Homeless Yokosuka-Tuesday night

Not to worry, I got my sushi-go-round conveyor belt sushi from the best sushi place in town says the mayor of Yokosuksa. He’s not wrong. The Salomon Toro was so incredible! And I ordered it myself from the sushi chef which means I said, excuse me, Salomon Toro, 1 please, all in Japanese J. I had invited some of the RPs to come join me and RP2 Barnes came along and caught up. See, you take a plate off the belt as it goes by, keep your plates, and t the end, the waitress tallies up your bill based on your plates. Different sushi is placed on different plates which correspond to different prices (all color coded and posted on the wall). After dinner, Barnes walked with me from sushi-go-round to the Daiei mall. He was telling me all about Iraq and his experiences on his two tours there, his life in Japan and that he prefers Texas to Virginia. A fascinating young man…

At the daiei mall, Barnes left when Father Terry Mulkerin from the base chapel and Father Gerogio, an Italian ex-pat priest living in Japan and serving the Japanese Catholic population there (he is one of two Catholic priests in Yokosuka-the other one serves the Hispanic-Japanese Catholic community…yeah, this is NUTS!)two of his parishioners, and Ens Todd, a Catholic ballistic weapons specialist from the USS Shiloh joined us. Before dinner, I had stopped at the 100 yen store and picked up a few packages of face wash clothes as per the request of Father Mulkerin (who prefers being called Terry…NO ONE in the military goes by first name….well, not as far as I know…) The six of us began a 90 minute tour of the city. Each of us with our bags of items (everyone had brought something) and we went and visited all the known homeless men in Yokosuka Japan.

We went to their homes. The first place we went to was under a bridge. These people lost their homes, but not their possessions. They live under the bridge and use their possessions (newspapers, magazines, boxes, towels, blankets, tents etc etc) to build walls and a effectively, a series of nests. Everyone had their little section of the coop. It seemed they took turns manning the roost as one man was out but his home was still there. I am sorry I was not allowed to take pictures…it was an incredible world.

Darwin believes in the survival of the fittest and so do the Japanese. For them, these people are not worth saving. Shame is also an experience to avoid. So being homeless-well, even if there were public services, no one would take them. The 7-11 (here is called 7 and Holdings…I dunno…) for example, gives away all of its fresh food which has not sold at the end of the night but none of the local hungry will come and take it.

We spent the rest of the evening talking, walking and handing out ramen noodles, these Japanese fried fish jellies, bananas, hygiene products, and other assorted goods. This was the smallest crowd they have had which is too bad for the hungry since the more people who show, the more stuff they get. One man we saw had not eaten in two days so someone went to the am/pm and just bought him more.

See, this enterprise cannot be regulated, subsidized (I could not even buy anything to give away on base) or even advertised. What we did was against the agreement between the US and Japanese government. It does not look good that we Americans come in and take care of their needy.

This was so different from New York. There weren’t even twenty people. We can save twenty people. In New York, there are too many to count. We cannot save that many. Tonight blew my mind. This world is so different. Why not save twenty people?

I do not know the moral to this evening or even what is next. I feel very lucky to see this side of Yokosuka. I feel blessed that I had the chance to spend the time with Father Georgio, Todd, Father Mulerin and the two Japanese parishioners. I learned a lot, I saw a lot…I do not know what else to say…