Candace Lewko, an instructor at Lethbridge College who teaches English as a second language, was woken up recently at six in the morning by a phone call from a friend who had lived in Japan and is now living in South Korea.

“I immediately thought ‘Oh my goodness, my Japanese family is there.’ I couldn’t get a hold of them for three to four days,” says Lewko about the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Lewko lived in Japan for five years and formed such strong relationships with some of the people there that she referred to them as her Japanese family. 

“Because I have been in earthquakes before I was just absolutely fearful for their lives and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen or how it was going to turn out, but they finally got a hold of me and it was just a basic sentence – ‘we’re OK.’ They also said their car had been washed away by the tsunami.”

After hearing from her Japanese family, she could not imagine them dying. 

“It felt like a big weight that was lifted off my shoulders after hearing they were OK.

“The main city that was hit is Sendai which is as large as Vancouver. Geographically it is situated exactly like Vancouver, oceans on one side and mountains on the other and the epicentre was obviously in the ocean and it was an 8.9 earthquake.”

Teaching English as a second language in Japan was a decision that Lewko made independently. 

“I was a high school teacher here and I just decided I would go to Japan because I didn’t want to wait for a teacher exchange program five years later. It was the best thing I ever did,” says Lewko. 

As soon as she arrived in Japan she taught at a language school.

“They are like companies that teach English as a foreign language. Then eventually I got to teach in high schools, where I wanted to be,” explains Lewko.

She started out by making friends with students from her class. 

“Atsuko Numakara was in my class so we just became very good friends and she introduced me to her mother and father and brother and we just grew together. Now she has children and they were just here in December visiting me, I hadn’t seen her in 10 years previous to that. Then this earthquake happened and I thought, ‘This can’t be the last time I ever see them.’

“It was pretty emotional, but I haven’t been able to talk to them by phone yet.” 

Other than Lewko’s Japanese family, her other friends are safe too. There are two more that she hasn’t heard from, but she thinks they are safe.

Throughout the week she was keeping a close eye on what was happening. 

“I followed everything at first and then it would give me anxiety so I would turn off the TV and then I would start wondering what was happening and then I would
turn on the TV. 

“It was really hard to watch because when I would turn on the news especially to BBC which is more comprehensive, the news reporters were standing on the streets near Sendai Station, which has the subways and the bullet trains, and I knew exactly where that reporter was standing. I walked that street a hundred times. It was really hard to watch especially when I saw the tsunami come in.”

It was tough for Lewko to watch the news and look at pictures, but there was one thought that made her upset. 

“One of the sickest things for me was hearing that trains disappeared. 

“The trains are travelling right on the ocean so knowing that 2,000 bodies were washed up on the beach, which is a beautiful beach, and just knowing that those bodies have probably come from the trains. It’s just a horrible image.”

There were images that Lewko saw that were heartbreaking to watch.

“Just seeing the Japanese people cry. You never see that at all. In the five years I was there, I rarely saw it. I saw one cry out of happiness, but their emotions there are contained. 

“I saw men crying in their houses and when they are looking for their loved ones and it is too hard.”

Lewko says that locally there are quite a few people getting involved with donations for Japan. 

“Fleetwood Bawden School I know is having a garage bake sale and all the proceeds are going to go to help victims in Japan. The Red Cross has a ‘text ASIA’ on your cell phone setup and its $5 that is just added to your phone bill and you can text it up to six times a day. There are lots of people I know participating in that. 

“Lethbridge College is trying to arrange support for the Japanese students to connect with their families. I have received texts from people who are offering their homes for Japanese families to stay in if they get to come out of Japan. There are also Japanese students holding garage sales just to get money to send to them.

“Now since it has been a week or so since this happened, people are now settled and know that their families are safe and so now there is room for some creativity and brainstorming like ‘OK, what can we do now to help these people.’”

Even though it has been a tough week, Lewko knows that the Japanese people will pull through.

“They work together and there is going to be some bumps in the road but in the end they will rebuild. 

“One of the beautiful things is some of the Japanese students on campus live in the far north of Japan, but they still feel compelled to help. 

They actually want to go back and volunteer whether it is stacking rice or feeding senior citizens who are sleeping outside.

“I know there’s distance and I know that they’re here safe but they don’t feel safe right now they feel anxious. 

“Everyone is affected by it in some way, but you know we will rebuild quickly and efficiently, but that doesn’t mean there is not going to be a next time. That’s the part that leaves me wondering. But they learn, they build, they make it better and it just keeps going.”