Nanmoku, Gunma Pref. – In a misty mountain village in Japan, residents recently welcomed unlikely guests from a Peruvian district along the Amazon River, seeing a chance to revive an aging community facing extinction.
The mayor of Belen and two young women visited a care home on their trip to Nanmoku, a village of just 1,300 people in Gunma Prefecture, greeting the elderly with broad smiles as some looked on slightly puzzled.
“From the moment I arrived, I began to admire everything about this place,” 19-year-old student Wendy Sangama said during a weeklong tour of Japan that followed the signing of a sister-city agreement between her hometown and the village last year.
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