Osettai

This spring I went on a pilgrimage to 88 temples around the island of Shikoku. There’s a tradition of giving gifts to pilgrims, called “osettai” – an important part of the pilgrimage. I experienced osettai in many forms. A volunteer on our second day of walking who stopped and offered a ride to the next temple, number 10. (We accepted, gladly.) An inn near temple 44 where the host threw in dinner for free, two nights in a row – she asked us not to mention it in any online reviews, because she might not always be able to do it, and it was delicious. An older man who tapped me on the shoulder as I ate a snack at a convenience store counter and handed me the sports drink he’d just bought me. The osettai in the picture above came from a woman who was waiting at a wooden shelter along a river in the eastern part of Kochi. A couple of other pilgrims happened to be walking a few hundred feet in front of me, and I saw her go up to them and give them something out of her tote bag. I got to her…