October 11th: Peak day

October 11^th, 2006:

• Instead of internship work, I go to an elementary school to cover for sick members of the cast (sounds like work back home… as soon as I get my heart set on free time to get work done, it disappears)
• 4^th grade students: Cute, but the boys are obnoxious and rude to the teacher. Should I really be surprised. It’s the same as in the US!
• JC’s Ubuntu time activity: First of all, JC, you’re brilliant. I should hand over my counseling degree over to you. As in staging, he had us do the concentric circles, rotating who we were partnered with, only looking into each others eyes instead of talking. At first I thought, “here we go, more uncomfortable silences. We’ll think all kinds of wonderful things about each other, wish that we could actually say these things, and some people will cry”. Lo and behold, as we progressed, I felt myself getting tearful. I’ve spent the past few weeks wondering just how connected I am to this cast and whether I really matter to them and whether they really mattered to me. I was worried that I really wouldn’t get effected by this activity. Oh, how wrong I was. As we went along, I felt myself welling up and as I came closer to someone whom I had lots of experiences with (Wouter), I could barely hold them back. Needless to say, this cast has an effect on me. Once I reached Wouter, it was all “downhill” for me. I say “downhill” because I’m a control freak and I don’t like showing my emotions, especially those which involve either anger or crying. This time, I was tearing up….tearing up because I realized just how important these people were to me. As more questions came from JC. I found myself gravitating towards more and more people, and the same people I was seeking were coming to me. I thought it was corny how JC reminded us of the term “Ubuntu” (my humanity is tied up in yours), but as my emotions drove me towards those in the cast whom I cared for greatly, experienced conflict with, did not understand, and those whom I admired…I really understood. Connection is not a one way street. By the end of this activity, I was able to speak with two people with whom I really have not had a chance to understand (Susi from Germany, and Beto from Mexico). I don’t want these connections to end. I don’t want to be that person that says “we gotta get to know each other”, then do nothing by the time we leave in December.
• Joking around at the train station: Ben gets an education on girls and we all learn about the staff’s preferences
• Back on the ranch: I’m unsure how this worked out, but Chihiro’s mom picked me up from the train station and her father took me out to the bar for drinks. Trust me, my anxiety was sky high about this night as I knew that she had a late night tonight at work and this would be the first time for me, alone, with someone who barely spoke any English. Mrs. Touge exchanged me at the local supermarket. Mr. Touge drove us back to the house; we parked the car and left our stuff and walked off to the bar. Communication was tough in the beginning. There were a lot of conversations started, that didn’t finish. But once we got to the bar and stated drinking (God bless hot sake), the language barrier ceased to matter. He and I started talking with each other and the patrons at the bar using his translation computer, my book, and my note pad (Pictionary is a wonderful game). We laughed together and learned together. Surprisingly, with the other patrons we somehow discussed food, alcohol, geography, baseball, sex (masturbation and penis size….please explain to me why, with only a limited vocabulary in English, these people knew the word “masturbation”!), and our occupations. It felt like any bar in the U.S. The Japanese may be very formal and polite in business and family situations, but it all comes out at the bar. No wonder that is where all loyalties are formed. Upon our return home, we continued our (half tipsy) conversations with Mrs. Touge (who was thankfully stone sober). Somehow we navigated a conversation about the Japanese numbering system and there being multiple names for each number (for reasons I still need to investigate). The highlight of the evening was when, in broken English, Mr. Touge called me his son. That made the whole UWP experience for me. I wondered if I would ever connect with a family, especially outside of the U.S, so strongly. But in this little town of Uda, in a completely different culture, with a family strangely similar to a part of my own (father a vice principal and mother a nurse), I was accepted and adopted. Thank you UWP.