Tono storyteller Shirahata Miyoshi relates the legends that made the highland town in Iwate prefecture famous. She is sitting at the irori of the inn called Magariya, which is housed in a magariya, the L-shaped houses once common in this part of Japan. Early this morning I called an old friend in Tono, who said that while evacuees from the coast are slowly leaving town, their place is being taken by workers and volunteers involved in the clean-up in Kamaishi and other places on the coast. She happened to mention that the only guests at the inn just now are people commuting from Tono to Kamaishi. In ordinary times, the start of the tourist season in Tono would be about two weeks from now. But these are not ordinary times.
