Texts, White Boards, Classes!

(pagoda at Miyajima)

Well, the second set of classes have started. These are the Tuesday classes. They will be my one tie between Ube and Hikari when I move in two weeks. For, when I'm in Ube, almost every Tuesday will begin with my boarding a train for an hour long commute to teach one beginner class at Hiraoi and one intermediate class at Nijigaoka. I really enjoy spending time with my students, but there is a little panic in all of this.

                          Still, God has seen me through some pretty, um, tricky times. Like that Japanese phone conversation, which lasted, maybe, three minutes before the person on the other end realized a strategic withdrawal was needed. Then there were the frequent times during the happy days of Miss A. and Miss. I. when three heads proved less sufficient than one. This happened so often in the context of taking the trains that Mr. Toothey got into the habit of asking us if we had "saw our favorite station" every time we rode them. Even now Kushigahama is a byword among us, because we managed to accidently get off there once. If I ever say that I "got off at Kushigahama" you may take it to mean that I made an awful blunder of some kind. 

In other news, I can now hold a tentative conversation in Japanese, provided the subject is either the weather or someone's health*. Or dates. I think I can understand three different ways of asking "when are you leaving Japan?" My answer never has to change. じゅにがつまでいます**。Still, if I'm felling really fancy I pop out my alternative answer, the one I used to give before I realized there was a shorter way. じゅにがつじゅいちにちにかえります。Despite all this progress, I still can not communicate with the son of my first Homestay, whom I think of as Latin***. The only thing we can talk about are my "つめながい”。(Apparently, I have "long nails").

* This asterisk really only applies to Ms. Theo Shaw, my sister, who loves watching My Fair Lady and should've recognized the reference immediately.　

** The first sentence is, roughly translated, "I'm staying until December". The second means "I return home on December eleventh". If you can't already, I encourage you to learn to read hiragana. I guarantee you, it's easier than learning to read French

*** Latin gets his name in a rather strange way. He loves pokemon, which I found amusing, since, not long ago, I too played around with pokemon paraphernalia. Of course, in my day there were only a hundred and fifty pokemon.... Anyway, I was a little suprised to find that quite a few pokemon names were derived from English words. For instance, Charazard, to name only one, is "rizadon" the katakana form of "lizard." Latin did not seem impressed to learn this piece of information. He wanted to know why they had to have English names. I could only shrug my shoulders and tell him that English speakers ask the same question about the Scientific Naming System. But then, I added, it would be rather confusing to have the tiger's official name be "yellowish-animal-that's-fast-as-an-arrow." 

Thunder, Tag, and other Trifles.

"Truth is more important than modesty"
- Roald Dahl, Boy

         (Kintai  Bridge at Iwankuni)

Today I had a trifle. It made me think of Anna and Jill. We talked about Trifles once, and had to look it up in both the dictionary and Wikipedia. None of us had ever had it, at least, not under that name. But Coffee Jelly, That's the most grown-up dessert I've ever eaten, I think, for it is so rich and sweet. It oozed indulgence. A layer of coffee flavored cream sandwiched between two layers of coffee jell-o (only, you can't think of it as jell-o, that sounds so unsophisticated). If I ever wished to convince somebody of my level-headed maturity this is the dessert I would try to recreate.
But the coffee jelly was on Thursday, on Tuesday and Wednesday I was as far from sophisticated as you could get. I was at Ube's kids camp, and I was running around playing tag, trying to get those kids tired. I never did manage it, but the Ube leaders were able to teach them the precious "basics" of faith. They used the wordless book to explain heaven, hell, sin, the crucifixion, and living your life for God. Of course, it was all in Japanese.
This Sunday I move back in with the Tootheys after two weeks of living worth the Ricers. It's been a lot of fun here. I've even been able to do a little side reading: Stepping Heavenward, Boy, A Bride Goes West, and various comic books. My reading isn't over yet, as one of the Purewells students - the Purewells are the missionaries I'll be staying with when I move to Ube in September - on hearing that I like reading lent me a copy of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. I was struggling through the first chapter, feeling like a row boat during a heavy fog, when my education finally jumped in. "This is what they call stream-of-consciousness, and Mrs. Woolf is known for it." Well, after that it was slightly easier to read, but I still think it'll have to be taken in small doses. Reading someone else's scattered thoughts seems to distort my own thinking patterns.
My reading will definitely have to take a back seat when I move back to the Tootheys', for English classes start up again this Tuesday. I'm only to teach one this week, but next week I'll be teaching two, and I will continue teaching these two even when I move to Ube. Life has often been compared to a river, the way it flows continually. It has fast spots, where the rocks jut up like daggers, and the slow times, when it barely seems to move at all, but it never stops completely. It's been raining so much these past few weeks that my life sure feels like a river, damp and cool. Perfect Reading Weather.




