JUNE 2023
This is not the simple story of a scary village but the ‘meeting of a special person with a special ability.
We are in the middle of the mountains in an unknown area of southern Japan in shikoku island.
What I want to tell you is the story of Ayano San.
A 73-year-old woman who went to the big city when she was young to find work. After many years , she decided to return to her hometown to care her elderly father.
As in so many areas of Japan far from urban centers, what Ayano found was a quiet village and a rhythm very different from that of the big city but she was the only one who could take care of her father. She begins to reorganize her life and rediscover the rural life she had lived as a child.
The sad thing was that all his old friends had migrated to the big cities and the older inhabitants had died.
One day, while he was tending his vegetable garden, he got the ‘idea to build a scarecrow resembling his father. The result was excellent. people who walked by his garden and saw appreciated.
The village was now almost abandoned, and Ayano comes up with an ‘idea…
The school was now empty, as were the small businesses, everything was practically lifeless.
Ayano thinks, why not fill the village with dolls that can remember when there was life everywhere?
Well, this was just the beginning…
Day by day Ayano managed to breathe life back into a village without a voice.
The gardener, the carpenter, his childhood friends.
Nagoro slowly returns to life.
KAKASHI NO SATO.
An old Fisherman friend…
Ayano San walk in the village.
A firend of Ayano San.
Ayano walking to the old school.
The school gymnasium.
Teking care of a German “friend”.
Many of the Ayano’s Dolls rapresent real people, living or dead.
Many years a go in this Gym, many friends danced toghether and Ayano is happy to remind us.
The empty… school square where the children used to play.
Ayano San selecting cloths to make new dolls.
Ayano San restoring a doll.
Mother and son.
Along the Nagoro Road.
Ayano san who greets us kindly.
Ayano san with her “Mother”
Ayano san with her Father.
The felling of peace that Ayano gives is impressive…
When we where talking about hou much Japan and in general the world has changed, with the ” eyes lost in her valleys” , He told me :For me this place is wonderful ; “seeing and feeling the change of seasons is like hearing a divine concert…
Everethyng born, grows and dies like a perfect cyclical poem that lasts forever.
