Courage: A New Path and Good Memories

For the last three summers, I have been a group leader taking kids to Japan through the Experiment in International Living. Taking a mixed group of kids aged 14-18 abroad for 4-6weeks is hard. Many of these kids have never been out of their home states, let alone across an ocean to a place that is truly, radically different. Some of them end up hating one another, some of them ended up falling in love, some of them end up getting stung by woolly caterpillars and breaking out into full body rashes, you just never know what is gonna happen. It is exhausting and complicated. There is never enough time to sleep. The kids are always finding new ways to freak out, but it all honesty it is the best job I've ever had.

I love it. We spend a few days doing an orientation in Tokyo, then we fly north to Sapporo for 10-12 days of language training and city life, then off to our host community, a small town outside of Sapporo where we stay with host families from about 2 weeks. Then we catch a ferry down to Kyoto for temple gazing and good shopping, then back on the bullet train to Tokyo where we wrap it all up. I love the Experiment...even with all it's flaws . And most of all I love my kids.

Every year for that short amount of time, and subsequently for years to come it seems (as I still hear from them) I get to connect with these amazing, brave young people. We share this crazy adventure filled with inside jokes, embarrassment, joy, fear, homesickness, and a million firsts: first time seeing the ocean, first time getting poison ivy, first time climbing the steps of the water temple (Kiyomizudera), first time wearing a kimono, first time seeing Sapporo lit up at night from the top of Mt. Moiwa, first time puking after an all you can eat cake buffet.

And I had my first as well: first time being a medical interpreter in Japanese, first time catching my kids drinking, first time picking up a kid from the police station for grabbing some Japanese guy's butt in the subway, first time organizing the EIL Hokkaido Olympics, first time changing some one's world view by introducing them to a culture I got to know intimately during my two years teaching. Though the learning is theoretically supposed to be what the kids do, these trips have taught me so much about myself, who I am and what my strengths and weaknesses are, and also what I can do. I have been blessed with the affinity for and aptitude to teach kids how to become global citizens. I teach them what T taught me, how to have heart communication, beyond language and cultural barriers. I teach them and in turn they teach me how to not be so anal about linear time, how to break dance, how to line dance, how to beat dance dance revolution. They teach me how to love every day and see everything through new eyes.

Every year at the end of our stay S-san, the fabulous in-country program director (and someone I consider a dear friend) makes special book marks for me and all the kids. Inside each is a unique kanji. It's kind of like a one work fortune. For the past two years my kanji (and we draw them at random) has been Michi, or the road...which S-san always takes as a sign that my path will lead me once more to Hokkaido. This last summer however, I drew a new kanji....Courage. More than anything I think of this word as a daily affirmation for my current path. I have been afraid for so long...a smart, practical fear of not being able to do the things I really want to do. This fear has led me to settle, which is not to say I haven't been happy with the decisions I've made, but rather that I might have had other opportunities had I been a little braver in my hopes. So this year I want to be courageous. I want to try something new. I applied and was accepted to lead for another year, but I declined. I want to take this summer and spend it writing and painting and hanging out with my Seattle community. I want to do yoga and meditate and spend sometime creating a new vision of what I want my life to look like. God knows I will miss my kids. I will miss the scavenger hunt, eating vanilla soft cream at 9am, getting lost in Kyoto, watching the break dancers in Tanuki Kogen, having dinner with H, S-san and British D, and cake tabehodai (all you can eat cake). I will miss vegetable dueling in Shibuya, soaking naked in the hot springs, meeting new host communities, learning taiko drumming, and singing karaoke. But I am happy. I have beautiful memories and I will make more this summer, just not in Japan. The following are some pics and a few emails I sent detailing my last trip:







6/27/2007 Made it to Japan

Hey All. Arrived safely in Japan after a long long long flight where me and two of my three kids got sick off of the airplane food...which was disgusting. It was the first time (first two times) that I ever threw up in a plane. But after that I felt better. Got luggage and cleared customs okay with L and C. They are really great kids. L is half Brazilian and a born traveler. C is a Vermonter through and through and was freaking out in LA because it was the first time he had ever seen a palm tree. He was teaching me how to meditate on the plane and I think it is the only reason I didn't cry. When we got to the airport, I met H who is my in country staff person. She is a real sweetheart, but stressed out cause this is her first time. I think we will work well together and she speaks English well, which is good because my Japanese has gotten worse. Did manage to get everything done though,....changed some money, got some ramen with L and C and then met my group for the first time.

