It took a devil of a time before finally managing to locate the home of potter Paul Lorimer, the building tucked into a rural lane on the fringes of the Sashiki community on Okinawa Island's southeast coast.
This is wild country, the fertile, well-watered flatlands coming to an abrupt halt against steep cliffs, limestone caves and mountain escarpments few people dare to explore. The lushness of the farms and kitchen gardens, bulging with banana fronds, trellises of dragon fruit and Okinawan herbs used in cooking and for medicinal purposes, belie the dangers of these fields, infested with the poisonous habu, a viper so venomous it is said that invading wartime U.S. Marines were more afraid of the snake than Japanese soldiers.
Lorimer's home sits in the middle of a grassy plot with hibiscus flowers and a single plumeria tree. Upon meeting him, Lorimer, a plain-spoken New Zealander, offered no comforting reassurances about reptiles, stretching out his arms to indicate the length of the kind of snakes inhabiting the overgrown field at the rear of his home.