and then the ground moved

Tis the season to be caring.

 A number of teachers and students had been wearing red feathers on their lapels over the past couple of weeks. During October funds are collected for Akai hane kyodo bokin (赤い羽共同募金), a charity drive which was established after WWII when many people were in need of assistance. The money apparently goes towards things such as wheel chairs and Seeing Eye dogs.

Similarly during April/May there is a green fundraising campaign to support volunteer forest maintenance, green feathers are worn.

Snow has started creeping lower and lower on Mt. Chokai – which while, beautiful, is a warning for the 3^rd graders at junior high that high school entrance exams are just around the corner.

On Wednesday there was snow forecasted for a lot of Akita, and around Akita city and further north the snow was sticking to the ground. The general consensus seemed to be that it was pretty, but everyone was quite happy to stop right about there.

As Konoura/Nikaho is close to the ocean we don’t tend to get as much snow, however there were a couple of flakes mixed in with the downpour of rain and hail.

Regardless I had to contain my excitement when you could see the first few flakes out of the classroom window (meanwhile the primary school kids were displaying the joy I was feeling).

The fascinating sewing/cooking table

After school i was invited to join the cooking club as they were making kiritanpo a dish that Akita is quite proud of. The kids did most of the work while i floated around. Marveling at how they had managed to establish a single room as both the sewing and cooking rooms into one by using foldable benches. The tables were constructed so that both ends could be folded inwards to reveal a sink at one end and gas elements at the other and to create a stainless steel surface in the middle for food prep. Wipe it down, fold it back and you have a lovely clean table for sewing. 

After the snow on Wednesday it has been warming up a little again. Apparently it is quite normal to get a bout of early snow and then nothing again until mid-December or so.

Kiritanpo

One of the teachers informed me that there is a belief in Japan that a person who has warm hands has a cold heart, and a person with cold hands has a warm heart. Given how poorly I seem to regulate body heat that would probably leave me to be described as capricious…

Capricious and confused. With so many different nationalities amongst the ALTs there are frequent occurrences of conversations halting to confirm everyone knows what a certain word or saying means (I was devastated to discover that ‘Cool bananas’ appears to be a phrase not used outside of NZ and Australia). Given the presence of Americans, Canadians, Kiwis, Aussies, Brits, Irish and Scots, ‘Football’ can mean 3 different sports (Soccer, American football and Aussie Rules) and when you’re talking about hockey you need to specify whether it’s field hockey or ice hockey.

Kiritanpo- the finished product

Similarly I now have to triple check every time I read a date as back home we write dates the British (*couch* right) way dd/mm/yy, here it is written backwards yy/mm/dd (similar to how addresses are written backwards (country à street address) and Surnames are followed by Christian names) but in class the kids learn the American way of writing it mm/dd/yy add to this the fact that in Japan they also refer to the era in place of the…normal way, for example, this year is Heisei 28, the 28^th year of the reign of the current emperor. Quite often on forms I will have to write my birth date not as 1993, but as Heisei 5 (as I was born during the 5^th year of the Heisei era).

Remembering what season it is can also be a bit of a mission. You get so used to reversing everything in your head that when it starts getting too easy you begin to doubt yourself.

And we’re back to the weekend…

Another late night of over indulgence in alcohol.

Bex had a plan for her birthday which meant all of us drawing names out of a hat and being let loose in the second hand shop to spend \2000 on an outfit for the person whose name we had drawn.

The check-out operators must have wondered what an earth was going on – the outfit that we scavenged together were not pretty. Donning the lovely skirt that Isabel had bought him, Andrew was asked by a Japanese person if he was Scottish.

School lunch - the floppy looking square is tofu curd filled with mochi

After yet another night that lasted until 4.30am it was a slow trudge to the pancake restaurant for a late breakfast on Sunday morning. The skies opened on the trudge back (which was actually really refreshing) and we mooched around at Cari and Josh’s waiting to dry off.

When we all felt just about ready to face the world again we headed to the mall to treat ourselves at the import shop (I have cheese in my life once more) and indulge in Ice cream.

I then spent the later part of the evening feeling useless and pestering everyone back home with questions after the earthquake.

It has been a very surreal experience following the aftermath of the earthquake on Sunday night (or wee hours of Monday morning) in Wellington.

It was a relief when the first news I heard of it was from my immediate family and Henry so I at least knew that they were ok.

Waking up to messages letting me know that my family had had to leave their home to head for higher ground was ever so slightly disconcerting. Our home is near a river, the mouth of which is only a few k’s away and therefore a risk if a tsunami was to occur. It was a sleepless night for all of them.

After staying up to talk to people back home and try and figure out what was happening last night, this morning has consisted of trawling through stuff.co.nz articles, following the news with bleary eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever known an earthquake to cause so much havoc through so much of the country. It will no doubt be a long day for everyone, but a miracle that so few people were injured.

All my love to everyone back home, stay safe.
頑張ってand Kia Kaha x