Around the village

Sometimes, things just are not right around the village.

We had our village cleaning day where a member from each household is to show up at the assembly location with a designated bag and walk around the village picking up roadside trash. The announcement said to assemble at 6:00 am. Knowing that the older folks come earlier, I arrived at 5:45....only to discover that the work had been done. Every year, the old villagers start earlier and earlier so by 6 am, when most of the younger or newer residents arrive, the project is completed, making the late arrivals, actually the punctual arrivals, feel silly and helpless and humiliated. Next year, I'm doing my share the night before.

A young farming family has purchased large equipment and makes their living renting land from retired farmers and cultivating it. The young men do most of the work. The woman, in her work appropriate apron, stands at the side of the field hold a Chihuahua in a baby carrier on her chest. This is wrong...who in the farm village owns a Chihuahua? Who carries it like a baby? What kind of people are these?

I have marion berries growing out front in my yard. The neighbor kids came by and picked them off and threw half of them out in the road, making a big squishy mess. I was furious. Kids from the farm households respect private hatake gardens and would never take someone's fruit or vegetables for fear of the severe reprimand they would receive from the obachan or ojichan. I don't know if they think I have no power because I am white or that these are kids from city homes that have not learned respect for the fields...I wanted to strangle them. Then my husband comes to their defense and says, "For them, berries are strange, like peanuts, so they don't take them seriously, berries are just fun things." Huh??? Whatever, next time I'll come out carrying my broomstick...