April 11 2023 intern 1st/visit to Nose

Every year, in the first session, we visit Nose to interact with the various people working in the area.

As usual, in addition to Yamada-san from "ばんまい", who always guides us around Nose, this time we visited Nose with Yokoyama-san from "みつか坊主", a famous Ramen restaurant in Hotarugaike, who was driving us to Nose.

The first stop was at a prosciutto-making site in ”Tenno” area. The first stop was a visit to a prosciutto-making site in the Tenno area of Nose. We heard that there are some conditions that make a place suitable for making prosciutto and that the characteristics of the local environment are reflected in prosciutto.

Yokoyama-san told us that they are partly using pigs raised by high school students from Osaka City, and also made use of rice malt provided by the local sake brewer, "Akishika". We also met a farmer who is working in a field nearby and heard about their organic fertilizer-making project.

Then, we visited the "Soba kiri Tsutaya", which provided us with the opportunity to interact with local children every semester. We heard about the importance of the environment when it comes to soba making and the changes in the environment they feel through the purchasing of the ingredients.

Afterwards, we did volunteer work at the 'Mushroom School' organized by Yamada-san. We cleaned up the mountain and planted shiitake mushrooms.

Finally, we visited the social welfare organization, "Takarajima". They told us about the history of the organization's activities so far, beginning with the 'Language Classroom', which started more than 40 years ago in Yodogawa area, for children with various disabilities.

Students asked many questions about the difficulties of building relationships with the local community and about cooperation with medical institutions. The vegetables they grow here can also be eaten at "Mitsuka Bouzu".

Thanks to Yokoyama-san, we were able to connect with more people this time than in previous times. We appreciate Yokoyama-san for guiding us to various places as a driver, and Yamada-san for helping us build smooth relationships with local people. 

And above all, thank you to the Nose community members who took time out of their busy schedules to welcome us and provide us with opportunities to interact with each other.