a near perfect day
goodbye, nano-village
I honestly am not one for unwarranted, gushing public sentimentality (nor split infinitives, for that matter). However, the first part of this post is going to be somewhat sentimental, so feel free to skip to the next section/pics if you’re not interested in that sort of touchy-feely stuff.
Although my life has undoubtedly been enriched by traveling — I’ve been lucky enough to do a fair bit, and have been the recipient of a lot of undeserved kindness and hospitality, I’ve become sceptical of the volunt-tourism school of self improvement (as subscribed by my younger self) in which travels away from home are the best and most effective tool for understanding the world and guaranteed to deliver a string a of life-affirming experiences, new BFFs and sublime cultural intercourse.
Instead, I’ve found, as I’m sure most people do, that time overseas tends to be composed of the same pattern of ups and downs as life at home — perhaps there is more opportunity for grand vistas and exhilarating activities, and exploring a new culture is always a wonderful experience, but ultimately I don’t believe that anyone needs to pay several hundred pounds for an environment-wrecking long haul flight to have a genuine, horizon expanding, fulfilling experience. This is particularly true when it comes to meeting new people. Yes, the daily grind of work and established social circles can quickly lead to a lack of interpersonal spontaneity, however the fact that we have to search a little harder for new connections surely makes the ones we do create and grow more, rather than less, meaningful. There is clear merit in creating cross-national and cross-cultural connections, however this can be done at home too, where there are plenty of cultural, ethnic and class barriers to be crossed (in most parts of the UK, at least, perhaps not if you live in Tunbridge Wells).
Anyway, enough self-aware virtue signalling. The point is that going on an extended holiday doesn’t necessarily beget the positivity, memorable experiences and meetings we hope it will, and that’s important because today is our last day with Nao-chan, Kida-san and family at nano village, and I just want to emphasise just how important the last three and a half weeks have been to me, how rare and un-run of the mill they have been.
I described our welcoming first few days in my second post. Shamefully nearly a month has elapsed with only a few further blog entries (I intend to write more about our time here over the coming weeks). During that time Mattie and I have been shown hospitality and generosity, we have spent time with people I will without-doubt remember forever and we have had a lot of fun. As well as our inspiring hosts, the whole project has been a template of how to run something, how to make something that works, in which every individual feels valued and satisfied, is able to contribute something and benefit too. I would be the first to admit that the ambition and idealism of my early twenties has taken something of a cliched nose-dive as I’ve grown older and balder; nano-village has done much to re-inspire me that there is great value in local participation and connection, however small the scale may be. We have lived for three and a half weeks feeling rested and relaxed but useful and productive, we have been taught and have taught others, we’ve been encouraged to contribute our own ideas about the project and had them warmly received. We’ve always been listened to and always been made to feel comfortable and welcomed. Mattie summed up Nao-chan’s approach – she makes everything fun, everything look beautiful and makes you feel special when she talks to you.
We’ve had a great time, and leaving first thing tomorrow morning is going to be sad. I don’t think I’ve ever (as an adult) had the chance to develop as long or as strong a rapport with a small child as I have with Tae-chan before and I am really, really going to miss looking after and playing with her. Mattie similarly with Tami-chan, with whom she has formed quite a strong bond through hours of cradling and comforting. It’s sad to think that they won’t remember us, at all, and even photos of the lot of us will mix in the multitudes of those of other western visitors. However it’s also heartwarming to think of the number of grown up faces they have and will continue to evoke warm smiles upon.
today
I may be sad that we are leaving tomorrow, but I’m happy because today was a really great day. I know I’ve been going on about how great the whole stay has been but today was very close to perfect, the best day of the trip by far, and looking back over the last couple of years, for a number of reasons really great days haven’t been as frequent as they once were.
When I was in year eight, we had an english lesson in which we had to describe our perfect day. Safe to say it didn’t pan out much like today, I think it involved roller coasters and i clearly remember ending it with the resurrection of Kurt Cobain so that I could attend a Nirvana gig (definitely would still go to that).
I started the day by managing to do a rare thing — getting of my warm cocoon capsule bed early, the result of the slow reprogramming of my adamantine circadian rhythm (now ruined to stay up late writing this post while it’s all still fresh). Used the time to finish a herculean number of chores and admin tasks and take 20 minutes to relax in the glorious sunshine and enjoy and poached egg. We also bade goodbye to fellow guests Matt and Michelle, who are off on an overnight visit to Hiroshima and won’t be back before we leave.
