May 24, 2000

Hello everybody!  Well, I finally have a moment to reflect on the last five days and get them down in a letter.  It has been running ninety-to-nothing around here, as my MeeMaw might say.  Speaking of, my MeeMaw wrote me a letter and I got it yesterday!  (Thank you, MeeMaw!)  I love getting letters from MeeMaw.  She always tells me how my cousins and aunts and uncles are doing.  Without her, I wouldn�ft be able to keep up with anyone!
Jessica came in to the bathroom this morning where I was getting ready for work.  She looked very serious.  I asked her what was wrong.  She looked at me and said, �gMom, I learned an important lesson yesterday.�h  I stopped brushing my hair and asked her what that was, since it was obviously earth-shattering.  She looked up at me with a very stern look and said.  �gWhen you do a ponytail, you should make it more than two loops because if you don�ft, it falls out.�h  Then she turned slowly and went back into her room, pondering her own wisdom, her face the picture of concentration equal to somebody immersed in the study of Quantum Physics.  Ahhhhh to be ten years old again.
Speaking of ten.  I am having another midlife crisis over her age.  She is, how do I put this�cuhhhh�cDEVELOPING.  My baby is getting curvy.  I am just not emotionally ready for this, or for what is coming much too soon.  Does anybody have any idea how I can stop this?  I have already tried just ignoring it, but it didn�ft go away.  It just got worse.  (sigh�c)
BOY!  I REALLY NEED TO LIGHTEN THIS LETTER UP!!!  Okay, let me tell you about last weekend.  Ken and Jessica and I were �ghired�h to help with an English camp for thirteen students at a local agriculture high school who will soon do homestays in Oregon.  We went on Saturday and toured the facility, and we were able to pet cows and pigs.  One of the guys said that the prettiest pig was going to be named Jessica.  Jessica didn�ft like this too much.  She thought the guy was calling her a pig.  We told her that he was just calling the pig a pretty name.  Then she thought it was cool.  We also got to let calves suck on our fingers, which is an odd experience, but it was still pretty neat!  We listened to the crowing of more roosters than I have ever seen in one place, and we walked through immaculate orchards of fruit and greenhouses of shitake mushrooms.  We saw the famous Japanese pears that are as big as human heads, and we saw where they raise some of the famous Tajima Beef cows.  These cows are massaged daily and are given beer to keep the meat tender.  The guys in our group thought that being Tajima cows wouldn�ft be such a bad life.  I didn�ft want to tell them that it IS a way of life for some guys in America, and that given my choice, I would choose the cow over most of them.  After lunch (they did NOT serve us any beer or give out any massages�c)we had a scavenger hunt with the students.  We were all placed in different locations and the kids had to come around and ask us questions in English, and there were prizes for the ones who got the answers right.  We had a Japanese-style BBQ (at which there was no BBQ sauce or BBQ beans or coleslaw.) and it was delicious.  Lots and lots of grilled veggies that you dipped into a sweet sesame sauce.  Mmmmmmm.  I thought that the main difference was that there was no bowl of white rice, but then somebody proved me wrong.  All of a sudden I looked up and there was a tray of rice balls in front of me, intended to be placed on the grill.  So yes, they DO serve rice at a BBQ, and you throw it on the grill with the rest of it.  And you eat with chopsticks.  It was a totally bizarre experience, and I want to do it again.  YUM!  After dinner, we had a �gshopping game�h where the kids were given a certain amount of monopoly money and they had to buy things from us, they had to ask for discounted prices and bargain, and know all the shopping lingo so they could buy stuff by themselves in Oregon.  I took a big stack of baseball cards, which were a hit with the boys, and at the end of the game, I let them keep a couple of the cards.  I offered cards to the girls also, or the choice of a 10 cent Methodist College pencil, with our crest on it, which they thought was great since it is John Wesley on his horse�cand they LOVE horses.  I have never seen such squealing over tiny things like this.  I had decided to give them a little something from America since their ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) is from South Africa, but I didn�ft know if they would think it was anything special.  Well, it was the right answer.  You have never seen a pile of origami thank-you presents like the one in front of my shoji door the next morning.  