the storm is coming

The shiitake farmer tried over and over to make me understand, but I could not. So I continued to help him pack the mushrooms into the appropriate packages based on their size, shape, and quality. Although my Japanese was poor, I was a diligent worker that morning a few weeks ago.

The country folk have given me quite an opportunity to be part of their community. They let me teach every child in the town (between 150-200 counting all four schools). They have also given me pictures with names underneath them for some of the classes in able for me to learn everyone’s name with more ease.

I live in the center of town, right next to the junior high where I primarily work. One of the elementary schools is just a five-minute walk up the hill. The other is about 13 minutes by car. The nursery is up a different hill, about a 7-minute’s drive away. It is by far the most beautiful building; almost all hardwood and not more than ten years old. The other buildings are more like 1950s style, poorly insulated (good for the summer), and very boxy.

I am a bit of a freak here, understandably, as I am the only white person around for miles and I am relatively big. But that doesn’t bother me too much. It does mean that I can never really obtain any sort of anonymity; I am a documented, well-noticed, and singular entity. I am sure that I am also a bit of a mystery for most of the town for they cannot really converse with me. They can only observe me when I happen to be out and about or they can read the monthly publication called Ted’s Eye which is a translated letter to the town that I have now written just one of so far. This is a responsibility (a luxury really) that I am happy to have. When it is distributed (and I hope that the whole town gets access to it), maybe I will lose a bit of my anonymity.

I wonder if they realize how lucky I am to get this opportunity to educate and befriend the youth of their town. I feel a little like everyone’s uncle-brother-dad-friend. It is certainly a hybrid, as my age and job allow that.

Even though work has started I still have plenty of free time during the nights and weekends. The job does require a lot of hours, but those hours are mostly harmless. I’ll tell you, it is a trying job to think of ways, on the spot, to entertain/teach thirty-five 7 year-olds for fifty minutes. But I can’t really complain. I get to be a kid again now. The kids are so gentile (when the select few of [male elementary school kids] are not trying to violate me (i.e. slapping and poking (special slapping and poking (actually, violate may be the right word, but it’s all in good fun)))) and happy too.

Back in my home country things are not looking so pretty. The newspapers are very busy these days trying to document it all. Paul Krugman of the New York Times wrote an insightful editorial piece. It is obviously an extremely depressing and sad situation. I can only hope that positive change will come, somehow, from all the destruction and suffering. I don’t think that Bush will be able to harvest any power from the reverberations of this disaster like he did four years ago. It may just have the opposite affect. But the problems facing America and its culture will persist far beyond the clean up and far beyond any regime change. The only good thing that I will say about festering wounds is that they draw attention and by doing so they make help to create a situation in which they can possibly heal.

. . .

Today (Sunday), I went on a long jog to one of the nearest shrines. It has a huge pine tree in front of it, maybe one of the oldest trees for miles. It was very peaceful there as the clouds rolled in lower and lower. The typhoon hit tonight as I sit inside and studied a little Japanese, talked to a friend who just moved to Connecticut. Typhoons aren’t so bad as they sound. Or at least not the ones I have seen come through so far. Then again, only small earthquakes have happened so far (I haven’t even noticed them)(but they will surely get more powerful soon). Earth is one sphere of life we will never have control over.

. . .

Since I wrote the above yesterday I have learned that the typhoon that is coming is pretty serious. Serious enough to cancel classes early today and have no classes tomorrow. Amusingly, all the teachers have to go to the office all day anyway. Excellent policy; makes perfect sense...