Jung St

My first work day was by myself and included weeding a path in the garden. Mariko told me a month ago another wwoofer weeded this same path but the weeds have grown back, and this will be "John St" when I am finished. So for three hours I sat on styrofoam chunk and hacked up the grass. My back was pretty sore for break time, and I thought I made good progress on it. However, when I came back to work on it around 5, Mariko was on the other side and eventually we worked our way to each other. For being just grass, it was a lot of work and I started to wonder why are we calling this John St? I pulled up all of these weeds. And who is John anyway?

Mariko is a talker, which is nice, and eventually she started to tell me the story of the Korean Wwoofer who did this path. Even on his last day, Jung was weeding this path. Then it began to rain, and she told him come back inside, it's okay not to work. Jung refused and said he must finish what he started, he wanted to. But then it began to rain harder, and Jung was still weeding. She insisted he come in, it was his last day! But Jung stayed until the whole path was finished, so in his honor, she wants to name it after him. There were bricks spread in the path that I moved as I needed, then aligned neatly like stepping stones. However, Mariko went ahead and picked them all up and rearranged them. At first I didn't know what she was doing until she wrote out  J U N G  S T. 

I admire his hard work, and after weeding path, I can understand the time Jung also put in. I think I will look back and remember his selflessness, and hopefully apply that to my life at times I may forget. And just maybe after I leave I can have the honor of something called after me, it's not everyday that someone can be remembered so fondly. Whether or not that happens, I don't mind, but as long as I can leave such kind memories, I would be happy.