missing student

I had a good weekend in Tokyo cuz my friend from college, Aubrey, was in town. I went in Saturday and came back last night. I'll put up a post with some cool pictures soon...

...but for now the thing on my mind is a little 8 year old boy who has gone missing in my town. He is a student at one of my schools (Kawaji Elementary) and he has been missing for 5 days. He is autistic and can't communicate. He disappeared Wednesday night I think, and immediately word spread through my schools. I have seen flyers all over with his picture on it, and other than that I haven't seen much in the news...I wish Japan had some sort of Amber Alert system like we do back home, but I know people are looking for him...(I hope). I offered help to my school but they weren't sure what to do with me. Apparently he has disappeared once before (decided to walk to Nakasato) but they are a little more worried this time because it's already been 5 full days and it's pretty cold out now, and he also is known to like water and was seen last not too far from the river. I hate situations like this for the obvious reason that you're worried about the kid, but also because all you can think about is what sort of bad thing has happened due to the circumstances and the nature of his disability, and feeling a little helpless. But I do think people are looking for him, Yuko's parents work in city hall and they are working overtime to coordinate the search for him I guess, and volunteers are going door to door with his picture. So all we can do is hope that everything will work out and that he'll show up safe and be home soon.