The total amount of cards cost me less than a dollar.  I gave away five pencils.  The looks on their faces were priceless.  I came out really good on that one.  A little really DOES go a long way sometimes!  The next morning at breakfast, they were still talking about the cards, and figuring out how to read the stats on the back, and asking a lot of questions of Ryan, another friend and ALT from Chicago.  Ryan is the resident baseball expert, and so the lesson that morning for the guys was all about sports.  The lesson for the girls was about colleges in America.  Mary (the ALT from South Africa who was running the gig) was elated that they were having such a good time.  She had been afraid that the talk over breakfast preparation would all be in Japanese and that the students would be afraid to use their English with us.  It was a hit.  We also cooked lunch together, dividing up the ALTs into groups so that the students could teach us to cook some traditional Japanese fare.  Jessica learned how to make mochi.  I learned okonomiyaki, and Ken learned how to make some kind of sushi that doesn�ft actually have any fish in it.  Weird, but delicious.  The two other ALTs there were Ryan from Chicago, and Heather from Portland, Oregon.  Heather lives here in Wadayama also, she just got here recently, and teaches at Wadayama Junior High School.  This group (we three, Mary, Ryan and Heather) get together about once a week at a local coffee shop to chat over pie or spaghetti.  Sometimes we go back to Ryans to watch movies or sometimes we go bowling or whatever.  This is our support group.  They are great folks, and Jessica is always glad to see them.  Mary is leaving in eight weeks?her time here is done and she will be getting married upon her return to South Africa.  Mary is an interesting person.  She speaks Swahili and Zulu as well as English, and her family is Zulu.  She turned 30 here in Japan also, and I have had so much fun learning about her culture since we are the same age and have found ourselves here in Japan at the same time.  I hope to be able to keep up with her after she leaves Japan.  Heather is blonde.  She is very funny.  She speaks no Japanese other than to be able to tell people hello and that her name is Heather.  She is prissy, too?the every hair in place kind of person, but we don�ft hold it against her or anything?haha!.  She is such a good person, and she has been to Japan before so she has a very open mind and is willing to try lots of new things.  We like her.  Ryan, in a word, is insane.  This guy is totally off his rocker.  We like Ryan a lot, as you can probably tell.  He has four younger siblings, the youngest is six, so he IS the EPITOME of a big brother to Jessica.  We are glad that he is here.  Whenever Ryan is around, you can bet that Jessica is pitching her latest movie to him.  He is patient and thoughtful.  When he went to Chicago for Spring Break (and a family wedding) he went to WalMart and got a Barbie and a Ken for Jessica and lugged them back across the Pacific for her.  You can imagine that Jessica was pretty much fastened to the hip with Ryan after that one.  I warned him.  I said �gNow Ryan, if you give these to her, you know that you will be getting a friend for life, right?  She will attach herself to you for this one.�h  He just grinned that Ryan-grin and the rest, as they say, is history.  We really miss our friend Amanda (Mom?the same Amanda that I have talked about before.)  She left and went back to the states awhile back, and every week, we still wish for her.  Jessica still talks about her �gbig sister�h Amanda on a regular basis.  Every once in awhile we get to see Chan also, an ALT from Atlanta who was with us on the flight over and who we go places with every chance we get.  Chan and her twin sister China were born in Taiwan and then adopted by an American man and his Japanese wife.  They were raised in America.  Chan is a riot.  She is another big sister to Jessica, and those two are good buddies for each other when we all get together!  Jessica, we have decided, is a pretty lucky little girl.  She has been adopted by all kinds of people to be a little sister.  Everybody knows who she is, and speaks to her and brings her stuff.  She is spoiled like you wouldn�ft believe by our friends.  She is also learning about what it is like to grow up in different parts of the world.  She is learning how kids are very different and are yet still a lot alike.  I think that this is a good thing in that it helps her to accept that she HAS a place in the world, and something in common with every person.  In a battle with Autism, it is nice to find proof that you are NOT alone on this planet.
