On Friday I had my last class with 3-3 (3rd grade (U.S. 9th grade)
class 3)...sad!! Masayuki, who is the English gakkari (student in charge of checking in with the English teacher regularly and relaying important info to the rest of the class), presented me with a book of letters from all the kids in the class. Here are some of my favorite lines...
I enjoy going to school every day...Thank you for teaching us native English. --Toshiki
By the way, My hobby is watching TV. -- Keisuke
I don't have dreams so I will find dreams. --Haruka
I'm not good at English. But I like English. --Ayaka N.
Answering my question all the time. I always enjoyed Mya's class. --Yuri
I like fish very much. But you doesn't like fish, doesn't you? Fish is very delicious. So I want you to like fish someday. ...And you always dress well. --Mao
I don't forget you. --Sota
Thank you for teaching. I didn't like English. But I like it now. :-) -- Ayaka I.
We speak and study and have a good time. --Daiki
If I'll be a English teacher, I hope like you!! --Tetsuya
By the way I'm so so. --Rikiya
You have worked hard in this school trying to make us develope English. --Ken
I want be very good father. --Ryuya
I love love love love Mya. Thank you for answering my questions. --Mikiya
I love sweets. Because I can be happy. --Honami
I have a stecker from Mya so I'm happy. --Takumi
my dream is wont to speak English it --Kyouhei
I want to speak English. --Kenta
I'm tired and sad and soso and fine and angly and hungry and sleepy and by the way I love you. --Ryonosuke
Aaah...I'm SO sad to leave these kids. I can't believe I have to say good bye to 20 more homerooms full of kids in the next week and a half and give 7 good-bye speeches, plus try to catch up with the kids in the 4 classes I don't have anymore classes with. やだ。 本当にさびしい。
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Clarification of which socks are banned
As I wrote a couple posts ago, we have a new school rule banning short socks. Here is the poster that was distributed to clarify which lengths of socks are banned-- as indicated by the infamous "batsu" X. The acceptable sock lengths are those with a "maru" circle above them. This is still crazy to me.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Tsunami Cleanup
This past weekend I went up north to Miyagi Prefecture (宮城県) to volunteer with disaster relief efforts. I've been wanting to go ever since the earthquake and tsunami struck and definitely wanted to make it up there before leaving Japan. I'm so glad it finally worked out. I was able to go with a great group-- Sarah, Chris, and Sayoko, who are also English teachers, and my friend, Reiko, who is the dietitian at my elementary school. We went to a town called Watari-cho, which is just south of Sendai. I had heard from some other English teachers in my city who went up about a month ago that the town was about 60-70% destroyed, but since it wasn't one of the hardest hit places, there haven't been very many volunteers going there. It's only about a 5 hour drive from here, so we could go over a weekend. We had to wake up around 2:30 to be on the road by shortly after 3:00 a.m. in order to make the drive and find our way to the Watari-cho Volunteer Center in time for the 8:30 a.m. daily job auction. In a room crowded with a few hundred volunteers I struggled to hear and understand the details of each job being introduced. Reiko clarified what the speaker was saying, and when there was a job that seemed like something we could do-- shovel dirt, pull up carpet [at a location where a toilet would be available for us to use] all five of us raised our hands, stood up, and I pushed forward eagerly. Even though the group was only supposed to be 20 people, and several other groups had got up sooner...and the announcer said there were only 3 more spots, I asked him if 5 of us could join, and he agreed. Sweet! We had a job assignment...after 3 months of waiting to go north, 5 hours driving, and 45 minutes of signing up and figuring out what was going on, we were gonna get to help. When we pulled up to our job site, it seemed like we had been tricked into doing Saturday chores for people who were trying to take advantage of the volunteers trekking to their prefecture. The neighborhood didn't look like it had even been touched by the tsunami. !? But a few minutes later we found out that the tsunami HAD reached this far and had flooded the fields with salt water, including those of Mori San-- whose house we had just arrived at-- rendering them useless for years to come. He told a couple of us that he hasn't been able to earn any money since the disaster. In his farming equipment garage he showed us the line on the wall whe
