The day of the earthquake.

  When the big earthquake came I was in a very big transitional period.  As a week earlier I had just finished writing and submitted my undergraduate school graduation thesis, and was also busy preparing for my graduation ceremony which was due to be held on the 20^th of that month. The previous day, I had just finished moving all my belongings from the dormitory I used to stay into my new apartment in Asagaya.

  As such, I still had no internet connection as it takes more than two months, had all my books, clothes, cutlery, shoes, and basically everything I owned piled up in boxes all over the small apartment room.  Coming from Zimbabwe, a country that is on a very stable platonic plate and with no history of earthquakes, all odds were against me.

  On the 11^th of March I was supposed to attend a much anticipated farewell party which was being attended by more than 100 people, including alumni, university staff, my colleagues and juniors.  The farewell party is the most looked up to event in the calendar.  It is a far much bigger day than the actual graduation ceremony.  It is the epitome of tradition and pride in a cheer leader’s life.

   IN the midst of all this, all of a sudden, there was a small shack from the left to the right.  I brushed it off as one of those we normally get in Tokyo every now and then.  I stubbornly continued looking for my tie in the piles of boxes which were looking like a rubble dump.   Then the shacking continued, this time with more rage, the shacks got bigger and bigger, I could actually see the surrounding tall building swivering from side to side, which was the first time for me.  My treasured karate trophies fall from the top of the fridge where there were on display, and my prized porcelain vas of flowers full of water went crushing to the ground and there were broken glasses and water all over my new carpet.  All of this commotion really took me out of my comfort zone and got me feeling a bit scared which is quite rare for me.  I began panicking, and decided to get out of the house, my survival instincts commanding me to look for a plain area without any tall buildings.   At the same time my mind was all over the place, thinking if I should lock the door, take warm clothes, get some money, pack some food, and still worrying about the dents on my trophies that had fallen.

  When I got to the evacuation site, which was just a few hundred meters from my house, I was surprised to see so many people already there.  One old man saying that he has never experienced such a large earthquake, at the time I just realized that I had been lucky to still be alive.

　　This could have all been my experience of the great earthquake that took more than 20000 lives, destroyed property worth hundreds of billion of dollars and caused one of the biggest nuclear disasters in Asia.  Alas, I had no television set, no internet connection, no radio and my mobile phone network.  Hence there was no means of medium of communication, except through word of mouth with my neighbors whom I hardly knew as I had just moved. 　So when the whole situation rescinded I continued with my preparations for the farewell party, with no idea of the tremendous amount of damage the Tohoku area had incurred

　　When I got to the train station, the trains were no longer running, they had all been suspended indefinitely.  I asked the station staff what was the situation, and they told me the there was a chance the trains could start running immediately or not at all.  They simply had no idea, until they got orders from their head office.  So still in the dark, I decided to take a taxi cab to Shibuya so as not to be late for the party.  Fortunately there was a radio in the taxi, as the hard news slowly poured in, that is when I started to get a glimpse of the calamity that had gripped Japan.  Amazingly a distance that normally takes less than 20mins, took more than 2hrs, and I paid dearly for that.  The streets were packed, and the whole scenery was in turmoil.  People walking with theirs shoes in hand, traffic jams, babies crying, faces full of fatigue,  endless lines, no street lights, and darkness in Shibuya, a deathly silence all over the normally vibrant night spots of Shibuya.  And as can only be expected, the farewell party was cancelled、even though more than 90% of the attendees had found a way to get to the venue.  Common sense prevailed and tradition was broken.

 We dispersed, I was not prepared to part with another twenty thousand yen, so I set the whole night out in Shibuya, until trains started running in the next morning.  All this time I had not received even one telephone call as the network was congested. Meanwhile the news of the disaster was now all over the world, and in somewhat over exaggerated scales.  When the situation subsided and was able to call home my mum, sisters, and relatives were all in tears.

 

A day I will live to remember.