8: Going cold turkey in a Turkish bath!

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So now onto the reason why I've been absent from emails and phone for the last few weeks.... thanks by the way to those who emailed and texted with concern about my silence! And those who didn't miss me, yes you're right it was only 2 weeks after all!

I left the riding stables and headed down South to the neighbouring prefecture, Iwate to my fourth farm. Little did I know though that I was heading into a remote, isolated country area with no mobile signal and no internet! Yikes! How would I cope! But as it turned out that was the least of my worries! This farm also didn't have hot running water or a 'normal' toilet..... you poo into a hole in the ground then it's used as manure on the plants! Pleasant hey! And what's more, we had to separate out any paper we use and put that in a bin as it's used to light a fire under the bath (the only time we get to have hot water!) Unfortunately they don't seem keen to light the fire often , and as they don't have a shower, even a cold one, I had to have a flannel bath using a washing up bowl, each evening (which without a flannel is rather tricky, let me tell you!). And just to make you cringe even more, dish washing is done under cold water with no soap! Then the dishes etc are dried with a manky old tea towel that probably was last used to wipe the toilet floor! Hmm, nice hey! So for those two weeks I was rather smelly and dirty. So although you didn't get emails from me you could probably smell me from the UK!!

But on a positve note, the hosts were really nice, and there were 5 other volunteers so it was a fun atmosphere (if only I could understand it!). The work was pretty back breaking.. so much for trying to get rid of my aches and pains.. I've just got more! We start work at 6am (yup, me up and out of bed at 5.45 - impressive hey!). Then stop for breakfast at 8am until 9am. Then continue again until lunch at midday. Then we have a 3-4hr siesta as it's so swelteringly hot (~35 C - even the locals were complaining; it would appear that, as the name suggests, global warming has hit the other side of the world too!) and v high humidity... just sitting around makes you drip with sweat (and remember, I said that there's no shower here.... ) Then we work again from 3-6pm. The work has so far been weeding, mulching, harvesting potatoes, picking veggies, collecting grass cuttings and stripping bark off logs. But we have also been treated to a day at the beach; we collected a mountain of seaweed to dry for use in the cooking, and the guys dived for sea-urchins which we ate fresh, raw and alive (I assume) for lunch!

Talking of eating, at this farm I ate some great food. Every day we had fresh veggies from the fields as well as their own brown rice. The veggies were mainly carrots, courgettes, aubergines and potatoes surprisingly. Though they also had some more unusual vegetables such as a sticky spinach-like plant, Japanese basil, Japanese radish (diakon), snake beans (like french beans but each pod is about 2 foot long!), okra (that I've seen in the UK but never used), edamame (soy beans in their pods) and tofu (in many different forms). I was also taken out to a macro-biotic restaurant one day which was as real treat! And just in case you think that sounds all too healthy, to balance it the host also kindly gave us a can of beer each evening with our dinner which went down a treat after a hard day's graft in the sun!

So as you can tell, it's all rather different from good old Surrey life! However I've met some really interesting and inspiring people and have learnt some good skills for my future life as a permaculture farmer (or not!).

PS if you're interested in Permaculture and fancy hearing an English perspective, read Robert Hart's Forest Gardening.... a very inspiring read. There's also a video which I managed to watch whilst at this farm, not sure how readily available it is though? But worth watching if you get the chance.

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Comments

[Mark]

Smelled from Fukuoka!
So no automatic toilet seat then huh, Bekki-san? :P No Air-Con? What got me though was the fact that there was no shower, no hot water.. but you watched a video! Very 20th Century ;-) Can't wait to find out what crazy place you are at next...