Mother tongues...

During this wwoof stint at Fuji eco park, a permaculture showcase park, we have 4 different nationalities wwoofing at the same time. Its quite cute, coz we all speak about 2 languages but not the same ones!

3 Japanese wwoofers - Speak Japanese (good) & English (basic)
2 Taiwanese wwoofers - Speak Mandarin & Japanese (both languages good)
2 Singaporean wwoofers (us) - Speak English and Mandarin (almost la)
2 Swedish wwoofers - Speak English & Swedish (both good)

So when there's something complex our JAPANESE wwoof hosts is trying to say, she'll say it in Japanese to the Taiwanese, who will then translate it to Mandarin for Bjorn and I, then we'll translate it to English to our Swedish friends. Its really fun and really cute. At first, I thought we'd have really strange group dynamics because of this... but it turns out, its just so much fun.

This photo is us as a group, playing scissors paper stone in the morning to decide who does what task in the morning. It takes us about 15 mins to play the games and decide. It could take about 20 seconds if someone just appoints. But what's the hurry? :) That's the whole point.

Our Japanese Wwoof hosts/wwoofers

Can't believe that we're already 3 days down in our ten day stay here. Seems that theres just so much to do! Today we did some hard work man. Its just moving wood chips from one place to another and spreading it around this area where blueberries and rasperry bushes were. It took of us and the whole day and we're still not done. My goodness... But we had lots of fun, and our 3 japanese hosts/wwoofers have been soo soo nice to us. I can imagine how annoying it is to people this and that, and then we leave the next week. I think its time to describe our 3 hosts.

First is Haru-chan who is the only permenant paid staff here at fuji eco park. She's pretty good in English and has travelled pretty much most of asia. She was studying asia pacific studies at uni when she took a break to wwoof... then fell in love with this place, quit uni and is now a permanent staff here. Extremely helping, patient and not at all bossy, Haru-chan is a gem to have.

Non-chan is a wwoofer here for about one month now, and she is another super lovely gal. She was a nurse, then when she had some health troubles, she went to study organic vegetarian cooking and has cooked many delicious healthy dishes for us so far! She carries a notebook around and writes down all the english words she comes across while speaking with us and studies them in her free time. Such diligence and personal upkeep is so admirable.

Aki-chan (akira) is our energetic, upbeat boy whose also been here a month and is totally into the work while having fun! He's also really keen to learn and practice english and is travelling to australia in autumn to help an australian guy build his permaculture self sustainable housing!

ALl 3 are not older than 26 years old, yet there's almost an air of wisdom about them. They totally love the place, the work, they take care of it, and they take care of themselves. They have dreams to travel and experience life, yet they also know how lucky they are. I am so happy to have met such humble, inspiring people in a great but humble nation.