hi, i'm jenn

Was back at Nose for camps 5 and 6 this week. For camp 5 we had four different groups – one Jr High and the rest were high schools. Two of the schools also had male students, which was a treat since we normally deal with all girls groups.

But alas, I was deemed a floater and asked to plan for camp 6 instead of playing with the kids. I did get to sleep in a room with them, which was fun – one was showing me pictures of this band that she called the “Boy Chicks” and let me listen to one of their song. Very Back-Street-Boys esque. And when I asked her, she hadnt heard of BSB, or NSync. Unfortunately I didnt have any on MyPod so she will continue leading her sheltered life. Poor soul.

Oh, and one night I was chilling with some of the high school girls anyways, and they were teaching us swearwords and the hand motion to do that shows a guy you are interested (acutally, i think it might be an invitation to come home [go to a love hotel or whatever] with you, but they were like 16 so I hope they are not really into that kind of thing).

So while everyone else had their fun, I planned camp session 6 for Mikihouse – a group of preschool kids (aged 2-6). Our program just had to be simplified a lot for them, so my friend Chad and I made a bunch of handouts for the kids and props for the activity.

The kids and their parents arrived on Wednesday. Yes, parents. Which was awesome because when the kids got cranky or whatever the moms would take em away. So we had 8 kids – 2 sets of siblings, and 4 others. One mother/son duo came all the way from Tokyo.

What a cute group! The kids were so excited. We did a safari activity with them where they talked about animals they would see in the jungle (lion, parrot… they came up with most of them). We had them make binoculars out of construction paper, and then we had a safari guide who led them on a walk through this forrested area of camp by the lake. All the other ACs were hiding in costumes (= construction paper masks, a sock nose for the elephant etc) dressed as animals. We had a flamingo in the water, a monkey in the tree, I was a girraffe and a frog… They were so cute -?tried to feed us and were looking through their binoculars. A few got really scared of the lion. But yeah, you totally could only do something like that with this age group. Oh, and we had a Picachu in the Jungle too. Hey, it is Japan after all.

Other awesome things about camp were that we got to go swimming the morning of day 2. At nose, there is a lake which is used for Kayaking, but we are not allowed to swim in it because they say it is our drinking water. I dont get it but whatever. There is also a swimming pool, but it must be booked and we have used it once so far. This was my second time and it was soo nice because it is just so hot out.

The best perk of having Mikihouse was NAPTIME! After lunch (which is at 12) we normally start back in at 1. But with these kids, we only had activities starting at 2:30 (we actually had planned to start at 2, but moms asked for more nap time). No problem! I think that everyone slept. So good.

At night we finished activities around 8 for baths. At 9, we had conversation time with the parents. That was really fun and interesting. A little frustrating because we had to have a translator so you know that so much of what each of you said got lost. One of the questions that I liked was “When you get off the phone with your mother do you say `I love you`?”. Apparently they dont do that in japan.

Obviously the kids were just so cute. One of the kids, Ichitaro, was Jonathan Lipnicki from Jerry Maguire. Seriously. If you died his hair blonde he would have been that kid. I kept trying to get him to say that the human head weighs eight pounds, but he was having too much fun finding bugs on the ground to pay attention. Oh well.

Oh yeah! He lost his tooth at camp. I said something to his mom about putting it under his pillow. She looked at me strange. I explained how we have the Tooth Fairy. Turns out she doesn`t make it all the way to Japan – here you throw your lost teeth. Bottom ones go over the house, and top ones go under it. Haha!

Before I depart back to my beloved Nose I will leave you all with one parting gift. That is Yatta! (Japanese for All right! or Hurray!)

It’s the Japanese YMCA. And I do the dance every camp session for laughing Japanese children. Minus the costume.

Watch it. Love it. And think of me.

The prob with the training facility was the food. Since the facility didn`t have cooking staff, we had Bento Boxes. Not just for lunch either. For every meal. And funny thing is that they all look the same. You can`t really tell the breakfasts from the lunches from the dinners. Always with a piece or two of fish, maybe a piece of tempura something, random pickled things and rice.

So five days of cold bentos was not so fun. I asked one of the Japanese Counsellors about the food quality, and she told me that at camp we do eat Japanese food, but it`s kids food. Like curry rice and stuff. The bentos were much more adult. Well, I guess I must be a Japanese kid then. Fine with me. Just gives me an excuse to buy more toys.

Upon returning from my first homestay, we started camp session number 2. This time there were 8 girls from a Jr. High School. Uh, 8 girls and 20 ACs. Needless to say camp was a little on the relaxing side. I didn`t even have campers in my cabin there were so few of them (at camp USA the campers have americans in their cabin. which is funny because most of the schools are all girls schools, so it ends up that the guys always get staff cabins but never us). I spent most of my time doing planning for other camp sessions and reading Fingersmith (which was great btw, thanks Nat! I really like how the order form in the back of the book was for books like Lesbianism for Beginners. Tres Lesbian chic).

When those girls left, we had the afternoon off and were allowed to use the pool for the first time. It was really fun. We played lots of games with flutterboards and I think the Japanese staff at the camp think we`re very strange. I mean, watching 18 people throw flutterboards at each other`s head, you have to wonder if everything is right up there.

