When C.I. Desert landed at the Narita International Airport in 2018, he stepped into a new life. Young, educated, and multilingual, he fled home, family and a teaching career in Cameroon, which was rife with civil unrest. The reason for choosing Japan, he says, was simple: “In 2018, if you typed ‘10 safest countries in the world,’ you saw Japan.”
About the author
Joan Bailey is a freelance writer whose work focuses on food, farming, and farmers markets. Her articles and essays can be found in The Japan Times, Modern Farmer, Civil Eats, and Permaculture Magazine among others. She has contributed to several anthologies in Japan and the US.
This article is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)