Another Obon, Another Dollar

it has been a long few weeks since my last post. It is hot. The weeds are filling the rice field. I can't keep up. I have a terrible allergy to rice pollen, and guess what... the flowers are in full pollen output time. And even worse than that it is way too hot to pick weeds most of the day, and the horse flies and mosquitos come out just as it starts to cool down in the evening.

What are my other excuses for not sharing more photos of Mona? Glad you asked. Aside from troubles at home, there was a volunteer high-school student here for ten days who was upset at having to stay at a Japanese host family's house for a few nights (but later thanked me for making him stay). There was a festival, and many many nights of practicing. There were friends visiting from Tokyo. There are still lots of weeds in the rice field. I should have gone there this morning, but "other things" came up.

The photos are of part of the festival. On the first day we parade through the hamlet and visit each shrine. I have video of this but have not yet figured how to get it off of my new (used) camera (thanks Ryan) onto my mac which has no port for a memory stick.

The next day we walk through the village in sweltering heat and several layers of clothing to visit each house and drive the demons out with our magical flutes and drums, and a guy dressed up as a lion with a sword. As silly as it sounds, it is a lot of fun. Mid-way through the day we take a two hour lunch break. I was not able to nap as long as everyone else. (I don't sleep much these days), so I took lots of photos of them napping. Along the way we gather anywhere from 3,000 yen to 10,000 yen from each household - enough to pay for the (not so) cute "companions" to pour us drinks later that night.