These kids rock and any hint of regret I had about re-contracting totally disappeared. We took a train to Ueno and we are staying in a nice hotel really close to the train station. After ditching the bags and playing some games, we went to kaiten sushi (sushi on conveyor belt) and half way through this hyper kid named T stood up and raised his tea mug to make a toast. I thought it would be to Japan or to EIL or something, but he toasted me (ME) and all my kids stood and thanked me for dinner and told me how much they were looking forward to the trip. On my way to breakfast now. Will write more later.

6/30/2007 Now in Sapporo

Hey All, Greetings from Sapporo. I am writing after having had my first good sleep since before I left the States. Sapporo is breezy and green, a welcome change from the over crowded, over polluted, sticky humidy of Tokyo. The kids think so too. I realize I didn't tell you much about them last time. I have thirteen, 6 girls and 7 boys. The oldest 3 are 18 and the others are mostly 17. I was worried about having an older group, but so far they have been much more invested in the trip. Not once have I had to ban someone from going to McDonald's. When I give them new vocabulary words, though go try to use them. It is a welcome change.

They are CX, Shankenis Maximus, M, PH, Watson, D, Resputia, the Rev, O'Malley, Lazer, Papa Smurf, A, and Flounder. Almost everyone has their nicknames already. They are trying to find one for me, but thus far I hate the ones they've come up with (mother goose, chief, and Ray Ray). CX and Shankenis are the veterans. CX did the experiment in Kanazawa last year. Shankenis went on some other program and had a bad home stay experience. He is ADHD and a little too rambunctious at times, but he has a good heart and when get him to sit down he is pretty cool. He is also very competitive, so we play cards and trash talk a lot. M tags along with Shankenis a lot. He's kind one of those "cool kids" sporty, and funny. PH is a guy's girl. If they have free time she is hanging out with Shankenis and M. She and Shankenis go to the same school. She is a New Yorker through and through and is sometimes a little harsh. She was the first person I've had to take to the Doctor and now I think all the other girls are catching her cold because where we are staying all of the girls are in one room and all the guys are in one room. They have bunk beds and the room is about as narrow as my kitchen....and there are communal bathrooms and a Japanese style public bath in the basement, so it's not exactly ideal for them, but everyone is dealing with it. Some of the kids are still really embarrassed to be naked in the bath, especially Watson. He is from Nashville and just kind of a shy dorky kid. He's really sweet though...incredibly bad posture.

D is absolutely gorgeous. She has dark beautiful skin and when she smiles she just lights up a room. She is the one who goes to performing arts school, but she can't sing and is totally rhythmically challenged. She is an artist. SO is Lazer from VT, so they get along well. Lazer spends half her time in VT with her dad and the other half in Brazil with her mom. She has hair that is the color of a traffic cone, fluorescent orange. I never lose her in a crowd. Resputia (so named by Flounder who obviously does not like her) is the most extroverted of the girls and though we are in Japan has made it a point to teach everyone some Spanish...so sometimes I'll come into the lobby and all my kids are trying to speak Spanish. It's bizarre.

O'Malley and A are the quietest girls in the group. A speaks excellent Japanese from having studied for four years and she is also a 2nd degree black belt in taekwondo, though you would never know it. She is so unassuming. She is also fluent in Mandarin and goes to Chinese school. O'Malley is very sweet, always smiling, and had a fever yesterday. Papa Smurf is the other kid from VT. His Japanese is horrible, but he is so enthusiastic and he tries so hard that everyone loves him. He is the oldest which had earned him the nickname papa smurf. Flounder rarely shows any kind of emotion. I think Resputia might have a crush on him. He has a good sense of humor. Last night I was hanging out with him and Watson and waiting for four kids to come back from the electronic store and he was asking me about my first experiences in Japan. I told him about my first days in Kaibara and not being able to figure out how to order in restaurants and how all the kids screamed at me because they had never seen a real live black person (Flounder is black too, so are D, and CX....it is soooooo cool not to be the only black person in my group).

