Yesterday I was invited by a new friend to give a workshop on solar drying in Kameoka, very near to Kyoto, at her NPO that provides 
agriculture education for children. Our journey by bus to the small town should have been enough to let us know how wonderful of a day it would be. Before reaching Kameoka we passed valleys filled with beautiful trees and crystal clear, blue rivers.
The workshop was held at an outdoor education center that also serves as a community farm where people can come for free and get their hands dirty and learn all they want about farming.
Growing healthy children in this greenhouse
In addition the center has a kindergarden for young children and their parents to come and learn from a very young age the importance of self-reliance and agriculture.
About 9 people arrived for the workshop, including their children. Most of the kids played while the parents listening intently to the benefits of solar drying.
This was one of the most difficult workshops I ever did because I had to do most of it in Japanese. It was a nice challenge and I was even able to expand my Japanese vocabulary to include terms such as latitude, sun ray, and moisture content. After I gave a brief introduction of how I was exposed to solar drying, including showing the Fruits of the Nile video. We went into more detail of the design of the dryer and its process. People were surprised to learn that the dryer functions similarly to the greenhouses that they are so familiar with seeing across the Japan countryside. Every one of the attendees is excited to build their own, but first they agreed that they would build one at the education facility and experiment with it. It was an appropriate day to talk about solar drying as the sun happily shined on us all day.
peacelyse 