The communal living space at the Sakari base, formerly a large Fujiwara electronic store in downtown Ofunato, leaves little room to carve out peace or mental space.
Being constantly inundated with conversations and questions, I developed tactics like putting on my reading glasses and staring at my laptop as if I were deeply engaged just to squeeze in some parallel ‘alone’ time to not be engaged, sip my tea and process my day.
Sometimes I would wake up at 4:30am or take long walks just to have some down time alone.
After a week I moved to the Fukushino Sato Center (“FS”), a former hospital which had been housing volunteers from All Hands, a Japanese NGO and a German organization. For some reason (and I still haven’t quite figured it out) all of the male German volunteers have long hair. The FS Center is much stricter than the Sakari base with a 10pm curfew (read, there are loopholes) and a no alcohol policy.
It's also remotely located about a 20 minute walk from the nearest Lawson's. Basically over here it’s bathrooms inside, showers and osento inside….sake outside.
On my second work day, somebody had already clipped my milk, even though it was clearly marked HEK in red permanent marker. This indiscretion eventually led to a collaboration with two other volunteers in building a dynamic multicultural fortress around our snacks. Alice, Antony and I have created the ultimate snack pool. Basically, anything in the fridge labeled with one of our names or “AHA” is in our exclusive snacking pyramid scheme….milk, croissants, kuromame crackers, ham, butter, pineapple and fried squid.
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Outside the Sakari Base
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| Outside the FS Center |
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| Common Space at Sakari Base |
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| Common Space at FS Center |
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Sleeping Space at Sakari
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| Sleeping Space at FS |
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