Episodes from My Experience in Belarus
KITAJIMA Rie
The Art Project of Chernobyl
M-box 95, Tokyo Voluntary Action Center, Kaguragashi 1-1, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0823 JapanPrologue
The damage of Chernobyl is always described through the collection of different numerical data such as thenumber of migration, the number of children diagnosed with thyroid cancer and so forth. Systematically, it isessential to keep collecting, analyzing and reassessing these numbers. However, it is merely one side of thedamage. It is necessary to try and look at Chernobyl with a more extensive perspective, otherwise we could
never really understand the damages brought by the Chernobyl’s disaster.
When I visited Belarus, I stayed at a health resort for Chernobyl’s children in Minsk. Occasionally I met
some people from foreign NGOs who visited the facility for few days for the purpose of investigations on thecircumstances of these children. Afterwards and similar with all previous visitors they simply were satisfied
with expressing the persisting sufferance of these children from the effect of radiation and then superficiallythey described the beauty of children’s eyes. This behavior reminded me of my own experience when I first
visited Belarus. I can say that our attitudes were exactly alike. I also had a preconception in my mind of what
Chernobyl should look like and I only was able to see things from a unilateral perspective. Therefore I could
not see or deal in depth with this disaster. I believe at that time it was a mere confirmation of my own
expectations.
Since 2004 I have visited Belarus for three times and in total I have spent in Belarus more than half ayear. Since I have a passion for photography, I decided to teach the children staying at the facility how to takepictures. I also visited contaminated areas, met the local people, performed some interviews and took many
photos. Hereinafter are three selected episodes that I decided to share from my own experience while I was

A scene of a classroom. At a school in Vetka, Gomel province.
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staying in Belarus 20 years following the Chernobyl accident.
Episode 1: Children
There were some impressive places while I visited schools in Belarus. One is a school in Vetka village inGomel provinces where many villages of the neighborhood became deserted. A teacher said before I entered aclassroom "In the next moment, you’ll see what the nuclear accident brought to this region in 20 years.”
It was a familiar scene that the electricity of the schoolhouse went off. But, I felt the classroom was themost cavernous in any schools I had seen. The number of children was extremely little compared with the sizeof the classroom. I embraced them with talking and looking into the eyes of the children who cannot hide theircuriosity and shyness; while they touched their hair and shoulders and walked between the desks.
I noticed through touching each of the children that there were children, who have not set their
viewpoints, who had language-disorder issues, or squirmed and kept moving their hands and foot. Suchchildren came a lot to the institution where I stayed in. The most anxious thing for me was the boy who stared
me with kind shy eyes, showing a wrinkly face like an old man because of his dry skin. The symptom of theboy was the same as a 17 years developmentally-disabled girl who is a member of family I stayed in. I had
never seen a child who has such a face in Japanand Belarus either. I met two children of the same
symptom in this small village.
These children live quietly without being
viewed as a victim by the damage of the problem
of Chernobyl. Once again, the number of thesechildren is not included in the data telling
Chernobyl. Nobody can delineate "where is thedamage area" because the damage is too wide, toolong and too deep.
After leaving the classroom, the teacher said,
A disabled boy at school (see txt).
"All the things which you saw now are reality tobe accepted and the product of that accident.
Almost all children became weak and they can easily catch a cold. The developmental disorder stands out
besides abnormal blood and thyroid, too. We were proud this village had breaded a lot of excellent children
before. But recently, it was the finest record that I gave a student a silver medal* five years ago. We are very
proud of our school which started from teaching at a church in 1888 and having a history of more than 100years. However, now we have only 160 students, while there were about 800 students in 1985 to 1986.
Because a lot of villagers migrated to Minsk and Gomel since the accident happened." Every word of hers
resonated deeply with me.
※ In the schools of Belarus, a gold medal is presented when all subjects are best A, and a silver medal is given
when a result is close to a gold medal.

I felt often in disaster-stricken villages that it’s difficult for the people to find a piece of hope for thefuture, although it’s easy to find a piece of happy memory from the past. Children should be hope to the future
for a region of Belarus where various things are taken over from adults to children routinely, and continued.
Though time goes by, adults are looking back on their past with bright eyes how the classrooms were full ofstudents in happy harmonious.

