Kyanpuda Hoi!

So I've spent the past five days at Adobensha Kyanpu '09, that's Adventure Camp '09 for those who can't read Japanified English, and it certainly was an adventure. It started Thursday afternoon with, like all things Japanese, an opening ceremony, during which all the staff, myself included, had to give brief introductions. I couldn't really understand what everyone said, so I just gave the standard, "Good afternoon, my name is Andrew Hill, I am the new ALT...etc" speech that I've given a dozen or so times since coming here. Afterwords, the children were divided into groups and taught how to pitch their tents, and make bamboo torches.

The sea at night. Those lights are squidfishing boats

The group mind-set is very important to Japanese social behavior, and quite different from the individual-based societies of the West. Each group was in charge of taking care of itself throughout the camp, they elected a leader, and chose jobs, who would clean, who would cook, who would split fire wood, etc. Doing this both reinforced the idea of teamwork and acting as a group, yet still taught valuable skills to the individual children.

The next day, we were rained in and stranded at the Board of Education. We spent the day learning knot work, which I'll get into later, and whittling chopsticks from bamboo. I doubt an American camp, perhaps with the exception of the Boy Scouts, would let first graders split wood with small machete-like knives and then carve their own dining utensils with razors, but everyone seemed to know what they were doing here, and there wasn't one single accident the whole camp.

Raft Building

The following day, the campers boarded a bus which took them to the head of the trail for the small campground. I rode with some other teachers to a small marina and helped ferry in supplies. After all the supplies were unloaded, we had yet another opening ceremony, this one asking for the blessing of a local kami. Either a local priest or a school board member conducted the ceremony, which was really quite interesting to watch. I played along, clapping and bowing, out of respect.

Priest before the ceremony

After tables were built, tents were pitched, and lunch had been made, all the groups, staff included, set to making bamboo rafts for the main event of the camp, a race to the marina and back. I helped fashion the staffer's boat, and drew my face onto our flag, which looked pretty sweet. Needless to say we outdid all of the kids, in both size and quality of design. I spent the night in a crowded tent, then woke up at the crack of dawn.

Sunday the weather report didn't look very promising, but we got our rafts into the ocean anyway. When I say raft though, I really mean floating wood that you can cling to and rest your legs between fits of kicking. Four female teachers sat at the prowl, while Ko-cho sensei, the principal, stood on the only plank of decking on board and gave orders. Myself, and three other teachers held on and powered the raft the Flinstone way. Halfway to the marina, Ko-cho sensei offered me the helm, but the boat almost capsized from the rough seas shortly after, and we traded places again. The water was a bit cold, but the race was fun, and energizing. We let the lead student group win the race, and then came ashore in 2nd place. Over the next half hour or so three of the other four boats came in, while the crew of the last were brought in by motor boat, since their raft came apart at sea.

Building the staff raft

After lunch, we evacuated to the board of education, due to a chance of rough weather from the typhoon that grazed the western part of Japan last weekend. We were all safe, and the weather wasn't really bad at all. That night, we practiced some campfire songs, only two of which I could read, and only one of which I could sing: Kyanpuda Hoi, which roughly translates as "Yay, it's camp!"

The next day, we returned to the campground. The weather was the best I've seen since landing on the island (they've had an unusually long rainy season). The kids enjoyed some swimming while the staff dove for shellfish and passed the time whittling bamboo. (I now have my own set of bamboo chopsticks and a wooden spoon that I carved myself.) At lunch that afternoon, the staff made a special type of sushi, which I can only describe as sushi in party-sub form. If you don't know how sushi is made, you generally start with a mat of dry sea weed, then put rice and fish on top of it, roll it up, then cut the cylindrical sushi roll into bite sized slices. They did the same thing, but with a couple dozen pieces of seaweed, overlapping each other. Then all kinds of toppings were added to the rice, including the tentacles of a small octopus a teacher had caught that afternoon.

Makizushi!

That night, we had our closing ceremony, which began with a huge bonfire, lit by a light firework on a zipline. That was followed by camp songs, and skits. At the end, the bonfire had burned down, and the students stood in a circle with staffers and lit their bamboo torches. They then one by one laid them onto the fire pit to restart the fire.

Torch Ceremony

Tuesday was spent repacking. It was wet and cloudy the whole time, and to make matters worse, the ocean waves were now a couple of feet high, and we had to ferry out our supplies. While helping load one of the boats, I actually slipped into the ocean, totally frying my new iPod that Jenn had given me as a going away present ( ; ・). <--Japanese cyring smiley

Overall it was a great time though. I've thoroughly bored, and it was a nice change of pace. I got to meet and interact with my students, and now I'm pretty vamped for teaching. I also made several new friends at the middle and elementary schools, as well as the board of education, although I don't remember many of their names. Every night though, after a half hour long staff meeting, we'd have a small enkai, which usually translates to office party, though I'd characterize it more as sitting down and sharing a few beers with your coworkers.

During the enkai, I really got to talking with several of the teachers, since alcohol tends to boost one's confidence in their foreign language abilities, even if it's just a couple of Kirin Lagers. It was during this time, that I also got to try several new foods: Raw squid, fried flying fish, and not one, but two kinds of fish jerky. You read that right, fish jerky. The most interesting foods though were sazae, and awanbi. I wanted to include links, but I don't know that I'm spelling the names correctly, since google's not bringing anything up. Apparently they're expensive delicacies in other areas of Japan, but we ate them for free, the teachers simply put on snorkeling gear scraped them off the seabed. I'm not sure what sazae is, but think snails, on the ocean floor. Eaten raw.

Sazae

Awanbi might be a type of muscle, it was pretty tough meat. Awanbi livers on the other hand were incredibly soft and mushy. So much so that some of the Japanese couldn't even eat them. I tried everything, every night. Fun times.

As always, there are more pics on facebook. Look for more postings on my blog soon, as well as updates to contact info and changes to the layout. Sunday I leave for Matsue city, on the mainland for a week long language course, and prefectural orientation. I should have time for some good sight-seeing as well.