Tuesday, September 29, 2020

9月27日(日曜日)2020
どこもでしょうが私の地域でも、墓地へ行く道の草取りや川の清掃といった作業が年に数回共同で行われています。今年はコロナの影響でほとんどの作業が中止になりました。多賀大社の脇を流れる車戸川のゴミや泥を取り除く川浚(ざら)いも年二回ありますが、春の作業は中止で秋の作業だけ予定通り実施が決まり、今朝がその日でした。朝8時から町内から各家の代表者が作業をすることに。事前に回覧板で予定が知らされていて私もカレンダーに書き込んでいました。…が、朝になっていつものルーティンでカフェのケーキを焼いて、いなり寿司の用意をしていて、作業のことを何とすっかり忘れてしまうという失態。つまり「スッポカシ」をやったわけです。気が付いたのは9時前。大変!と慌てふためいて長靴はいて川掃除の道具を持って川へ走るも川上にも川下にも人の姿既になし。川はきれいになって流れています。町内の総代さんに謝りに行くと、「よく雨が降ったのでゴミは流され大したことなく30分で終わりましたよ」とお叱りもなく寛大に対応してくださり、とりあえずは安堵したものの、老齢化が進み作業に参加できる人も年々少なくなっている中で一人抜ければそれだけ残った人の負担がかかるというもの。申し訳ない気持ちの朝の顛末(てんまつ)でした。I think it is the same for any community in Japan, but people in the community here share the work a couple of times every year such as cutting weeds on the way to the graveyard, cleaning the river nearby, etc. Due to the coronavirus most of the work was canceled this year. We need to clean the small river beside the Taga Taisha two times a year, and for that the spring work was canceled but the fall work was set as scheduled, which was this morning from 8 am. I was informed about the day beforehand and I put the memo in my calendar. This morning, I prepared Mochi-ko cake and Inari-zushi for my cafe as my routine, then I realized about the community work. It was before 9 am. Oh! My! Goodness! I dashed to the river putting rain boots on and carrying the tool for cleaning, but nobody was there both upstream and downstream and it seemed that they had all finished cleaning. I went to the representative of the community to apologize for not attending. He said it was done in only 30 minutes since we had heavy rain the past few days and most of the garbage and mud were taken away by the water. I was relieved by his generous words but I felt bad because it must have been harder for the people participating in this work due to the small number. People in the community are getting old year by year and many of them have become unable to participate in those kinds of work, so even though I am not young, I wanted to be a member of the workforce.