The morning was then spent juggling tasks: looking after Tae-chan and making dough — pizza dough! Tae-chan and I had a quiet but fun morning, and I was thrilled to feel that, on my last day, I’d finally struck the balance between play and learning. We read Clifford the Big Red Dog, sang Old Macdonald and Let It Go, rode the Mickey mouse truck, (and my shoulders) and went on an adventure around the garden. Later I spent some time with Tami-chan who was on great form and furniture walking all over the place.
The pizza dough came about after I had raised the overly ambitious prospect of firing up the clay pizza oven the previous night. We hadn’t managed, it had seemed pretty infeasible, but this morning Jen (committed foodie) suggested that we speak to Nao-chan about it.
Nao-chan’s face lit up when I mentioned the idea and she immediately announced that we would have a pizza party and invite the nieghbours. With the help of the bread maker we made the dough, let it prove and rolled it out, work with my hands that I found immensely relaxing. Tae-chan got stuck in and had literally (in its literal sense) hours of fun playing with a ball of the stuff, rolling it out, squishing it up and making shapes out of it. Made me realise why they invented play-dough!
Nao-chan completely rearranged her day to accommodate our pizza fantasy, insisting on driving to the local shops with mattie to get ingredients and then insisting on paying for them too. She was also completely understanding when I forgot to follow her instructions of microwaving the bases after rolling to prevent them rising and we found the stacked pizza bottoms had formed a homogenous dome shortly before the guests were due to arrive.
Kida-san returned home from a community meeting mid afternoon, declaring to us all that he had enjoyed several glasses of sake. He was in high spirits and genially teased me as I struggled to start the oven fire.
Over the course of about half and hour my inability to exploit man’s oldest technology (as Kida-san inaccurately put it) turned from a bit of a laugh to quite alarming — guest were coming and the oven takes two hours with a roaring fire before its ready to cook. Jen joined in and Kida-san continued to find it hilarious that a qualified doctor couldn’t start a fire — he said he could help but thought it better that we learnt to do it ourselves. Clearly the prospect of a bunch of hungry guests and only raw pizza dough to offer wasn’t causing him the anxiety and frustration to the point of tears it was me! (I’m yet to find out what applications japanese doctors have for wood oven fires).
To be fair, I don’t think it was the easiest of fires to start, the oven has a small entrance making it difficult to access anything at the back, and although we had plenty of dry logs and kindling, decent middle sized sticks weren’t easy to find. Eventually with some fuel gathering ventures further afield and patient pyre building we had a decent fire going, just in time for Mattie and Nao-chan to return from the shops. We also found some foragable mushrooms when we were looking for firewood!
From then onwards the evening flowed like a warm spring. Nao-chan built up piles of embers and deftly started baking pizzas — the first bite of the test pizza allayed all fears of over-risen dough and under reduced sauce — it was gorgeous.
They’ve only had the pizza oven since summer and used it a handful of times (a visiting british couple built it for them) but somehow Nao-chan has the expertise of a florentine pizzaiolo. She produced one perfectly baked pizza after another until we finally convinced her to rest and let us share the work — much trickier than she made it look but also a really relaxing activity.
Once the evening wrapped up and the guests had left, we retreated to the living room for one last huddle around the kotatsu. Mattie and I read the goodbye card Nao-chan had made for us and wrote our own goodbyes in the visitors book.
To wrap up, Jen (fellow photo enthusiast) snuck out to the bamboo forest to take some silly night-time light painting pics. I love messing around with cameras and it was a great end to a great day.
Now it’s off to my capsule for a few hours sleep before onwards tomorrow. I’m excited for the next part of our trip but we certainly aren’t going to make friends like this anytime soon.
arigato gozaimasu!
not quite perfect?
As I said, this was the best day in a long while. There’s a couple of things that could be improved on, though. Firstly, a day is never going to be perfect without certain people present, which I obviously have to say if I wish to keep the readership of this blog in the set of positive numbers.
Secondly, for the last week I’ve had a wretched mouth ulcer at the base of my tongue that is causing me a great deal of gyp and makes speaking and eating quite an ordeal. My friends here have heard so much about it it’s been named canky (north americans call them ‘cankers’). I’ll keep you posted.
