Volunteer work in Japan, Minamata

Minamata, Japan

Minamata is on the southern island of Japan, Kyushu, in the Kumamoto prefecture. This city is known for the Minamata disease, a mercury poisoning caused by a polluted sea in front of the city, because of that now the city is one of the most ecological in the world. I suggest a movie, title Minamata, about what happened in the city with Johnny Depp. 

I was there for two weeks volunteering, the topic of the work camp I did was to stop global warming.

Our volunteer work was collecting bamboo in the way to produce charcoal that is a green source of energy and a filter for tap water. A second thing that we did was to go to a junior high school and follow their eco-program, an activity that we did was to clean a beach.

It was a very nice period, I was inside the local community, did useful work and knew nice people.

Fukuro, Minamata, Japan

We were living in this village of Minamata, in a guest house that is the typical Japanese house that you have in mind, a wooden house with sliding doors and tables with short legs. I loved to live in that house with the neighbour community participating in different activities. I appreciate the different lifestyle that people in this village has compared to Tokyo, where I was coming from. 

The village is near the sea, and we visit it several times. I loved living here because the people were really friendly, the language barrier was overcome by the will to share and learn from each other. I will never forget the time we were eating and drinking together inside a temple for a festival, an amazing experience.

Osako, Minamata, Japan

We had some days off from our volunteer work, in one of these days I and another volunteer from Indonesia, Tami, went to visit this part of Minamata. We did like 50 km by bike and had really nice views like in the first picture down here. What I remember from this trip is how much nature you can find in Japan, usually, we associate Japan with Tokyo and skyscrapers, but it is more than that.

Tea festival, Eco park Minamata

Tea is really a tradition in Japan, the welcoming ritual is always with it. This tea festival was in the amazing eco-park in Minamata: a park built where there was the chemical (Chisso) company that polluted the sea in from of the city with mercury and caused the Minamata disease that the city is unfortunately known for.

The festival was family-friendly, of course, and really important for the community. A sunny day in a park drinking different types of tea and eating green tea ice cream is the perfect combination.

Paying a fee you could have tasted a lot of different types of teas and have your own cup; for Italians, it was like an open-air Vinitaly, but with tea instead of wine.

Izumi, Kagoshima, Japan

On another free day, I and Tami went out of the Kumamoto prefecture to visit Izumi. At first, we went to Kashikuri Shrine, a Shinto Shrine dedicated to the sixteen chrysanthemums, the chrysanthemum is the Japanese national emblem.

Then we went to Fumoto, a part of Izumi, where there is an old samurai village. In Fumoto there are like 500 samurai houses, now you can visit five of these and there is also a museum.

We visited two houses and the museum. In these houses you can really feel how life was in that period, see samurai's shells, katanas and also everyday things like the food supply. In the houses, some guides can help you in the visit, in the first one the lady wasn't able to speak English but with google translator, she gave us a lot of information, adorable!.

At the end of the two weeks of my volunteer work, I started my travel in Japan, I went back to Tokyo stopping by several cities, the first stop was in Fukuoka.