When I arrived at Hegurajima, the island was almost a desert; later, I discovered that the few people living there were all out fishing. While wandering around the small village of little wooden houses, I stopped on the beach at the southern end of the port, and there I saw, in the distance, a figure emerging from the sea and swimming towards the shore.
I started running towards the spot where the figure swimming to; and I got to where a little concrete tongue enters the water, just in time to see a very old Ama arising from the sea and climbing up the bank with extreme fatigue. I helped her to transport the spoils of the day — 3 big abalones, a dozen shells, that here in Japan are called Sazae, and some sea urchins — until the three-wheel bicycle, which was her only mean of transport as well as the only mean of the Island, where there were neither cars nor any other motor vehicle, except boats.
It was incredible to see how old that lady was, who told me that she had just spent three hours diving into the sea to look for shells. A tiny lady, older than 80, who was almost deaf and blind in one eye and who could barely walk, aided by a small trolley on which she leaned. On the land, she looked like an old seal beached by a storm, while in the sea, she still had the strength and the agility to swim and dive to more than 10 metres deep, to search and detach from the bottom shells and sea urchins.
After a couple of days on the Island, I discovered that the average age of the Amas was around seventy. The oldest Ama on the island was 94, who was the same one that I photographed on the first day I got to the Island and I thought was around 80. Her husband died 33 years ago, but she kept living on this small island and diving every day. Although she walked with fatigue, in the water, she was still agile.
I happened to photograph her several times, both while she was diving and cleaning the shells, and while she was pulling up weeds in the small garden in front of the house. She could not hear you arrive; even when you were less than one metre away, it seemed that she pretended she could not to see you, wholly plunged into her activities. A woman of a strength, both inner and outer, far superior to any other person I had ever met.
I will always remember her while she was diving and disappearing into the calm and blue sea of the early morning, singing a song unknown to me, with a light, gentle and cheerful voice.
Read the full article on Muse Magazine, Issue 48.
