Mandantory Volunteering

Volunteer – or else. Volunteering is obligatory in this village. You are assigned a task and you darned well better do it or pay a fee. Even if you pay the fee however, everyone will know that you didn’t show up and you will be shunned. (Before everyone had combinesand tractors, they depended upon one another to harvest the rice. If you didn’t participate in all the village activities, your neighbors wouldn’t help you cut your fields and that was pretty serious.) Shunning is something that isn’t quickly forgotten either. There’s an old guy who lives on the corner of the village who we always thought was just a mean old coot. Well, apparently he wasn’t always that way. It is said, that many years ago, he didn’t show up to one of the village work days. That made it even harder for him to show up to the next event and so he refused to come ever again and people disliked him all the more for it. Now he is bitter, isolated and nobody speaks kindly of him.
Village “volunteer” work includes picking up garbage by the roadside day, cutting weeds next to the road day, digging sludge out of the canal day, preparing the bonfire for the new year day, and other such things. It also includes participation in larger events such as the town sumo festival. This obligation rotates from one village to the next and hits us about every ten years so this year, Nunomia is responsible for preparing the grounds for the sumo festival next month. I really wanted to be involved in each step of preparation but the work has been further divided into women’s work days and men’s work days. Last week, the men had to show up at the old cow barn (sadly, they don’t raise dairy cows any more) to twist rice straw from last year’s harvest, into the rope that will encircle the sumo ring. Then over the weekend, the men had to go to the town shrine, on the hill, and cut down the weeds and grasses so people can park their cars on the fields and move around easily. Next week, the women will do the hand weeding; we will prepare the soil for the sumo ground and decorate the shrine. One member from each household is required to show up for each of the scheduled events – if you can’t make it, you have to find someone to fill in for you. This community business is very serious. No “come if you can” – come or there will be consequences.