Feakle’s musical prayer for Japan

ON hearing of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit her home country, Feakle resident, Erika Mochivuki, was concerned for her family but learning they were safe, she decided to organise an event to help those who weren’t so lucky in Japan’s devastated areas.

Erika, who is married to musician Pat O’Connor, and her friend, Tomimi Kawashima, who has also settled in Feakle, are both from Yokohama just outside Tokyo but their town was unscathed by the earthquake and tsunami. However, they decided to put their heads together to arrange a concert, which would raise funds that would go directly to those affected by this natural disaster.
Pray for Japan, a concert featuring a variety of popular local and Japanese musicians, will be staged at Feakle Community Hall on April 8, from 8pm.
“When the earthquake hit the north-east of Japan, just three weeks ago, we heard the news on the radio. Pat was going out to drop our daughter to school and when he sat in the car outside, it came on the radio. He came back in and told me to turn the radio on. When I realised what had happened, I went on the internet and Skype straight away trying to get through to anyone at home, my parents or my brother. I couldn’t get anyone the whole morning because all the phones were off. I was completely in a panic. At the time, I didn’t even know where the worst part of it was and I didn’t know how big the earthquake was in Tokyo,” Erika outlined.
Later that day, a wave of relief came over Erika as she received an email from her father saying he was safe. She managed to make sure her mother was safe and later Skyped her father and brother who told her Tokyo wasn’t as badly hit as the north-east coast.
“When you are away from home and when something like this happens in your country, because you are not there you can’t feel whether it is going to be alright, even though there is so much information and it is updating every 10 minutes. When Tomimi and I realised this disaster was the worst they had seen in 100 years, this was because there was a tsunami as well, we were so shocked,” Erika added.
She explained that the relief effort has not been helped by the plummeting temperatures, which have dropped as low as -8.
“A lot of Irish people think that Japan is a very tropical hot country but it is a very long country and the climate in the north is completely different to the tropical climate in the south. Those in the north-east had nothing for the first few days – no heat, oil, gas or electricity and it was snowing so it is very tough. I think when you are away, you feel like you have to do something for home. Tomimi was talking to another Japanese person in Kilrush and we were wondering what can we do and we felt collecting money would be the best thing. Then we came up with this idea of organising a concert,” she said.
Erika feels that by giving money directly to an organisation that is based on the ground, it will help in some small way to rebuilding and rehousing those displaced by the disaster. She explained this effort was already well underway.
“My father was saying 500 cement mixers went up north to start building prefab houses for people just seven or eight days after the tsunami,” she added.
With so many thousands missing following this disaster, the Japanese are now battling to prevent a nuclear catastrophe and Erika believes they need to trust the government to fix this problem as soon as possible.
“We have to be hopeful for that but you always think of the worst scenario at the same time. If it gets any worse then that would be another completely different disaster,” she said.
Earthquakes are a frequent occurrence where Erika and Tomimi live with both having experienced one large quake at least once a year.
“We are always aware that something like an earthquake or tsunami could happen to us so a lot of households would have a backup of food and water, they might never need to use it but they have it just in case. That’s just what we are living with now, it is our land. Those towns and villages on the north-east were doing training for a tsunami every six months but this time, the tsunami was bigger than we could ever have imagined. They were training for a 5m high tsunami and this was 11m high. When it comes to it, people just have to take it and accept it and I’d say that’s why they are managing to be hopeful. They have known it would come at some stage,” she explained.
Erika added there is a great spirit of giving both in Japan and from those who are living abroad who want to send money home.
“When you are living in Tokyo, you mightn’t even know your neighbours but when something like this happens, people feel they have to do something and they just give as much as they can. At the moment in the north-east, people are living in big gymnasiums in schools, they are sleeping beside each other, sharing food and have very little privacy so it’s not easy for them so we just want to help,” she said.
The musicians to participate in next week’s concert include Pat O’Connor, Eoghan O’Sullivan, Helen Hayes, Andrew McNamara, Brendan Hearty, Erika Mochivuki, Luca Maruta, Vincent Griffin and Seamus Bugler.
All proceeds will go directly to The Nippon Foundation, which works with a lot of non-government organisations in north-eastern Japan, their website is www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/eng/. For those who cannot make the concert but who would like to donate, there will be a collection box available in Custy’s Music Shop in Ennis.
The concert will feature some footage of the disaster in Japan but Erika stresses it is important to put across a hopeful message.
“We don’t want this concert to be sad or depressing, we think it has to be hopeful for the future,” she said.
Tomimi added, “The Japanese are quite strong. They have a strong spirit so we are going to be fine but it will take a long time.”