First Week

Well, I'm finally settled and in my school. Of course, the school is virtually closed because none of the teachers are here today. The headmaster is here, along with the school secretary and the music teacher. But, the other 10 teachers and school employees are out. So, I'm sitting at my desk, writing emails, and learning Japanese.

Although I haven't been super lonely, it's a little hard to get used to things. Yesterday, I didn't leave my apartment. Firstly, I don't speak any Japanese yet, I have no telephone (until tomorrow), I have no Internet (until next week), and I have no TV. Well, I have some TV, the only show I could follow was some kind of game show about ice cream. So, after about 3 seconds, I turned the thing off. Secondly, it was HOT. Not as hot as back home, but hot. Probably about 31.C, which is 88.F. But, the humidity is so high that you can barely see the mountains across the way. They just look like big dark blobs sometimes. The humidity aside, and Japan is absolutely beautiful. My town is beautiful and the countryside is amazing. I've already done so many wonderful things that I can't possibly write them all down in one email. I've try and write a few things down.

After orientation, Signe, the JET in the other part of town, drove me to Iinan-cho (the name of our town). She has been living here for 3 years and teaching privately. Now, she is going to be teaching in Iinan-cho through the JET program. I can't express enough how reassuring it is to have someone who speaks English and enough Japanese to make things easy. She has already driven me around the countryside, taken me to Miyoshi city, invited me to a BBQ at her friend's house, and let me use her phone to call the states. And, she laughs at my dumb jokes. She's really amazing. I suspect that her husband and I will also become good friends when he returns from Thailand/Cambodia. He's kind of nerdy, like me, so I might have a "Poker" (for wizards) friend here after all.

So, I live in Tonbara - this is the name of my part of town. It's really it's own town, but for administrative purposes, they merged Yakuba's, or town hall's, with the Akagi, the town just over the next mountain. Akagi is Signe's town. In fact, I'm leaving soon to have lunch with here there. :-)

My first night in Tonbara, and Alicia, my predecessor, took me to Ishikawa-san's house for dinner. He live's in a traditional Japanese-style house, so it had low ceilings, short doors, and we sat on the floor in the kitchen to eat. Ishikawa's wife cooked for hours both to celebrate my arrival and to bid farewell to Alicia. I don't know if it was just humility or if good food is common in Japan, but the dinner was just delightful! We had kimchi (spicy Korean cabbage), nato-maki (rice/seaweed rolls filled with fermented soybeans), sliced mackerel over rice, umeboshi (big rice balls filled with dried salty plums), stewed/spicy arrowroot, salted salmon, and about ten other things I can't think of at the moment. To enhance the meal, we finished off nearly a half-gallon cold sake with the meal. I wasn't drunk, but my heaviness had certainly lifted by the end of the night. We probably ate for 4 hours. We talked about life in America, life in the countryside, the ancient Greeks and their mythology, astronomy, woodsmanship, and a whole host of other things. Perhaps I have just made my first Japanese friend.

I'll write more later today. For now, I have to run off to lunch. Look for me online through AIM at 'atlas571'.

Love you all,
Maikeru Mangosu
:-)