The Long Walk

Each year, each grade gets to go on a field trip. The 9th graders take a three day trip to the Kansai area of Japan (Kyoto, Osaka and Nara), the 8th graders go on a trek to a park for a picnic and games, and the 7th graders go to a closer park for a BBQ. The teachers were concerned I'd be lonely in the office by myself, so the school nurse had the brilliant idea that I should go with the 7th or 8th graders on their trip. I thought it might be better to go with the 8th graders since I know them better and they know a bit more English. After much consultation among the teachers and Kyoto-sensei, it was decided that I'd go walking with the 8th graders.

April 28th was sunny and hot, perfect for walking for miles (well, since we're in Japan, I'll change that to kilometers). The students were all in their P.E. uniforms and before leaving, they had to practice lining up, sitting down, standing up, and bowing in the school parking lot. Speeches were made, instructions were given, there was more sitting and standing, and then we were finally ready to go.

We trooped off to the train station (about a five minute walk), then sat down to wait fifteen minutes for the next train. The 8th grade JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) I work with told me that she could "read hands" and some of the girls begged her to read mine to pass the time before the train came. I consented and she grabbed first one hand, then the other, bringing them within centimeters of her face so she could properly study the lines on my palms. She began her assessment with, "So you have a health problem?" When I just confusedly looked at her she asked again, "Problem? With body?" and motioned to different body parts. I slowly said, "No..." while thinking maybe I should visit the doctor. She quickly brushed it off with, "Never mind, don't worry!" and then went on to the next zinger. "You will have two chances for marriage, once when you are 25 or 26, then once when you are 32." Yikes. I don't seem to recall any proposals back when I was 25 or 26. (Please refresh my memory if you remember otherwise.) When I told her how old I was she gave a shocked, "I thought you were much younger!" quickly followed by, "Oh, big chance! Maybe nice Japanese boy! Exciting! Big chance!" Yeah... so exciting. The girls just giggled and we went down to the tracks to catch the train.

About 180 of us climbed aboard, ready to start our adventure. We were on the train for less than five minutes and it was already time to disembark. I think we were all a little disappointed, especially as we had a nice hour and a half walk ahead of us. It wasn't even very scenic - for the most part we were walking on the sidewalks through town. It also wasn't very shady. We'd stop every now and then to take a swig of water, but for the most part we just walked on, my JTE and I in the back with the stragglers. We finally headed up a long hill and made it to our goal, a nice big park.

There was more lining up, standing, sitting, and direction-giving, then the kids were let loose. The teachers set up a little picnic area for themselves in the shade and waited for our delicious bentos (lunch boxes) to arrive. The kids formed their own little groups all over the park, breaking out their lunches and shoveling in their food. Each student probably brought about four types of snacks, too, which they nicely passed out to their friends and me. It was interesting to see how they grouped themselves and I was sad to notice a few of the students went off and sat by themselves. For awhile I sat with two girls who had appointed themselves my best friends, then I went to eat with the teachers once our lunches were delivered.

Once the food was devoured, it was play time. My best friends came over to get me to play volleyball with them. After awhile I thought I better mingle a bit, so I wandered around the park, playing volleyball with some other girls, chasing after an errant soccer ball with some of the boys, and talking with other groups of students. It's not common for people to wear sunglasses here so the students kept borrowing mine from me and running around, showing off to their friends. My "I heart OK" t-shirt was also a good topic of conversation as the kids were wondering what it meant. Although you might automatically think of Oklahoma (because who doesn't love Oklahoma?), OK in this case means Okinawa, where I went over spring break. The kids thought it was pretty cool once I explained it to them.

All too soon, it was time to do more lining up, sitting, standing, speeches, and walking. So much walking. My best friends decided to take our minds off the walking by trying to teach me some Japanese, while telling me how cute and cool I was. "Jackie. Cute. Cool. Cute, cool Jackie." Over and over again. In the meantime, I was forgetting the Japanese words and was trying to teach them English vocab, specifically adjectives. There are only so many times you can hear that you're cute and cool before it gets old. (That's a lie, but I think they could have tossed beautiful, intelligent, wonderful and funny into the mix.) I was really impressed that they talked with me the whole hour and a half back to the train though. Everybody was pretty tired by the time we got to the station and we all just plopped down in the parking lot (in very straight lines). Some of the boys decided to try out their English, so we spent the time finding out what we all had for breakfast and listing our favorite foods.

After we got back to school, I was not surprised to see that there had to be one more round of lining up, sitting, standing, bowing and speeches before we were allowed to head home. It was a long day, but it was so much fun hanging out with the kids. They are so much funnier and friendlier when they are outside the classroom. They really make me happy to be here!