundreds of birds echo.

After the earthquake and torrential rains, the faces of local fathers and mothers, who had looked grim as they faced the task of rebuilding their lives, have softened a little, and now they share the scenery filled with the breath of life. As Kenko wrote in a passage from Tsurezuregusa, "When the flowers are in full bloom, the moon is seen only in its entirety...", there is a certain charm to every expression of nature. It feels as though people are gradually finding room in their hearts to appreciate this season in a different way than usual.

Enticed by the spring wind

The sea is a bright blue, with gentle waves lapping on the shore. Looking out over the coastline, it seems as though the scenery has changed once again after a winter. Water has pooled in parts of the sandy beach that has expanded due to uplift, fostering a new ecosystem, and mountains of driftwood washed up on land by the winter waves have piled up. It seems that the rough winter waves bring not only seasonal delicacies, but many other things as well.

Even before the earthquake, residents and volunteers from all over Japan had been working together to clean up the beach on Kuroshima in an effort to protect the island's ocean scenery, and after the earthquake they resumed last fall. Over two days during the spring equinox, the beach clean-up event was held in two locations, including the neighboring Fukami district, and was attended by many people not only from Ishikawa Prefecture but also from the Kanto and Kansai regions.

During the cleanup, participants picked up fishing equipment and plastic rubbish scattered around the beach and put them into flexible container bags. Several people worked together to dig out and carry out large pieces of rubbish that were half buried in the sand, and there were also scenes of people carefully disposing of products with labels in foreign writing and containers with contents still inside. At the same time, heavy machinery was used to shovel together a large number of fallen trees that had been washed down the river by the heavy rains of last fall. Even after men and women of all ages got covered in sand to collect the rubbish, there was still a huge amount left, so it was a never-ending task.

Reconstruction support team shines in temple town

This event was planned and managed by the Reconstruction Support Team, a volunteer organization based in Monzen-cho. The team was formed as a continuation of the Kuroshima Reconstruction Support Team, which was active from the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake until the summer, and has expanded its activities to cover the entire Monzen-cho area, working closely with the Social Welfare Council and various volunteer groups and individuals to remain rooted in the local community.

Representative Yamamoto-san regularly travels to the Noto Peninsula from his home in Gifu. Members include Matsumoto-san, a resident born and raised on Kuroshima, Arakawa-san from Nagano, and Kurosawa-san from Tokyo, and the group welcomes young people from both within and outside the prefecture.

Each member of the Reconstruction Support Team has their own specialty, and they work together with their strong sense of unity to make the most of their talents, making for an excellent combination. Yamamoto, who has traveled all over Japan to support disaster-stricken areas in the past, including the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Kumamoto earthquake, and the torrential rains, describes the Reconstruction Support Team's activities as "not just doing what we want to do, but working together with the local residents to achieve reconstruction." With the latest earthquake, the team began providing transportation support immediately after the incident and was involved in the work of restoration and reconstruction, seeing the current state of the area with their own eyes, listening to the voices of the residents, and thinking about what was needed and where in real time as they worked.

The social media for the Reconstruction Support Team isCLICK HERE.

Energy for recovery born from "Thank you!"

Their activities center on on-site work that requires physical strength and skills, and include clearing rubble from buildings that collapsed in the earthquake and covering them with blue tarps. They have also carried out furniture from damaged homes and cleared snow after heavy snowfall. They have also worked to restore around 50 collapsed gravestones. In addition to providing soup kitchens, they continue to support student volunteers. In the Fukami district, which was severely damaged by torrential rains last fall, they focused on removing mud from under the floors of buildings that had been flooded above the floor level, and on cleaning and disinfection.

During heavy rains, the river that runs through the center of the Fukami district flooded, and landslides cut off roads, leaving the area temporarily isolated. At this point, many of the residents gave up on living in the district, saying they could no longer live there. In the hope that the residents would be able to live here again, the reconstruction support team has been steadily and diligently cleaning up homes and community centers under such circumstances.

The faces of all the volunteers seem to be shining with a sense of accomplishment. I will never forget the smile on the face of a local father who, upon seeing the reconstruction support team and other people helping out in the Fukami area, muttered, "Volunteers are a ray of hope. Thanks to you all coming here, I'm inspired to come back here again." Through the exchange of volunteer activities, the feelings of both sides have come together, and little by little, vitality is being born in various parts of the Noto Peninsula.

A fresh breeze takes us to the next step

In Wajima City, applications for the demolition of buildings damaged by the earthquake at public expense will close on May 5th. Many manpower is needed to restore and rebuild the Noto Peninsula, and there is still a long way to go. There are places where time seems to have stopped since the earthquake, and areas where people have been forced to evacuate for long periods or relocate en masse, and residents cannot wipe away their anxiety and uncertainty about the future. However, there are movements toward accompanying support and new urban development in each area, and the needs for volunteer activities seem to be changing.

“Wajima News ~While looking up at the starry sky~” is…

Yukiko Akiyama, a lacquer artist who lives in Wajima, writes ``Wajima News ~While looking up at the starry sky~''. 30 minutes by car from the center of Wajima City. The Kuroshima area, located in the northwestern part of the Noto Peninsula, flourished as a residence for Kitamae-bune ship owners and sailors, and its beautiful landscape with black-tiled roofs has been designated as a nationally important preservation district for groups of traditional buildings. I did. After 16 years in Wajima, lacquer artist Yukiko Akiyama set up a workshop in an old private house in the Kuroshima district, and was just about to work on her work while restoring it, when she was struck by the earthquake. Like many buildings, Akiyama's workshop collapsed. Although there is no prospect of resuming production in her workshop, she will continue to work with lacquer here, and while working on the town development of Kuroshima, she will aim to rebuild the Noto Peninsula and solidify her resolve to start a new life. I am. The rich lifestyle of Kuroshima in the past, the beautiful nature, the interaction with people, the passion for lacquer, and the current situation of the disaster area... She is a woman who lives her daily life in the disaster-stricken area and strives for reconstruction, but at the same time, she depicts the true image of Noto as depicted by a woman who deals seriously with lacquer.