Tokyo2020 baseball and softball games will be held in Fukushima, which suffered nuclear meltdowns in 2011. Organizers hope the Olympics will repair the region’s reputation. But for thousands of evacuees displaced by the disaster, it’s not so simple
IITATE, Japan - Kazuo Ouchi drives down a single-lane road through sheets of rain until he reaches a gravel driveway leading to a weathered farmhouse. Yellowing lace curtains are drawn tight over the windows, shutting out the weak winter light.
Remnants of a hastily abandoned life are everywhere in the house. In an upstairs room, dozens of photographs hang from the walls. In them, a cast of children, first toddlers, then teens and later young men in awkward tuxedos, smile from behind dusty plastic frames.Like most parents, it’s hard for him to believe that the boy in the picture is already 18 years old. Ryoma left the family’s new home and his father only the night before, a few hours after receiving his high school diploma.
Years before they were evacuated from Iitate, a village of 6,500 people, Ouchi taught his son how to catch and throw, spending weekends cutting the grass in a field next to their house so Ryoma could play baseball with his friends. “We lost electricity for a few days, so we didn’t know what was going on,” Ryoma says. “At that point we didn’t think about the plant at all.”
“We thought it was just going to be a few weeks at first,” Ryoma says. “But then we had to leave Iitate completely in May and we moved into an apartment.” Fukushima City, where the family moved, is just an hour away from his hometown but a world away from the rural life his family was accustomed to. By then, Ouchi and his kids had lived in temporary housing for six years. It felt impossible to uproot the children again to move back. His youngest sons, now 10 and 8, don’t have any memories of Iitate. Fewer than 20 percent of the original residents have returned and many of them are elderly.“Of course, I want to go back too,” Ouchi says. “It’s my home, but I have to think of my kids, and I can’t go back without them.
Local papers printed a photograph of Ryoma laughing with IOC President Thomas Bach, and the young athlete was hailed as a symbol of hope in a region otherwise beset by problems. “The kids played hard and it was a sore loss,” Watanabe says. “We just hope Ryoma can continue his hard work and be known as a player from Iitate.”“How long are you here till?” Watanabe asks.“Yes, coach,” Ryoma answers, then bows deeply before leaving.
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