After we were done he told me that I had insired him to do better and that if I could do with limited resources that he could learn Japanese with a little help from me. It was a real warm and fuzzy. The Rev is one of my favorites....maybe they are all my favorite in their own way, but Rev is just the nicest kid (and funny, I've got a real funny group of kids). He is really considerate of others....for that matter, so is CX. Since he's been here before, he remembers to say thank you a lot and gives people gifts.

The last few days we have been working with a group of Japanese volunteers. They are college students. S-san, organizer of the Hokkaido program and a graduate of my hippie grad school, teaches Intercultural Communication and so these are her students. They are kind of poorly organized and indecisive (a very bad thing when you are working with kids with limited attention spans), but they are trying. After a certain point in each interaction, I have had to kind of take charge and get stuff done. They think we are crazy because we play all these really loud games. On the day we arrived, after they had language orientation at the Christian center (where I stayed last year), they were rowdy, so I took them across the street to the park where we as a group (and this was not my suggestion) played full contact Duck, Duck, Goose. It was hilarious. Then we played freeze tag, which I hadn't played since I was a kid. We played and played and then it began to rain and we played a little more and got soaked. Then wet and scummy, we went out for ramen and ice cream, where Papa Smurf was invited to a drinking party by some misguided Japanese college student who I had to rudely interrupt. Papa Smurf was thrilled, not because he thought I'd let him go, but because he looked cool enough to get approached.

The kids had language classes again yesterday, so me and the other two group leaders had waffles and hung out at the mall trying to plan the second annual EIL Hokkaido Olympics. My kids are going to kick ass this year. They are athletic, shamelessly unembarrassed, and ruthlessly competitive, an excellent combination. I is still buried in her books trying to study for the GREs. I don't think I'll be spending much time with her kid free...but M on the other hand is turning out to be a lot of fun. She is Japanese American, but this is her first time in Hokkaido and she is hilarious, because she is really intense and impatient. It's funny to watch her interact.

Yesterday afternoon, me and the kids and some of the volunteers were planning on going to karaoke, but instead British D called and let us know there was a festival downtown, so the kids got see traditional Japanese festival dancing. They loved it. They were even invited to dance with a group on the side, then when all the groups converged in the center, some guy pulled CX out of the crowd and he danced in the very center. We took loads of pictures. It was great. Then the kids had language conversation partner. The partners are mostly Japanese girls. H commented that they all looked the same.....same height, same hair style, same clothes....and very giggly. Some kids had a lot of fun, some got frustrated by the language. The idea is that in pairs, they go out with volunteers. They speak in Japanese for an hour and then in English for an hour and sometime in between, they have dinner. All my kids went except for O'Malley, who had a fever, so I got her some dinner and medication and by that time I barely had a chance to eat, so I came back to the hostel late and got yelled at by my kids. When I told them about O'Malley they made an exception to the no lateness rule and I was forgiven.

Today we are off to the hot springs and then afternoon karaoke. Hope everyone is well.

7/3/2007 Mt. Moiwa

Hiking is one of those things I know I don't like and often avoid, so when I looked at the schedule and saw that we would be hiking Mt. Moiwa, I did what I could to mutiny, but in the end my will could not conquer British D from EIL Hokkaido. So we went and best believe that after the first five minutes of trudging up an almost vertical path, I got on my cell phone and cussed D out. He just laughed (evil bastard). Everyone here seems to think I'm kidding when really I'm not. Mt. Moiwa is 513 meters. I had ten kids in tow, 3, Lazer, PH, and O'Malley are nursing colds. If PH doesn't get better soon I'll have to take her back to the Doctor. Lazer and O'Malley are both already almost better, but I didn't want to push it and I'm glad I didn't let them do the climb. Instead, H brought them up by rope way, which is the way I had been before.

We got a guide named Shun, who is one of those annoying physically fit people that loves nature. He gave us clipboards with a worksheet that he made in order for us to identify the different types of leaves. I saw two leaves and some poison ivy and the rest of the time I spent looking at the rocks and willing my feet to move. I'm not exactly sure how I made it....except for that my kids were great. Flounder and Rev were especially good. At one point I was standing there trying to breath and Flounder had bounded up ahead of me. Then he stopped. I told him to go ahead, but he said he wasn't going to take another step until I was by his side. What else could I do, but pull it together and put one foot in front of the other....when all I really wanted to do was go back down. Somehow we made it. Even my most jovial, gung ho kid, Papa Smurf, was tired and in a bad mood (it didn't help that Shankenis, who runs track and has boundless energy ran the trail and did the whole thing in about half an hour, when it took most of us an hour and half and the straggler 2 hours even).

