This weekend, my neighbor hosted one of the coolest community events I’ve been part of in Japan.
He’s an organic rice farmer here in Tochigi. But his dream is bigger than rice.
He wants to grow safe, mineral-rich organic rice for children, and to get more organic food into school lunches. He wants to protect local farmland, preserve its traditions, and pass something meaningful on to the next generation.
So he invited the neighborhood kids to learn how to plant rice by hand.
They stepped into the muddy paddy, felt the soil, and pushed the seedlings in one by one. For an afternoon, they got a small glimpse of how much work goes into the food they eat every day.
And then, because this is the kind of event kids will actually remember, we ended the day with a game of volleyball right there in the muddy paddy.
It was messy, hilarious, and so much fun.
I’m grateful to live in a place where things like this still happen.