re the water had reached about a meter high. The floor was caked with a thick layer of dried mud that the tsunami washed in. A group of 22 of us-- volunteers who'd driven up from Tokyo, Nagoya, and Gunma (us), as well as Red Cross volunteers-- set to work sweeping out the garage, cleaning out another supply shed, and pulling up tatami flooring that had been flooded. [Cultural Note: We were told that the males should move equipment in the shed, and the females should sweep the garage. It's surprising how gender roles are so clearly defined and blatantly, shamelessly stated here. Good thing I've had lots of experience at school sweeping while the male teachers stand around.] In the garage there was a narrow half-boxed-in ledge that ran the length of the wall. It was also full of dirt, leaves, and debris that had been washed in. Because of the width and shape of this ledge, it was really hard to get the insides cleaned out. When our leader asked us if we needed any tools/supplies other than what we had, we told him we needed a small brush or something. Soon after, we were given a toilet brush. It was the perfect size and worked really well. A few times while working it struck Sarah and I as funny that we were cleaning out the garage with a toilet brush! I'm sure it got more use in that one afternoon than in all the years it may have been used for cleaning toilets. After several hours, once we'd gotten rid of all the dirt, we formed an assembly line to move 15 kg and 20 kg bags of seeds from the shed to the garage. I was so glad to have the chance to meet Mori San and his wife that day, and to listen to their stories. Although it made me sad. Mori San's eyes smiled brightly even as he was telling us about the difficulties he's facing. I wish I could be friends with him. Just before leaving their house, I went to tell his wife that I'm a Christian and that I went to help them because I wanted to communicate God's love for them. I told her that even though things are tough now, God doesn't forget about us or our situation. I also got to give her 1 John 4:9-10 in Japanese: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
The next day our group was sent to a strawberry patch to volunteer alongside Japanese Self-Defense Forces Personnel (自衛隊) pickin
g up and bagging trash. It seemed kinda funny that we were assigned to the same job as these strong, capable, military-trained soldiers. It was kinda cool though, and we got to talk to some of the young ones during the break times. I was curious to know if they were all from that area or if they were from all over the country. So, I asked several of them. I was shocked and instantly regretted that question when one girl answered that she was from Ishinomaki. There was nothing I could say, other than a stunned, wide-eyed, solemn, "Oh!" Ishinomaki was one of the very hardest hit cities. I'm sure at least some of her family and friends must have been washed out to sea. !!! Oh, man! Another volunteer pointed across the field to the opposite block where there wasn't anything and said, 'My house used be over there.'
When we had driven up to the field, it didn't look like there was really that much debris. Once we got out of the car and walked out to the field, though, we could see that there were many tiny pieces of garbage. I filled my trash bags with sheets of plastic, twisted metal, broken glass, half of a broken CD case, a travel toothbrush case with the toothbrush still intact inside, flower pots, some plastic fork-like things that Chris and I couldn't identify, and grain-of-rice-sized pieces of Styrofoam. And it struck me as so discordant that this mass destruction that was caused in just a short amount of time by the forces of nature has to be cleaned up piece-by-piece-by-piece through the work of people. I mean, I don't know of any better way...but with all our modern technology, it was just surprising that our human hands are still the best means for recovery. A tsunami gets cleaned up by hand. !!
