Another delightful weekend on Izena. Again nothing which was planned happened and much which wasn't planned did. I had planned with Teru to play the keyboard with him but this didn't quite happen. It seems to me things randomly happen on Izena and I think the same may be true for the natives here too. I had definitely planned to play keyboard with Teru on Thursday, then on Friday he called me and said he would be round in an hour to pick me up and then we could go play. When he arrived he told me we were going to do the some sea rangers dialogue instead with Kaich. However when we arrived at the Stagi Kaich was spreading out some food and awamori and we got drunk and watched a DVD instead. Anyway my point is there is little point in planning things on this island and you have to be prepared for anything at a moments notice. Again on Friday we were going to do the keyboard thing but Teru got a call from Yoshiaki-san (Mr Christmas music) to come to a fish party. Yes a fish party. You heard. Yoshiaki-san has got some fish from Sendai (just below Hokkaido) which he was very exited about. Anyway we had a barbeque and ate his fish amongst many other things. We were told that the next day 30 odd senior high school student from Kyoto were arrived and enlisted us to help. Help with what I of course had no idea but it sounded fun. So Sunday I had a very leisurely and large breakfast of pancakes and then went for my long run. Once I had recovered from that I called Yoshiaki san and he sent someone to pick me up and take me to the beach. It seemed a barbeque and several traditional okinawan performances were being stages for the students. After a stunning sunset the students arrived and we got the barbeque underway. My goodness they were a hungry lots, I was hoping for leftovers as I had not had dinner, but no such luck! I was hanging with the eisa crew and asked the chap who usually plays the Chondera (or is the Chondera) if he was performing tonight. He told me no, his knee was hurting, then asked me if I would take his place. I wonder if his knee really did hurt but regardless it was too good an opportunity to miss! The Chondera is a sort of clown who leads out the eisa dancers and then dances around and is generally goofy. So that’s what I did and it was great fun, the students got into it too and even tried to copy my okinawan dancing. After the tidying up we did the usual all sit in a circle on the ground and drink. It transpired that a number of other people had not had dinner either and had also hoped for leftovers so we made our way to Fuckasushi (my favourite eatery) and had a hearty meal. After that I was pretty tired but managed to hold on until there was enough of a group consensus to head home to sleep. Drink plus lots of carby hot food equals sleep. Just found out my English conversation class today is cancelled as they have exams this week, that frees up my evening. Wow I could finish tidying my house; I actually busted out the Hoover on Saturday.
