Will Work for Fruit - Volunteering on Japanese Organic Farms

After several days of volunteering we were considering staying a month. The friendly host family consisted of American Michelle-san, her Japanese husband Haraku-san and their two little kids. The title "san" denotes respect and we became Fay-san and Peter-san. Thrown into the mix were two additional volunteers from the US and Taiwan.

A rice paddy, we learned, is called a tombo and our hosts only had four (one of which fed them). The household's real income appeared to come from Michelle-san's English lessons. Rather than farming, as we had been expecting, the bulk of our time was spent restoring an old Japanese farm house which will become the family's new home.

Our hosts were thrilled when they learned Peter-san had tiling experience. He was put to work straight away in the new kitchen and seemed to thrive on the task. However the jobs I was given were a bit less fulfilling. The day I spent hunched over a short-handled brush, sweeping out a barn was not so enjoyable. Even more frustrating was when Haraku-san remembered they had a vacuum cleaner.

This was our first experience with WWOOF Japan. WWOOF stands for World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Founded by a British woman in the early '70's, the organisation is now global but its simple premise has endured; volunteer on an organic farm in exchange for free room and board.

My first time WWOOFing was in 2002, harvesting pumpkins in the Netherlands. The monotony of slicing stems in vast fields was broken by hearty meals with the Dutch family. We always worked together and I was made to feel like part of the household. In England I WWOOFed at three different farms and I have returned to one near Brighton several times. Its doctor owners always make time to teach me about chickens or tell stories about their donkeys.

Peter and I were already ankle-deep in mud when we learned the Japanese work ethic extends beyond the cities and into the countryside. WWOOFers in Japan are expected to work a six day week. This came as a blow as we were counting on weekends to explore the surrounding area. Perhaps this was negotiable, we hoped.

Our work day began at 5:30am with two hours of pre-breakfast tombo weeding. This was followed by house renovations and ended with cleaning up after dinner. It came to over nine hours a day. It was exhausting, but it felt good to throw ourselves into the work. Besides, we liked the family and felt motivated to help them.

The departure of the other two WWOOFers marked a U-turn. Haraku-san had seemed happy with us. Michelle-san was uninvolved with our work, however this didn't stop her from telling us we weren't working hard enough. A new schedule had been drawn up which curiously had us working fewer hours. The priorities had shifted. Despite being desperate to move into the new house, we were now to do more weeding and kitchen chores.

The household's inconsistencies were hard to swallow. That morning, Michelle-san had offered fresh fruit to all four volunteers. In the evening, with the other two gone, we were told off for taking a banana and peach each. We became increasingly aware of dozens of strange house rules. Chopsticks don't go on the table. Certain dishes are stored in a different cabinet. You can't have a shower on a bath night.

We bought our own bananas (hardly worth quibbling over at US$.30 each). We bought cereal and local milk for breakfast. Michelle-san told us it was the wrong brand because they are "not happy cows". Due to our extended morning weeding, we were no longer eating elaborate miso soup, rice and bread breakfasts with the family but they still wanted us to have some later so we would be obliged to wash up all the dishes. We stuck to cereal and they got the hint.

By this point Peter and I were cycling to the tombo and the new house across town, rather than being driven. This freed up Haraku-san's time considerably, but as he wasn't at the new house very much, asking him questions was difficult. Projects were mentioned and then dropped the next day as the priorities shifted again. Once I cleaned up my painting supplies and cycled home in the heat to start cooking dinner only to be told that there had been a change of plan. I wouldn't be cooking after all and should go back to the new house.

Haraku-san wanted us to repaper old sliding doors. He had never done it before either, but not to worry, his mother would show us. Perhaps this was never communicated to her because she came and left without giving a papering lesson. We eventually figured it out for ourselves and the doors turned out beautifully. However WWOOFing should be an exchange of knowledge, not just winging it on your own.

Morale was particularly low amongst the Riceherders when Haraku-san took his children to the beach while we had to work on the house. This was a far cry from harvesting pumpkins with my Dutch hosts. Furthermore, the little kids mainly communicated by whining and seemed to find the endless household rules as confusing and frustrating as we did. The house was a stressful place to be. We started taking the bikes out in the evening and pottering around town or strolling past lush green tombo just to get away. As a small act of defiance, we started dropping the "san" off Michelle's name when we talked about her to each other.

We had hoped to stay for all of July, but we decided to only do two weeks and move on.

Next we went to an organic fruit farm in the Japan Alps. There were already five other volunteers and a separate, purpose built WWOOFer house. Akeio-san and Terumi-san had been hosting for seven years compared with just five months at the previous farm. "Great!" We thought, "They'll be super organised and we'll have all the fresh fruit we can eat." Our first assumption quickly proved accurate. On arrival, Akeio-san talked us through the daily schedule. Good news: Six hours a day. Bad news: It was a six day week with a 5am start in order to avoid the most punishing hours of summer sun. Even so, by 9am it was boiling.

A note to the uninitiated: Starting work at 5am hurts. We gave ourselves a child's bedtime, but the early starts were still hard. My "rebalancing" tomato plants or worse still, Peter strimming weeds, when we should've still been asleep, was not easy.

Although the work was physically challenging, thankfully the home life was a breeze. The hosts' kids didn't whine or cry. With so many WWOOFers, we didn't have to wash dishes after every meal. Plates were stacked on labeled shelves. Chopsticks were allowed to rest on the table. The schedule remained constant, the farm work more supervised and we were shown how to do every task.

Now how about that fruit? Two days in and the table had a decided absence of the apples or peaches we saw in the orchards.

"The fruit is not ready yet," Terumi-san explained.
I asked, "Do you ever buy fruit for WWOOFers and your family?"
"No," was her reply.

Somehow we'd gone from a rice farm where they were too cheap to buy enough bananas for their free labourers, to a fruit farm with no fruit at all.

The location was also an issue. Being a proper farm with lots of land, it was rural. There were only two bikes between the seven of us and the nearest shop was a 30 minute cycle each way in the blistering heat. In the name of love and fruit, Peter cycled to get us bananas, oranges and other treats. But the bike was terrible and he vowed he would not make the trip again. We had several hours free in the middle of the day, but there was no where to go. I have new empathy for isolated migrant workers, unable to speak the local language.

The fatal flaw with WWOOF Japan is that rather than volunteering to enable travelling, the farming becomes your whole life. Our first hosts were using WWOOF for very cheap labour to renovate their house and to enable Michelle to teach more. Our second hosts had a steady stream of WWOOFers which served as an integral part of their farm's business plan. When you're not getting much back in return, it feels a little odd realising you're just helping them make money. It is a shame that unlike my hosts in England and the Netherlands, in Japan neither hosts had the time to teach us very much.

During our three weeks volunteering, we stained wooden beams with persimmon oil and charcoal. We learned how to tell the difference between actual rice plants and "fake rice", a grass which cunningly looks a lot like the real thing. Peter made metal lampshades, fitted glass and constructed screen frames. We thinned carrots and peaches. We quite literally separated the wheat from the chaff. I won't be going back.

If I'm ever lucky enough to have keen young people volunteering for me, I promise I'll be very generous with the fruit.

- Osaka, Japan