Charly's run - aka Free Food

Ok, entry two - exciting stuff! I would like to tell you all about a wee occurrence last week, Monday. An occurrence that left me with warm fuzzies, if not the better off physically...
As you may or may not know, Jeff was away last week on a language camp in some little town that is not Hiroshima (as we originally thought. That he would be there, not that it was little). So I spent the week amusing myself. Not as hard as it sounds - I brought a decent library with me and still have some editing to finish up and email home for Mighty River Power.

However, on Monday night I was feeling all inspired, so I cooked up a big batch of pumpkin and vegetable soup (without the aid of a blender, oven, soup pot or cooking spices!). I wasn't hungry yet, so I decided to be totally saintly and go for a run. Bearing in mind the excessive heat (30 degrees C) and humidity (70%), this was a big big ask.

Anyway, I laced my new running shoes and set out, encouraged by the fact shadow had fallen across the valley, cooling things a bit.

I ran up a little hill, went 'ooh, shit, that's a graveyard!' and back down the hill, along the canal, past the rickety iron 'back door' bridge over said canal, past the garage where they cut the back out to fit their ute, past a couple of old ladies, a surprised-looking bloke and several rows of sunflowers. Here I stopped to stretch and blow my nose in privacy (the Japanese don't blow their noses, so my habit only adds to my curiousity factor!).

Continuing on, I passed a little gas station, a random Japanese store of the 'we sell everything, but we don't sell it very often so don't ask how long those biscuits have been on the shelf' variety and past an apartment style house that got my hopes up about seeing monkeys when I heard the children playing (monkeys, kids, they don't sound that different!). Crossing the main road, I headed down a side street that quickly became, by NZ definitions, a one-way road (so quite wide for the Jinseki 'inaka' - country - roads).

By this point I had been running for 11 minutes, so I thought it was time to turn around and complete my little jog. However, two buildings along, there was a small dog making a ruckus. I slowed down as I passed the shed, curious to see the pooch making all the noise. I saw a small russet-coloured lapdog, barking and straining against its lead, eyes bulging in anger and effort. The leash was held by a Japanese bloke who was one of four men, of varying ages, sitting round a table in white singlets, towels draped around their necks, having cigarettes and snacking on something Japanese—looking (maybe dried squid?).

One of the men made a hand signal which looked like a Western ‘go away’ – and I seemed to recall is a Japanese ‘come here’. I wasn’t sure if I was reading the body language right, so I approached cautiously (much to the delight of the dog who thought he was warding me off).

The bloke who had called me over motioned to his wife while he gave her an instruction and she scuttled off to the corner, returning with a can of cold sweetened coffee. “Atsui desu nee?” the guy asked me, as his wife handed me the cold drink. “Atsui desu nee,” I agreed. Yes, it certainly was hot! Next minute the wife had a wheelie chair under my bum, had handed me a sweat towel (after giggling at my red face!) and I was sitting in their shed with the five of them having my drink.

Every minute or so something in the group tried to attempt conversation with me, limited as we were by their lack of English and my only knowing the Japanese for hot, New Zealand, married and teacher. However, this was sufficient to explain what I was doing in Jinseki and to encourage the group to keep trying to ask me other things, in the hope I would understand a word and be able to decipher the question.

When I finished my drink there was an awkward couple of minutes while I tried to work out if it was rude to (literally) run off as soon as I had finished my drink, or if I was expected to stay and make conversation. The bloke who seemed to own the place solved this for me by sending his wife scuttling off again with another instruction. He turned to me and said, questioningly, “Vegetables?”

“Hai, vegetables oishi!” I answered, “Yes, vegetables delicious!” (in case you wondered, yes, there has been much butchering of the Japanese language over the last few weeks!)

I was handed a bag of vegetables – four tomatoes, four eggplants, two cucumbers and a handful of capsicum, then the wife took my towel and drink can and they all waved me out the door!

I jogged home switching my vegies from one hand to the other as my shoulder got tired from the weight, grinning inanely and yelling ‘Konbanwa!’ at every little old lady I passed.