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Sad time is going by in disaster-stricken villages. A flow of time seems to have stopped from the day 20years ago without looking the bright hope of a development of the village and continuation.
Episode 2: Story of Natalia
Natalia is a 55-years old woman, who living in Rechitsa, one of the contaminated areas. She felt unease withher body following the 1986 accident. She was always irritated and feeling dizzy all the time. After her visit to
the village doctor and following his examination, the doctor informed her that everything looked normal
because the size of her thyroid was constant. Then he prescribed for her a medicine that apparently was notworking because she lost more than 20 kg in 15years and she did not feel any improvement in her healthsituation.
In 2001, she asked the village doctor if he could refer her to a more advanced and specialized hospital inGomel. She felt that her symptoms were resulting from the exposure of the radiation of Chernobyl andtherefore she wanted to hear another opinion and receive further examination. Accordingly she went to awell-equipped hospital in Gomel and she took more examinations. The doctor at this hospital has confirmed
her fears and it turned out that her thyroid was damaged by the radiation. Fortunately after taking the medicine
that was prescribed by the hospital doctor, her situation got much better.
During our conversation she said: “20 years have passed and still our medical capacity in the village isprimitive. Their knowledge of the damage caused by radioactivity is still weak. I do feel nothing has changed
since the occurrence of the disaster.”
After I explained for her how radiation could affect the human body, she was surprised. According to her,nobody raised their awareness and informed them about these influences. She was stunned by the fact that aforeigner who was visiting from Japan could explain many things that she could not learn from her everyday
life in Belarus. She said that even the doctors did not feel the urge to communicate and clearly explain to her
what was happening with her thyroid. She felt that even 15 years after the accident the village doctor could
not locate the real problem and provide the sufficient medical care.
I do believe that there are many other misdiagnoses like Natalia’s case. Unfortunately these cases are notincluded in the Chernobyl’s conventional way of performing the research study. Actually we are unaware
about their situation and therefore we do not include these victims in the investigation. Simply they are notcounted. There could be many others who are still suffering from a misdiagnosis and were not as lucky as
Natalia. Therefore we need to perform
more investigation to locate these people
and to provide them with the necessary
assistance and awareness. It is our duty tohelp each other, and we need to do more.
Episode 3: Ignorance
Human body is continuously affected byradiation if people keep living incontaminated area. That is why, they areincluded as victims generally. However,during I stay in contaminated area, I found
the fact that many people who live there
are not realized that they themselves areWith Natalia- 246 -

one of victims.
In their understanding, they categorized only the people as victims who has physical symptom. They
believed that huge amount of radiation affected them at the time, and it is the all result what was brought by
Chernobyl I was very surprised because no one did not expect that the problem would come out gradually assymptom.
In some villages, people also told me that their village has been entered into the first stages of recovery
program. That is, some of new construction would be started soon by government: water service, sewage
system, and communal facilities etc. People dreamed the life with these stuff and they seemed to be so excited.
In fact, many people said to me “After the accident, many people left our village. But in few years, the life inthis village can be more convenient and then it brings the people back. It means, we can overcome the tragic
accident”
Radiation is, by no means to be caught up by five senses, because it works without any smell, taste,colour and so on. On the other hand, improvement of living by facilities is easy to see. As a result, local
people have “hope” for bright future with improvement stuff making their daily life better.
Local people still does not have correct information about radiation even 20 years after the accident.
When their life will get more convenient and people back to their village as their wish, I am afraid it would
make a situation producing new victims.
Conclusion :For the past 20 years the approach in analyzing the damage of the Chernobyl disaster always depended onnumerical data. This methodology is understandable, but it is important to recognize that it does not represent
the whole picture of the disaster.
Now more than ever we are in need of innovative ideas to resolve problems that are still persisting andcould not be detected through the conventional ways. I think it is necessary at first to try to look at theproblem from a wider perspective and with more depth.

With my pupils and interpreter.
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