It felt like being the new kid at school, as I mumbled out a few 'Konichiawa Hajimemshite's' (hello, nice to meet you...) to the group of around 8 ladies hanging out in the tiny warehouse space in Akihabara, which I managed to locate thanks to some excellent directions from the website. Luckily, I had also been stalking the staff photo board online and I recognised the volunteer co-ordinator straight away. She took me for a tour of the Second Harvest warehouse and volunteer space which took about 90 seconds, it is tiny! Then she gave me a quick rundown of the food bank activities and the different types of people they assist before she threw me back into the volunteer area.
I was set to work with the team of tiny ninja ladies who were working on 'pantry food packing'. The two boss ladies gave me brief directions in English and then I tried to navigate my way between some fast footwork from the seasoned volunteers. These ladies had a perfectly timed routine which I tried my best to grasp. It went something like this:
Step 1 -Boss lady 1 - announces what type of boxes we will be filling next (today we filled boxes for local Japanese people, boxes for non-Japanese refugees and boxes for local student tutoring groups). This annoucement is quite long when she does it in Japanese and I can catch about 4 words I know, then she announces it again in English but it is only about 1/8 as long a speech.
Step 2 - Boss lady 2 - labels any boxes that require different items. eg. We filled some boxes without pork products for Muslim refugees and some boxes with only tinned food and pre-made meals for those without kitchens to cook in etc.
Step 3 - Pick an item to put in each box. Eg I stuck to the soy sauce, rice and other large items that I couldn't screw up. I attempted to have a go at putting tinned food in some of the boxes but apparently Japanese people won't eat the tins of soup and I put too many cakes in the box for the students.
Step 4 - Stay out of the way of ladies taping boxes. These ladies are super fast with the packing tape. I hovered in a corner out of the way while this was going on. Which took them a whole 45 seconds.
Step 5 - Place address label on top of box. I managed to do this correctly. Phew.
Step 6 - Slide boxes across to the guys at the door filling the vans. I attempted to lift a box and carry it to the door. This was met with many clucking noises and discouraging tones. I'm guessing ninja ladies don't do heavy lifting?
Step 7 - Fold and tape boxes for next round of pantry packing. I could manage the folding, taping I avoided.
Once we had done about 4 rounds of this type of box packing we finished the day off with some measuring and packing of small bundles of rice. I was on scoop duty, trying to carefully measure out two lots of rice per bag without spilling any. Then the ninja ladies would tie the bags off and bundle them together, ready for the next box packing session.
We also had a few breaks in between box packing where we drank green tea and nibbled on rice crackers. Probably goes without saying this was not enough to sustain me for very long, off to the convenience store on the way home for me!
On the way back to the station I also spoke to two of the ladies who had volunteered today with me. Turns out it was the first day for one of them and the second day for the other. So I was not the only new kid at school today! Looking forward to seeing what day 2 will bring: direct distribution day.
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