Bald Spot!!
I have a bald spot! But we will get to that later. I have had quite a pleasant weekend, seems like sometime since I have had a ‘normal’ weekend on Izena. I spent Saturday relaxing on the beach with a book and doing a spot of swimming. I amused myself chasing a puffer fish around. Later that evening I went to a mini festival/ birthday party, similar to the one several weeks ago but this time it was for a 97th birthday. I met Yoshiaki-san there who I had not seen in a while so we shared a few beers and he invited me back to his house once the festival was done. The eisa group from uchihana village were performing and I chatted with them, and from what I gather I will practice with them for three performances they will do in November. I am looking forward to that, they eisa I did a few weeks back was with students and teachers who had not done eisa much or at all. This eisa group is a bit more serious, some of the things they did looks quite demanding. Anyway I went and had some food and drink with them before heading off with Yoshiaki-san to his house. It was huge! I am curious as to what his job is now, definitely one of the nicer bigger houses on the island. I played with his two children for a while, they would give me an animal name in English and I would act like that animal, it was then I learnt the word for turtle (which is kame). So later we were joined by a couple of the taiko members and Yoshiaki-san put on a Maria Carey Christmas cd, which completely wierded me out, I think I started trying to tell them about Jesus and things, I may or may not have got belligerent. Apparently I also taught them Scottish slang as the next day they were calling each other Dafties. So I had a pleasant sleep in and large breakfast on Sunday and also started to learn the Izena triathlon songs on my keyboard. Later I went down and helped Kamiyama-san, Nagi and Takeru put together the flags for the triathlon. As with anything else on this island Kamiyama-san is behind it and the Shoen taiko members are his loyal foot soldiers. Afterwards we all went swimming; I did a spot of snorkelling first and saw a big old sea turtle which was very cool as if you remember I learn the word for turtle the previous night. So I could now swim back and tell them all what I had seen. We then frolicked in the sea for a while before I was a little reckless. Kamiyama-sans little boy (I can’t remember his name) wanted to dive off some rocks, so I joined him. I was very shallow, just up to my chest and the rocks were another few feet above the surface. I was being sensible and half belly flopping half diving so make sure I didn’t hit the rocks. That was the other thing the sea bed was rocks, not sand. Well it was all going fine and dandy until Kamiyama-san lifted his arms above his head, arms straight and hands clasped together. Indicating us to dive like this, I unthinkingly did so; I went straight down without bending my back at all and walloped my noggin off a rock. It was a good solid impact so I heading back to the sore, but every time I checked my head for blood my hand came back covered in hair, handfuls of hair each time. Bizarrely I didn’t cut myself, there was minimal bleeding but somehow I had ripped out the hairs from a patch about an inch in diameter. It wasn’t that sore and it’s more or less fine today although my neck does hurt. So we sat on the beach and had some beer and cake while laughing about me going bald, all good fun, but then when they all left they took everything with them except the beer cans! People here seem to have no concept of littering, they seems to think it is fine to leave litter on beaches! Their cars were parked not more than a few meters away and they picked everything else up, except the litter. The mind boggles sometimes.