But when we got to the very top, the view was surreal.....just absolutely gorgeous and the with the sun setting over the city on one side and over mountains on the other side, it was almost worth it (though next time we can just take the rope way...which is how we got back).

Once everyone reached the summit, we had dinner at the restaurant at the top and visited the gift shop.I had to get the guys to put their shirts back on. I don't know why, but every time we go anywhere I look around and half the guys in my group are shirtless. Japan is really not a shirtless type of place. Flounder presented me with a gift he had found for me.....it's a yellow rubber chicken that when you squeeze it sounds like it's dying. I love it. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt because it was the same chicken we had seen a few days ago in Don Quijote's (this weird store that sells everything). These kids are sooooo cute. Dinner was nice and the view was still amazing. I sat next to Papa Smurf and he seemed to perk up a little.

The last few days have been so jam packed with firsts. We went to hot springs at the edge of Sapporo in the mountains. It's the one with pools inside and out and an indian restaurant I had been dying to try. Turned out to be not that great (the indian food), but everyone loved the onsen, even though they had to be naked in front of one another....a source of great consternation to Resputia. I swear I am rubbing off on these kids though. All they want to do is eat cake and get massages. Me too. After the onsen we sang karaoke for three hours, then they had language partners. I don't really like the girls that came this year, they have no spunk and they all seem too embarrassed to be alive. I wonder what kind of teachers they will make when they can barely speak without giggling. The kids like them though, so that is what is important.

Wait, no that was yesterday. The day before, after karaoke, I took the kids to the TV tower which is a huge landmark in Sapporo. There is a restaurant overlooking Odori park. Afterwards me and half the group (oddly enough, and this was not planned, the kids of color) hung out in the park. Flounder and CX decided that they wanted to have a dance battle. Their plan was to each listen to their own i-pod and dance to seperate music and have us judge without being able to hear the music, but in the end we ran into some cute Japanese girls who were rehearsing some hip hop dance routine in the park. At first CX was too shy to talk to them, but I pushed him toward them and it ended up turning into this full-on breakdancing competition which CX won by doing a hand stand and some other equally acrobatic moves. It was really cool.

Afterwards we went to Tanuki Kogen (which translates to Racoon-dog alley) where we rejoined with the rest of the group and did some shopping at Don Quijote (hence the rubber chicken). Tanuki Kogen is where lots of teens hang listening to music, sometimes dancing, and shopping. There are also usually street performers. The kids love it. Afterwards we went back to Odori and met more break dancers.

I am too tired to write anymore. The kids are still good. They are getting a little more rowdy, but we have so little time and they have so much invested in the trip that just giving them mini guilt trips has been more effective at correcting and questionable behaviour than any of my previous tactics with previous trips. It is weird to be here with a whole other group though. I keep wondering how my other kids are. Good night all and never think of inviting me to go hiking.

7/5/2007 Not always easy / Olympic Champs
Now is the difficult portion of the adventure where the newness is wearing off and the kids are beginning to dislike one another. The past two days I have been kind of blah, I'm not homesick exactly, but just off my game. The kids all suffer from an insane lack of attention span, so everytime we have a meeting it takes twice as long for me to get them to shut up long enough to handle business. That being said, it was really funny today because I told them to figure out how to organize their own language partners for lunch. Then I got this hectic call from H and I had to come in and sort it all our because neither the kids nor the Japanese volunteers could figure it out. It at least made me feel appreciated. I get the feeling that the kids think my job is really easy. They keep asking me what I do when they are at school. I feel like I should have a better answer than I take kids to the doctor then get massages and eat cake.