Oh, By the Way: If you are one of those people who have seen You've Got Mail, and if you've spent countless hours wondering just what book Meg Ryan is reading those children in the fatal first (physical) meeting of the two destined lovers, wonder no more. It is, with out a doubt, Boy. And no, I didn't notice that all by myself.

Really Hard Trouble

This week has been devoted to Japanese study, so writing has taken a backseat once again. Please enjoy this excerpt..........

                                     FROM THE DESK OF MRS. BUNBERRY

Friday, July 18th

My sister likes languages. When I'm struggling for a word I'm more likely to shoot her an email than to open up a Thesaurus. Back at home, just before I left for this trip, we were talking. Random stuff probably, but during the conversation she said this phrase "really hard trouble." Of course, I teased her about it for as long as I could. "Don't you mean 'difficult'?" I asked. Words are funny like that, I guess. Like, if I said that Monday, July 14th, was a difficult day, what would that mean to you? Or if I said that it was a little sad, or kind of depressing, would that preclude me from saying I enjoyed it? From saying "it was a good day, I had a nice time"? 

Well, Monday was a hard day. And it was a good day too. We went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and spent around three hours in the museum. It was awful, but it was also, in a sense, inspiring. 8:15. Time takes on a new meaning..... 

But one can't really talk about something like that, not for long. That Thursday we went to Iwakuni and were shown around the Marine base. We ate off base, though, passing up taco bell, pizza hut, and Baskin Robins for a little curry restaurant known as Cocos. It was spicy good. Rice, gravy, okra, eggplant, and chicken. All eaten with torn off pieces of nan. And of course we went shopping too. We even saw some guys breakneck dancing.

          Next week We go on our first homestays, and teach at Hiraoi and Nijigaoka for the last time. We've only two more weeks before Friendship English Camp (FEC) starts, but we're sure the time will go quickly. 

 

      

New Chapters

The summer term is ending. Home stays, cultural outings, camp, the never ending fun of Miss. A and Miss. J - those things are over now. Sunday I go to stay at the Ricers, where I will study Japanese diligently. Until then I must clean, clean, clean. But that's boring stuff, lets talk about camp. 

                FEC - Friendship English Camp. The five classes we offered, the games we played, the friends we made, perhaps to never see again - they were all for the sake of the Gospel. Every night we had an hour of Bible talk, in Japanese of course. We talked about how sin binds one like rope. We talked about how all our goals were like nothing unless we followed Christ. The kids heard the truth preached and now we must trust God to produce their faith. 

"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the Earth, and make it bring forth and bud... so shall My word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void."

– Isaiah 55:10-11

To give you a picture of camp, let me describe Wednesday, the day of the water games. In the morning we wake up and have devotions before going to the camps flag raising, where we partake in the Japanese practice of morning exercises (more helpfully described by a youtube video). We break our fast with rice, salad, and whatever else the cafeteria has decided to provide, and then we get start on our English classes. There's a lunch break in between them, and an hour of hilarious bilingual skits, and then we get down to the real business. Games with Mr. Ricer. 

Today the games take place in a big field. A big field marked with plastic tape and containing two big troughs of water and a hundred sponges. We played three entirely different games, but they all involved sponges flying through the air, seeking a target. Needless to say, at the end of two hours we were all completely soaked. By the time we had changed clothes, lowered the flags, and sated our hunger we were ready to sit down and listen to one of the pastors talk about running the race of life. 

One hour later and we are once again hopping, literally. Mr. Ricer fills a soda bottle with water, ties it to a length of rope, and spins it in a circle. Then we, the kids and helpers, stand in a circle and jump over it, allowing it to whizz under our feet. If we don't jump fast enough, or high enough, the rope hit our legs, causing the bottle to wrap them. I've never seen such great vertical jumps.

Now we are all sore and tired. There's a general rush to the ofuro (Japanese bath), and half the cabin gets out the uno cards. The day has been long, but even though we are all half asleep we know don't want tomorrow to come. For tomorrow is Thursday, and on Thursday we all go home. 

Goodbye Miss. A! Goodbye Miss. J! Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye! May God continue to be you northern star, leading to your heavenly home.