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Nature Kids on their day off
Playing outside, Nature Kids carve sticks out of bamboo, which they later used to hang hard candy over a brazier. 00.01.08/ Temperature: 6C/ Weather: Overcast/ Wind Direction: W
Current Location: Kawaguchi Nature House, 35 52 34 N 139 43 18 E
Distance Traveled: 0 km (Rest day)I have spent the past several days with the young and energetic Nature Kids. For the first time since we met in Minami Urawa, we had no schedule, nobody to meet with and nowhere to go. What we did have was the opportunity to stay in an old farmhouse, an asset to environmentalists in the area, and the active imagination of Nature Kids' kids.
When I awoke in the morning, Nature Kid members had already been out bird watching and come back. They huddled around the brazier in the middle of a 5 by 8-meter tatami (grass mat) room. Shoji (thin paper doors) which once separated the large open space have been removed to make the space available for activities carried out by the Ecosystem Conservation Society-Saitama.
Members of Nature Kids and myself had the pleasure of staying in the old farmers' house purchased by the city of Kawaguchi to be preserved. Maintenance of the historical house is taken care of by the Ecosystem Conservation Society-Saitama. Estimated to be between 120 to 130 years old, like in a museum, one might expect that there be guardrails and signs guiding one through the old house.
Cozy in the tatami (grass mat) room of Saitama Prefecture's Nature House, Nature Kids keep them self busy with a game of cards. Below the elevated tatami room is dirt floor entranceway used to store farming tools, fuel. The entranceway remains as it may have been when people still lived in the house. Rice hangs drying on a bamboo rack, bamboo and different types of reeds are bundled up for future use, and a basket full of charcoal sits tucked away in a corner. What is most remarkable about this setting is the fact that it is still being utilized. In fact, thanks to those who gave us permission to stay here, members of Nature Kids and myself have made the place our home.
By the early afternoon, cool weather kept the Nature Kids glued to the brazier in the center of the house. Since breakfast they had been cooking mochi rice, peanuts and bread over the small charcoal fire. Their creative imaginations quickly created a new project for them, candy making. Remaining close to fire, they began melting hard candy.
Some bent and molded drips of melted candy. Others pushed small star shaped bits of hard candy into soft melted portions. By the end of the candy-making project one boy had rigged up a candy-melting stand to hang candy over the brazier. "Our candy is like glass art!" said one of the boys with a grin stretching almost from ear to ear.
I watched the kids so engaged in their new candy discovery. They have spent over 24 hours with no television, no video games, and no central heating. With the environment created by this old house and their imaginations, Nature Kids gave me a hint of what playing for Japanese kids in the old days may have been.
What is special about this house is that it creates an opportunity for kids as well as adults to experience some country living customs which have rapidly been abandoned over the past 30 years. For adults the Ecosystem Conservation Society-Saitama has made it possible for members to take part in caring for the forest, managing the house, and have made the house a base for their nature conservation activities.
Come evening time, the Nature Kids circled around the kerosene stove. All of their energy expended during the day seemed to have exhausted them. They sat in silence each reading comic books which they brought.
Greg
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