The next day camp session 3 began. We actually had three different groups at the same time, and since schools are anal about mixing their kids, they were kept totally seperate. I was working with an Elementary School – 25 girls from grades 4 and 5. They were super cute and I had the best time with them and their teachers (who spoke amazing english). One of the little girls wrote me a thank you letter which is so adorable, and another has already emailed me. The staff also gave me a huge bag of Japanese snacks to share among the ACs – so much fun!

Making a special appearence for the session was Guy Healy, the director of the camps, with his Evaluation Team. They were super fun and he had really nice things to say to me. He told me that Lori and I are helping Canada by being there because we`re teaqching the ACs about it and the Japanese kids too. Hehe.

There was also a high school group there of about 40 girls. Funny thing is they put the high school aged Counsellors with the girls, so all these boy crazy girls were with the American guys of the same age. And totally smitten. I laughed watching the boys show off for them by break dancing and doing tricks…

Unfortunately a typhoon decided to show up for the last day of camp, so we ended up having to end our session a few hours early. We still did get to perform our skits, and my groups won best skit. I was Uncle Jam in our version of Anpanman. And the typhoon was overrated. Just some heavy rain (at least at Nose).

Since the other camps ended after ours, we were pretty bored so Chad and I played dress up – I wore around my yukata and getta, and chad wore a chinese outfit.

That night our group was the only group at the facility because everyone else had cancelled because of the weather. So we shared a fun BBQ with the Nose staff (who are great) and then watched Lost in Translation and Finding Nemo.

On Sunday we took off to Takamatsu – a city on the island of Shikoku where camp session 4 was. We were located at a training facility of a Bank that was actually 20 minutes by car. The kids were their customers` children. But session 4 only started Tuesday so we had like nothing to do for two days. We explored the nearby grocery store (I so love grocery stores), convienience store, comic book cafe and Do It Yourself store.

That took like 2 hours. So we were bored. Lori and I got frustrated that we were so near to a city, so on Monday night we went in search of a train station. After a lot of “Eki wa doku des ka?” and people pointing, we found it. We figured out which direction to head in and made it to Takamatsu. Spent a few hours there wandering, and then headed back to the middle of nowhere.

It was nice for the 4th session to start finally. I was working with kids from grades 1-3. So in my room were 6 year olds. They didn`t know how to bathe, so I had to get into the showers with them and wash their hair. Fun stuff man. Those kids were crazy and took so much out of all of us. We were just so tired at the end of the day from chasing them around. Day three I was ready to collapse. With the promise of a homestay, and a little pick me up from a friend, made it til graduation. All the kids parents were there. And my host family came to pick me up at the facility, so I was so excited to have my mom and sisters there!

Summary: I have now completed 4 session of Camp U.S.A. Four more before I come home on the 26th.

A parent came to observe his kid at camp yesterday. He saw his kid was OK and we said “Don’t worry, your son is having lots of fun here with us!”.

He replied, “Good! I am having lots of fun with my wife – maybe we will have another baby!”

Everyone eats the tails of their shrimp
but
No one eats the skins of grapes!

So tomorrow I head back to camp in the AM. As much fun as camp was, this is way more fun. I have 2 little sisters, Himawari (Hi-chan – 6 years old) and Akari (19 months). They are the cutest.

Hichan can say `Jenn, come here!` perfectly, so we get along great so long as I listen when she calls. And watching a one year old say no to chocolate and then reach for another piece of raw fish makes me laugh.

My mom, Mika, and Dad, Masao are wonderful. Mika speaks english very well and is able to help the flow of conversation between me and the other fam members.

Yes, my Japanese has improved most definately. Akari is the best teacher because she repeats things. I can now say `Dako` (= hold me!), `Ita` (= ow) and `Una deh!` (= I made poo). I also am quickly becoming an expert on Anpanman who, new to me, is the bomb-diggity to all pre-school children. And totoro too. I can even sing the first few lines of the Totoro song.

Sightseeing highlights the past few days include the Kirin brewery, a candy museum, a Japanese pottery museum where I got to make a plate, a lunch boat cruise in Kobe and Himeji castle today! What an awesome few days…

From the schools`s website….

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

Look for the kid representing canada!

Konnichiwa!

I:ve been at Camp USA the past week doing training and it has been very entertaining.  We are now in osaka for the day to meet our Japanesed host families. The camp has us getting up at 6:30 in the morning to do stretching exercises to music.  i think it is called radio taiko.  The cabins are pretty rustic (the site is a government camp ground) and we share them with mutant sized crickets. Our camp theme song is to the tune of Yankee Doodle and we have an evening program called My Town USA.  Most of the counsellors are from Wisconsin and love hearing me and Jenn say about.  Our first set of kids come up tomorrow and i am so excited to hang out with little japanese children.  I will let you know how it goes.  Thanks so much for the emails – I will have a chance to write everyone back on my next day off.  

Miss you guys! Lori

So I think that Nose might be Japanese for Nowhere because that:s where it is. In the middle of the woods with lots of huge bugs. Jumping spider cricket thingies, of which there were 5 plus in our room the other night.
 
The first three things they told us were:
1. don:t drink the water without boiling it]
2. dont walk in the bush without shoes because of the poisonous snakes
3. don:t make the wasps angry – and let them know if we see a nest
 
There is a mix of people. Plenty of strange characters. A few we actually like.
 
The camp, now that we know what it:s about, should be interesting. I am the post office in My Town USA.
 
And because of us, they think that Canadians have a song for everything.
 
More soon. Hopefully…