On Sunday I took part in Eisa (Okinawan traditional dance) and Bo (wooden staff) as part of a calibration for someone’s 88th birthday. 88 and 97 and important birthdays and the whole community (well village of nakada) gets together to celebrate them here. So for most of last week I and two of the junior high school teachers (Nakamura-san and Rumon-sensei) have been practicing eisa with the other men from Nakada village. So it has been a busy week, after school from 5-6 I run with the students (they are training for school sports day), then I play football with them until about 7, then at 7.30 its eisa practice until 9 and then I go and practice/hang out with the tiako group until late. So it's been hard to find time for dinner let alone anything else! But it was definitely worth it and I managed the Eisa dances with minimal mistakes. All the eisa dancers performed katas with the Bo, which I also did, with perhaps a few more mistake, I wasn't aware I was going to be doing that until the actual day! But anyway it was enormous fun and of course there was much drinking and dancing afterwards. So in other news apparently a Baptist church has opened in Izena village, and three young American missionaries arrived on Friday, I haven't had time to go across and see them but I shall in due course. I am not sure if I am happy to have other westerners on my island, or whether I want them to go away and leave the natives alone. As long as they are not to zealous I will be ok with them. Oh and also, I got a visit from two ladies from Tokyo in Saturday; they are running a very interesting project which will take place on Izena in November. Seven Japanese high school students and 7 foreign (American x2, British, Chinese, Korean Aussie and New Zealander) high school kids will come to Izena then and together do a project on island life. I will be among the people who will speech to them about my impressions of island life. Up to now they have been running the project on the internet, with Japanese and foreign people posting essays on their lives so they can learn about each other while learning japanese/english. Some of the first Japanese children (now young men) to be profiled were from Izena, the taiko group specifically hence the izena connection. It sounds very interesting indeed. Mmmmm what else... oh yeah, I have a dilemma. On the 15/6th of October the taiko group want me to go to Tokyo with them for a competition and perhaps play the narimono (like a the triangle) but the school sports day is also on the 15/6th of October. I am in two minds, although going to Tokyo would be awesome and I personally would want to do that, I feel that the school sports day is very important. It is quite a big thing here, with many groups from the community taking part and then children have been training very hard, so perhaps for me to leave then might say to them I have more important things than them. Nakamura san for instance will not attend the wedding of a friend of his because of school sports day. Anyway I am still thinking about it, it's a tough one!
Me and Nakamura-san posing with our Bos