It doesn't help that M and I have adopted this habit of refering to me as "Legend-sama". The kids are still trying to call me nicknames that have mom in the title (we've already had the I'm not your mom convo). It's a lot of pressure. It's nice that people think I'm doing a good job though. I am tired though. Part of this is because every other day H and I are taking kids to the doctor. PH is better, but Lazer and O'Malley are still sick and this morning Flounder and Papa Smurf were both so overtired I thought I might have to take them to the clinic too, but with some rest and some pocari sweat (Japanese gatorade) they perked up.

Meanwhile M's group got caught drinking and she was just as sad and pissed as I was last year. At least it was only four of them and they only had one beer each. (These kids are so lame...and they got caught, I mean go big or go home.) She had the big talk last night (after we went out for dinner and a drink), then today we played each other in the Olympics. Games were held at the park by Hokkaido U.I's group punked out from fear of team REJJ. The kids were soooooo into it this year. My kids may get sick all the time, some of them may even hate each other, but when it comes to anything competetive, they are all so invested in winning that they get over any issues. They also love to trash talk, so for the past week they have been laying it on thick. M, as tiny as she is, is a New Yorker and has a huge mouth....so it was pretty insane. We CRUSHED M's team. They didn't go down as quickly as my team last year did against B's team (M's kids won the trivia and the piggyback race, but we dominated in vegetable off, the relay race, duck duck goose, and chinese freeze tag). We didn't even get through all the events, but surprisingly our groups bonded, not just with their own group, but with each other. S-san, H, and Brittish D were the judges and after the first event, my kids bombed Brittish D with water balloons as a thank you for making us climb MT Moiwa.

It started out as kind of crappy day. The end of language class ceremony was unbearably long and irritating, and I was worried about all these sick kids, but after a nice lunch with only adults and routing M in the Olympics, we are all feeling better. My only big concern now is Flounder. He is my kid from Philly, while funny, he is also kind of crazy and for whatever reason he has decided that he hates O'Malley, Lazer and Resputia. I have no idea why (even after talking to him about it for a good 45 minutes), but it is becoming an issue, and so after dinner and icecream we will have our first intense group meeting about respect (a couple of other things have come up in that regard) and tolerance of other people. They don't have to like each other, but they do have to deal. Any advice would be welcome. I don't think I've ever had to have this talk without any real catalyst. It's kind of crazy.

Tomorrow we go to Shiraoi for our homestays. I got switched to the homestay family with a single mom, a grandma and two young girls from a family that had 3 people in it that were my age. I'm pretty bummed because that means during my only 3 days of freedom from the kids, instead of singing karaoke and drinking with the 23, 26, and 29 year old, I will be babysitting the 9 and 5 year old and trying to communicate with Oba-chan. I am not good at talking to old Japanese people. They never enunciate. Bummer. Still, it'll be nice for the kids to be separated. This whole sleeping in the same room thing has taken its toll. I am also hoping they might stay healthier this way. I have been giving them vitamin C everyday (Brittish D accused me of handing out steriods after watching us in the Olympics :) ).

7/16/2007 Cake Tabehodai
For those of you who have asked, I am far far away from both Nigata where the big Earthquake was and from Kyushu where all the big tsumami stuff is happening....though I think there might have been a small earthquake here last night, it wasn't anything worth getting out of bed for. Now, I must take a long moment and discuss the insanity that is the All U Can Eat CAKE BUFFET at the Chocolate Factory.

Even though it was my "day off" (which I laugh at because about half of the group called me with question..."R, I can't get my phone card to work. R should I bring my big suitcase tomorrow. R can you tell my host mom XYZ..." , I guess its nice to be appreciated) I got up at 8am and we drove an hour to Sapporo. The Chocolate Factory is as random as I remember it. One moment you are driving down a typical Japanese street, then the next thing you know, there is this insane monstrosity blooming on the side of the room like a costumed Love Hotel. It can best be described as something you would expect to see in a sqare in Germany, complete with a cuckoo clock (more on this momentarily) and an expansive rose garden dotted with life-sized dollhouses. F, my little host sister, made me go inside one. I was sure I was going to get stuck in the door and that they were going to have to get the jaws of life to ply me out, but I made it. After that I heard N, her older sister, tell her to stop bugging me. We had some extra time, so Y, my awesome host mom, took me on the actual factory tour where I saw how Shiro Kohibitos are made. Shiro Kohibito (which literally translates into white boyfriend) are Hokkaido's most famous cookie. They come in chocolate and white chocolate and the smell of them baking is akin to a spirtual experience. Somewhere past the big windows is a room where you can pay $10 to make 1 cookie yourself, there is also a chocolate cafe, then the tour continues and there are tiny cups made for esspresso and drinking chocolate and toys and god knows what else. So finally around 11am we were allowed to line up for the buffet.

