I went to Miyaike Elementary. My host mom volunteers at this school every so often with 20 other women. Instead of volunteering my time to help the other women, I would be attending elementary school for the day. Have to say, I really wasn’t sure how good of an idea that was… None of these kids would know any English and I don’t know any Japanese and I doubted that I could even participate in any of their activities… But I went to school all the same.
I started out having to give this speech in front of all the teachers. In the schools here, instead of teachers having their own classroom they have one staff room. This is Japan were talking about so each teacher doesn’t even have the luxury of a cubicle. All their desks are just shoved together in rows… Anyway I was placed by a certain desk. I eventually found out that it belonged to my teacher for the day. When all the teachers were in, I gave a very quick introduction in very basic Japanese. They clapped so I think they at least understood it. Haha.
After saying, “Ohayo gozaimas! *Bow*,” and drinking straw tea (Nasty!) for what seemed like forever, a man introduced himself to me in English. He told me he would be my teacher for the 1st period class today. (Ohayo means “good morning” by the way).
I walked into what looked like a pretty average classroom…
The kids that came were 3rd graders. They were pretty adorable. I ended up sitting with a group of boys. They all took out these paint sets that they had brought with them. It was cutest thing when they saw that I didn’t have one. They shared their things with me and made sure I had all the right instruments and told me how and where to get the water. The teacher didn’t say anything, they did it all on their own.
This was my painting. :)
After that I went back to the staff room like I was told to do and eventually another teacher came by and showed me to a different classroom. It was a calligraphy class. Unfortunately I just watched.
In the end, after I went back to the staff room, I found that I wasn’t supposed to go to calligraphy at all. Woops…
After calligraphy I was finally in the class in the class I was supposed to be in. They were all 5th graders and one girl in particular took me under her wing. She helped me through all the activities and showed where to sit and even how they eat lunch.
Ahh.. Lunch… That was an experience. In this particular elementary school you are not allowed to bring a lunch and the parents pay for school lunches at the beginning of the year. There is no cafeteria either. They all eat in their classroom. I remember in my elementary school we had a buffet type thing going on where you got to choose what you wanted, they don’t get to choose, it’s just whatever is on the menu that day. On top of that, you have to eat everything you are given.
I am a kind of picky eater. I’ll admit it! I try everything though. At least two bites. But, I did not like this lunch. It was spaghetti, an omelet, and vegetables. Sounds normal right? I thought so too. Turns out it was Fisherman’s spaghetti, baked egg, and vegetables drowned in sour sauce. The fishy spaghetti I could eat, I even managed half the egg but I could not do the vegetables. I felt horrible! Here I am trying to be the perfect guest but I can’t even eat their food! Normally, I would just down the food out of respect, but I couldn’t. It was that bad.
After that horrifying meal, you don’t even want to know about the milk, we finished up class. Yeah, normally, the kids stay an extra half hour after school to clean. No janitors in Japanese school. Luckily, I got out of it. Fiona, another exchange student with YFU, got out of cleaning too.
This is us after school.
Our host moms got to chatting and they ended coming back to our house for afternoon tea. (Or afternoon coke in my case.)
We talked, in real fluent English. :) She told me about a YFU regional get-together that is on the 18th. My host mom hadn’t gotten around to telling me yet. I was extremely excited.
Basically, what I thought was going to be a terrible day, turned out to be one full of memories.
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