About 150 of us spent a few hours cleaning up in this field that already seemed relatively clean compared to surrounding areas. Yet we only made a small dent. When I think of how many other fields and neighborhoods like this there are AND THEN think of all the fields and neighborhoods that actually look like trash dumps, I cannot imagine how this is ever going to get cleaned up. It seems like it will take YEARS of volunteer efforts. It was a really good experience to go volunteer and to meet people who are living through what I'd seen on TV and heard in the news. But the most overwhelming sentiment I have is that I wish I could have stayed longer, done more, gone back.
re the water had reached about a meter high. The floor was caked with a thick layer of dried mud that the tsunami washed in. A group of 22 of us-- volunteers who'd driven up from Tokyo, Nagoya, and Gunma (us), as well as Red Cross volunteers-- set to work sweeping out the garage, cleaning out another supply shed, and pulling up tatami flooring that had been flooded. [Cultural Note: We were told that the males should move equipment in the shed, and the females should sweep the garage. It's surprising how gender roles are so clearly defined and blatantly, shamelessly stated here. Good thing I've had lots of experience at school sweeping while the male teachers stand around.] In the garage there was a narrow half-boxed-in ledge that ran the length of the wall. It was also full of dirt, leaves, and debris that had been washed in. Because of the width and shape of this ledge, it was really hard to get the insides cleaned out. When our leader asked us if we needed any tools/supplies other than what we had, we told him we needed a small brush or something. Soon after, we were given a toilet brush. It was the perfect size and worked really well. A few times while working it struck Sarah and I as funny that we were cleaning out the garage with a toilet brush! I'm sure it got more use in that one afternoon than in all the years it may have been used for cleaning toilets. After several hours, once we'd gotten rid of all the dirt, we formed an assembly line to move 15 kg and 20 kg bags of seeds from the shed to the garage. I was so glad to have the chance to meet Mori San and his wife that day, and to listen to their stories. Although it made me sad. Mori San's eyes smiled brightly even as he was telling us about the difficulties he's facing. I wish I could be friends with him. Just before leaving their house, I went to tell his wife that I'm a Christian and that I went to help them because I wanted to communicate God's love for them. I told her that even though things are tough now, God doesn't forget about us or our situation. I also got to give her 1 John 4:9-10 in Japanese: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."The next day our group was sent to a strawberry patch to volunteer alongside Japanese Self-Defense Forces Personnel (自衛隊) pickin
g up and bagging trash. It seemed kinda funny that we were assigned to the same job as these strong, capable, military-trained soldiers. It was kinda cool though, and we got to talk to some of the young ones during the break times. I was curious to know if they were all from that area or if they were from all over the country. So, I asked several of them. I was shocked and instantly regretted that question when one girl answered that she was from Ishinomaki. There was nothing I could say, other than a stunned, wide-eyed, solemn, "Oh!" Ishinomaki was one of the very hardest hit cities. I'm sure at least some of her family and friends must have been washed out to sea. !!! Oh, man! Another volunteer pointed across the field to the opposite block where there wasn't anything and said, 'My house used be over there.'When we had driven up to the field, it didn't look like there was really that much debris. Once we got out of the car and walked out to the field, though, we could see that there were many tiny pieces of garbage. I filled my trash bags with sheets of plastic, twisted metal, broken glass, half of a broken CD case, a travel toothbrush case with the toothbrush still intact inside, flower pots, some plastic fork-like things that Chris and I couldn't identify, and grain-of-rice-sized pieces of Styrofoam. And it struck me as so discordant that this mass destruction that was caused in just a short amount of time by the forces of nature has to be cleaned up piece-by-piece-by-piece through the work of people. I mean, I don't know of any better way...but with all our modern technology, it was just surprising that our human hands are still the best means for recovery. A tsunami gets cleaned up by hand. !!
About 150 of us spent a few hours cleaning up in this field that already seemed relatively clean compared to surrounding areas. Yet we only made a small dent. When I think of how many other fields and neighborhoods like this there are AND THEN think of all the fields and neighborhoods that actually look like trash dumps, I cannot imagine how this is ever going to get cleaned up. It seems like it will take YEARS of volunteer efforts. It was a really good experience to go volunteer and to meet people who are living through what I'd seen on TV and heard in the news. But the most overwhelming sentiment I have is that I wish I could have stayed longer, done more, gone back.
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