The First Weekend of August
The first weekend of August always feels special.
As Obon, the Japanese season to honor our ancestors, gets closer, my schedule is filled with the same community work every year.
On Saturday morning, I drove about 50 minutes to the community cemetery in Okuwa, where I was born.
We were supposed to meet at 6:00 a.m., but when I arrived, everyone had already been working for almost 30 minutes.
Once a year, all the families who own graves there gather together.
We cut the tall grass with brush cutters, not only around our own family graves but throughout the entire cemetery.
This has been our tradition for many years.
After the work, I went back to my parents' house for a short rest.
Later, I returned to our family grave, where my parents and grandparents are buried.
I washed the gravestone with clean water and stood quietly, looking across Mt. Obora.
Then I offered a silent prayer to my ancestors.
On Sunday morning, it was time for another community job.
This time, we cleaned the Mabu Irrigation Canal in Nakanojo.
The water from the Nakuta River had been stopped the day before, so everyone who grows rice could work together.
We removed mud and moss from the canal and cut the grass along the banks.
It was two hours of hard work, covered in mud and sweat.
But this work is very important.
Without clean irrigation water, we cannot grow rice.
While I was carefully using my brush cutter, something suddenly happened.
A sharp pain shot through my left wrist.
"Oh no... not again."
I had accidentally struck a paper wasp nest.
About ten wasps flew out at once.
Luckily, I was stung only once.
Even so, by the time I got home, my arm had become badly swollen.
There was also a grass-cutting event at a nearby park that same day.
But I chose to help with the irrigation canal because water is the lifeline of our rice fields.
I brought my own brush cutter on both days.
It makes the work much faster, but it can also be dangerous if we are not careful.
Still, without this hard work, there would be no golden rice fields in autumn.
One thing worries me.
Every year, fewer people join these community activities.
Most of the people who still come are older farmers.
If someone is absent, they must pay a small fee.
But the real problem is not the money.
Working together, talking with neighbors, and taking care of our land are what keep our community alive.
Taking care of our family graves and protecting the water for our rice fields may seem like different jobs.
But in the end, both are about protecting life.
Our ancestors left this land to us.
Now it is our turn to care for it and pass it on to the next generation.
So this year, once again, I cut the grass and helped bring water to the fields.
For me, this is simply what it means to live as a farmer.