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Hello! This is Rie, a host in Okinawa which is located at the Southern tip of Japan. I run two listings, named “Hakobune” meaning the “ark” in Japanese. I first learned about Airbnb five years ago and since then have enjoyed being both a host and a guest.
I was a full-time housewife, raising three children. When my children became old enough, one of my friends asked me to help by cleaning their Airbnb listings. Since the checkout time for guests is the same time that my children were at school, it was a perfect part-time job for me.
The Airbnb world was very attractive to me, as I used to be a backpacker. And I was just crazy about the cleaning job. It was a very fresh joy to prepare the room for the traveler.
I felt like I was getting a spark for something like this!
So, in time, we decided to get a small section of land. It's 100 square meters of land and is located about 30 seconds from the sea. It had large banana trees and a small fisherman's hut.
“This is the ideal land!” I thought.
Since then, we have renovated the hut while meeting with carpenters daily.
We changed the large garden to an orchard, and the hut to a tiny house, like a ship's cabin. I made it while imagining a houseboat with a gull on the beach.
“Let this be both ours and the traveler’s oasis.”
A little while ago my friend and I formed a small joint venture, with the minimum amount of capital to form a company. The company is an agency for house cleaning and messaging via Airbnb in Okinawa, and I asked some of my mom’s friends to help with the running. Messaging and house cleaning were not needed highly skilled profession so many of them were willing to do. Mama was often pleased that she was able to concentrate on her work while being alone in the room while cleaning!
The job of cleaning listings does not require advanced skills, however, you do need a very high-skilled service called a Welcome Heart. You don't just have to clean-up the dirty things! It’s important to consider the air you feel when you open the doors, the softly folded towels, and the cushions that are comfortably arranged. This is a special skill that moms have. I would like to mention that my co-host’s cleaning skills are very high and that they are very courageous, never hesitating when they find that the guest’s children have wet the bed, left a chocolate stain and something similar.
I gave birth when I was 26 years old. I think I felt a little loneliness mixed with happiness while raising my child in a land without relatives. Housework and childcare is like making a sand castle at the beach. In the closet, backpacks became covered in dust and passports expired.
After joining Airbnb, I felt that the curiosity that had fallen away somewhere begin to rekindle. There are a lot of points to make my work enjoyable, like guessing the nationality of the guests from the garbage, to using my imagination in exploring how to make the stay of family groups with babies comfortable, or even when cleaning up the messiest rooms, positively changing my mind to thinking how the guests may have enjoyed staying at Okinawa.
It was a great experience for housewives who were just cleaning their own home, which is always done as a housework at home everyday, to know they could get money if they do the same with the Airbnb listings.
And one more thing! My son didn't choose to go to high school. He hasn't chosen school life for reasons that can't be stated in words. He is now baking a banana cake as a welcome snack for guests. Bananas were taken from the orchard attached to the listing. Some guests looked at the reviews and looked forward to trying my son's banana cake.
I have many unforgettable episodes with guest at Airbnb. A guest who repeats bookings, a guest who is always connected via SNS (Social Network Services) and more. The encounters with them are as though I share their journey as I am too busy to go on a trip. And my inner journey is in sharing work and experiences with my peers and the sharing of joy. I would like to thank Airbnb for creating this experience!
The village where I live is also thriving with crafts and there are many self-employed friends. I want to share as much as possible with these friends to create and deliver value and joy that only exists here. Smartphones and Airbnb made me feel strongly that barriers were ten years ago. I was a housewife who was in a remote area and had no career.
Maybe I was reborn through hosting. That is the spark I felt that day when I started cleaning. I remodeled the hut, planted fruit trees in the garden, and packed everything I had ever experienced into this listing. My ark, who only got to where he was with the help of many friends, started to row.
Now we’ve started to manage one more listing for family groups! We created beds for kids in the shape of a sailboat. The toys we prepared are simple but the smaller guests are always happy with them.
My journey is fine.
I will continue hosting until I get older.
Because my trip is to be reborn.
