Kansai, Hyogo, Sasayama. We're staying with the Nishimura family - Midori-san and her son Gen-san. The third photo is looking south towards their home - a traditional farmhouse maybe around 150 years old - and the two others are of homes in the village.
The Nishimuras run a language school in town so there are ESL teachers in and out as well as other wwoofers here. This part of the village is, well, very village-like. It's not a layout one would find in the States - all the homes are close together, most of them as old (or older) than this house, each with a garden (invariably growing daikon, peas, beans, cabbages, scallions) and rice paddy. Surrounding the village are larger fields that, as far as I understand, were shared areas when Sasayama was a stable farming community.
Many of those fields, as well as these incredible houses, are abandoned - the result of younger generations moving to the cities and the older ones dying off. The Nishimuras are working to encourage young people, particularly those that want to farm, to return to Sasayama.
Culturally it is harder than it sounds. I don't think it's for lack of people that would want to live and farm here - the way Midori explains it, the old farmers who are still around view the land as family, part of a lineage that isn't easily handed over to strangers.
One exception is that of a man in the neighboring village who has given his farmhouse to the Nishimuras. We've been doing a bit of demolition - all lathe and plaster walls, blackened bamboo, old tatami mats, enormous thatched roof. The plan is to house future volunteers and teachers once it is restored.
