Imo hori!
“Digging for sweet potatoes” is the title. Though a little late with the posting, I would like to share with you my very first experience of digging for sweet potatoes!
October 15, I went to visit my OTHER Japanese family, the Fujihara family. I came to know them through the time spent at my assigned church last year, at Oguradai Christ Church in Chiba City. The Fujihara family has always been kind, inviting me over to spend the weekend or holidays with them whenever possible. We shared a lot of good times together with good food and great conversations at the table. They are a really kind and blessed family. I have learned so much about grace and God’s love through them.
The plan for that weekend was to have a night of games with Pastor Craig and the Youths at Tokyo Union Church. However, due to a family emergency of the Youth leader, Pierce, the night’s plans were cancelled the week before, and I called up the Fujihara family for a simple get together. The last time I saw them was before I left for home in summer, thus, this time was supposed to be a time of catching up since then. Suprise, suprise! When I contacted Mrs. Fujihara, aka… also “mom”, she told me that the Sunday School kids have plans to dig up the sweet potatoes in her vegetable patch that week and invited me to join them. I agreed as I didn’t get to do it last year, and I would not miss the opportunity.
That Saturday, I arrived at Tsuga station and mom, picked me up. She told me that the Jr. High School kids are also having a get together during lunch, making stew and said that I should join them. I was more than happy as it was another opportunity to see the kids I used to teach in Sunday School when I was at that church. It was great to see Makoto, Ai, and Sako-chan, enjoying the delicious stew made by them. After that we all went for the dig together.
Haha… here comes the funny part. Ok, feel free to laugh, but it was the first time ever I have seen a sweet potato plant. It was also the first time for me to get myself dirty, into the activity of finding where the sweet potatoes are after clearing the leaves above the ground, start digging around the patch, with shovels and spades, and right down to uncovering those sweet roots with my hands! It was tedious work as I didn’t want to break them… but nonetheless, lots of such damage were done. I was being a total city kid and such activity just gave me a certain facination and joy that the people who were there simply found it interesting!
After that, I moved on to digging for yams. I had a blast with this activity as I only had to use a shovel. It was much easier done that digging for sweet potatoes. At the end of the day, the entire group had tonnes of fun and the harvest was good. Fujihara-san said that the size of the sweet potatoes were small this year, as mentioned by the neighbors too. However, the harvest of the yams were great. They also teased that I should go help them out every year since I enjoyed digging them out. I thought it was a great way to release built up tension… however, I suffered the effects the next day with a severe back ache, not being able to get out of bed in the morning. (Laughs!)
Yup! Suemae and her farming expereience. I have some pictures on the subject and hope to get them uploaded soon. Do enjoy!