There weren't just cakes, there were tarts, pies, jellies (Japanese people are really big into jello, there were some tarts with layers of gelatinous substance on top), meranges, sponge cakes, shortcakes, and at the end there was this giant roll of cake, I mean, two people carrying cake in on a spit that was absolutely divine. There was also tea, and several other beverages as well as grapefruit and orange slices and garlic toast for when you just couldn't eat another sugary bite. My favorites was this thing that somehow combined cake, shortbread, strawberries, vanilla custard, and whipped cream into a neat rectangle and the something brown, its some kind of nut or fruity nut, tart....I don't really know what it was, but it was amazing. After gaining several pounds in a single sitting, we went outside. N wanted me to see the clock strike twelve. I figured it might do a little dance, but I was astounded as the clock opened onto the scene of several chocolate bakers, who then began to move. Then I realized that it wasn't just the clock, every blessed statue around the garden began to dance, sing, snort, or play an instrument. There was this row of three house that had pig town written on it....so of course three pigs popped out of the houses and began to snort in time to the music. Then somehow there were bears and seals and chef statues singing and dancing and turning (mom you would have hated it) and even the golden birds on the railingings were pecking in time to the music and ringing bells. It was a very Disney moment that lasted about ten minutes until the statues said goodbye and the last statue, the only one that hadn't moved began to blow bubbles across the garden. Needless to say I was wasted in a sugar coma for the majority of the rest of yesterday.

Across from the Chocolate Factory was one of the largest soccer fields in Sapporo. The team is sponsored by the chocolate factory and so across the front of the jerseys it says the name of the cookie. Could you imagine US soccer players agreeing to have jerseys that said "White Boyfriend" on the front? I wanted to get one for you Bon, but the cost $90 US and I just couldn't afford it.

On the way back to Sapporo we stopped by the Sapporo Dome which was really cool. Though it was only 1pm, people were cueing up to see that nights game. When we reached Tomokomae, the town next door to Shiraoi, we stopped in at the Shrine Festival and ate salty foods and watched Japanese teenagers try to dance to hip hop music, that used to be one of my hobbies. F tried to get me to buy her a turtle, but Y vetoed that. Then we went home and I was mercifully allowed to nap until dinner which was kaiten sushi (sushi on conveyor belt)

Backing up to the rest of the week, on Saturday instead of sleeping in, I went with a whole bunch of elementary school kids to dig for fossils. I was in the Shiraoi paper holding up the piece of hammer I found. Mostly it was just deer bones though. Then we made necklaces out of soapstone and after an awesome pizza lunch at Y's cafe, I had to go to Kura. I didn't stay the whole time though, it was kind of boring, and I had to do some laundry. My other "free day" I actually did get to sleep in, though I am glad I was up by 10am because Y made an appointment for us to go get facials at Jusco two towns over.

It was another one of those black in Japan experiences. I guess because three of my kids are black, they have been deflecting a lot of the stuff I usually get so when I went somewhere on my own it was a little insane. We walked into the salon and the lady squealed with delight....."kakoi!!!!" and then told me how much she loved gospel music and wasn't my face so small. The facial was great, despite the periodic squeals and then they put make up on me and squealed some more. After that we went grocery shopping. The Nishimura's Lazer's host family (not CX's host family, who have the same last name) invited us over for a BBQ, so I got to make an appetizer. I made bacon snacks....everyone loves bacon (bacon wrapped around shrimp, mini sausages, and asparagus, because F loves asparagus). Y made nachos and we went over to the Nishimura's where they were cooking lamb and onions (or geghis khan as it is called in Hokkaido). The BBQ was loads of fun with lots of kids. A and her host family came by too and we ended up taking a million of those sticker pictures (puricura) at the 100 yen shop nearby. The food was fatastic and when we got done and it was dark we little sparklers and played twister.Now it's Tuesday and I have to go to Kura...it's goodbye party day :(.