一般財団法人　連帯　東北・西南　RENTAI　TOHOKU-SEINAN

Reported by Ryu and Tahel, Staff of Rentai Tohoku-Seinan

With a request from Mr. Numakura of Hirota Primary School in Rikuzentakata, Iwate, we served free Pakistani curry for children and their families on the sports day on the 26th May (Sat), 2012.

As temporary housings currently occupy the ground of Hirota Primary School, the festival was held on the ground of adjacent Hirota Junior High School. It was the first sports day since the earthquake and the slogan was "Never give up, Hirota Kids! Shine like stars!". This time we cooked a huge amount of Pakistani curry for them.

Seven more volunteers led by Mr. Eba, a friend of Mr. Sata, arrived from Nagoya and we started to chop vegetables for curry at Senmaya Minami Community Centre in the previous evening. The volunteers from Nagoya got to work as soon as they arrived and with their fabulous chopping skills, we quickly finished the preparation for curry for about 400 people.

Later in the evening, we had a meeting with local people to exchange opinions. At first, they had no idea about what Rentai Tohoku・Seinan was and seemed to wonder what we were doing there. However, as they saw us working hard till late for the curry event on the following day, they gradually opened up and had better understanding toward us. The chairman of the local Rotary Club kindly donated 30kg of chicken for curry.

At seven o'clock in the following morning, we set out for Rikuzentakata by six cars full of chopped vegetables and other ingredients prepared at Senmaya Minami Community Centre as well as cooking gear. The drizzling rain during the night stopped by the dawn and it was a clear sunny day perfect for a sports day. Children who had been looking forward to the day welcomed us at school. After the briefing with the headmaster, we pitched the tent and set up the cooking equipment.

When the opening ceremony of the sports day started at nine o'clock, we also started cooking. Though it was a fine day, we were occasionally hit by powerful winds. If we had used a usual camp stove and pots, we would have had to struggle to protect the gas fire. However thanks to our disaster equipment which was perfectly wind-proof, we were able to go on cooking with no problem.

Baking naan to be served with curry was another challenge even more difficult than cooking curry. However, staff members who experienced naan baking at NUMA☆FES2011 in summer 2011 took the leadership and we managed to serve freshly baked naan.

Lunch break was at 11:45 am. At the discretion of the headmaster, our chairperson, Mr. Sata, and Tahel made a speech on the stage and gave the cheer for the children, "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hirota!"

We prepared two kinds of curry, mild and hot. Children seemed to prefer mild one. Brave kids dared to try hot curry but both were actually made less spicy than usual so that children could eat even hot curry. So everyone was able to enjoy their food care free. Though we were anxious that we might have cooked too much curry and it would be left over, children with good appetite finished off everything before 12:30pm.

Mr. Eba, who produced "shinsei" and "shinsei II toward the light", charity music CDs for disaster relief, introduced his works and played some pieces from the CDs for the people on the ground.

This was the first event since we changed our name to Rentai Tohoku-Seinan. We feel that we were able to bring a little more excitement to the sports day at Hirota Primary School. Mr. Sata talked with one student at the sports day and found that the boy lived in a temporary housing next to the school which, according to the boy, was the third largest temporary housing complex in Rikuzentakata. This encounter led us to plan another lunch curry party at the temporary housing on the 7th July (Sat). We are now making a plan of the party so that it would give a break to those who put up with the inconvenience at a temporary housing and hopefully, cheer them up even a little.