Closest analogue to this in modern life is... your co-workers in the office. That chat you have with Maru on the way to sell your wheat in the store is equivalent to that chat you had with Frank from accounting on the way to give your report to the manager upstairs.

Therein, perhaps, lied the magic of countryside/pre-industrial socialization: everyone was always working, but always next to each other. The whole village was the office/plant.