I can not physically move my arms above my head today.  I am so completely sore.  Let me just recap the events for you.  Sunday, the last order of the day was to play �gultimate frisbee�h with the students at the English camp before they went home.  Two teams, big dirt field, one frisbee, and a watermelon.  We ran and jumped and dove and got muddy for a couple of hours.  Monday, I climbed four mountains (total of more than 17km on foot) with three of my teachers.  Yesterday, after midterms were over and the students went home, the teachers all played softball.  Last night, we were invited to watch the local taiko drum group practice, and they invited us to participate and so Jessica and I got to bang on a drum with clubs for a half hour or so.  It is hard work.  Today�cooooooo�cthe pain�cthe pain�cand it feels great, you guys!  It really does.  But I was sore from frisbee, and worked that out on the mountain, and got more sore, and then worked THAT out playing second base, and got MORE sore, and then played a drum�cand�cyou know�coooooooooooooo.  I have to teach private lessons tonight, and after that, I am stopping by the onsen on the way home and I will soak my tired body for about an hour.  I can already feel it�cmmmmmmmmmm.
I gave my OCB exam yesterday morning.  It was a pretty tough test for them, and neither Morishita-sensei nor I expected anyone to finish it.  Well, we ran the gauntlet anyway?and more than half the class finished?we were thrilled!  Now, some of the answers are a little humorous, as in the following?
QUESTION    TYPICAL ANSWER
�cAbout me:
Who is Lynley-sensei`s daughter?  Ken
     Her name is Jecka.
How old is she?    She is thrteen years old.
Where is Lynley-sensei from?   Oregon
Where did she go during Golden Week?  Gorlden week busjack in Kita Kyushu.
�cAbout Ken:
What is Ken-sensei`s hobby?   Walking mounten
     He hoby is Haiku and Rock clayming
     He hobby is rockcrimming
Where is he from?    Caruforunear
     Kariholunia
     He from Ross & Calfolunia
.
I learned a lot about us that I did not know.  I will pick up Jecka from school but I might have to walk since I am not old enough to drive.  Maybe I will wear sunglasses so as not to be recognized as the busjacker.  When I told Ken that they thought he was into HAIKU instead of hiking, we had a great laugh over it.  For the heck of it, here is a haiku poem for you on the spot?
Go take off your boots
Leave the trek poles in the hall
Let`s go rockcrimming

Well, I didn�ft really go into the mountain, did I?  Whoa.  You may remember that last autumn, Ken and I joined a bunch of our teachers and went up Seppiko-zan.  Well, this time, just three other teachers and I went.  Morishita-sensei (my go-between) and Saiga-sensei (the �gatsui atsui�h lady) were going again, they went to Seppiko with us.  Also there with us was Ueda-sensei (the tennis coach.)  Ueda-sensei is so cute.  She is about five feet tall and looks about 16 years old, and the kids really like and respect her.  She speaks no English, but we usually have the occasional conversation where we discover that we are both fine and that the weather is good on that particular day.  Sometimes, we even comment on the fact that it is time for lunch.  I like her.  She and I communicate in other ways.    We pantomime a lot, and we laugh a lot.  She is very nice.  Anway, back to the mountain.  Ken was giving exams and couldn�ft join us, but we had a blast.  The hike is a little difficult because there are no switchbacks (like going uphill in a Z pattern?when you go back and forth is it a little easier going.)  Nope.  We were climbing Dangamine?the highest peak in the Ikuno Highland area, and supposedly the highest mountain in Tajima.  We started about 10:30 a.m. and hiked uphill (like going straight upstairs�cbut without any flat parts to put your feet) until lunchtime.  We reached a peak area but it wasn�ft Dangamine.  They told me that the approach is a long one.  None of the group had ever been here before so it was new to us all.  We had our lunch, looking out over the mountain range, and all the way to Lake Ginzan in the distance.  Gorgeous.  Then, the trail started downhill a ways, across the saddle between two mountain peaks.  Here, the trail is right along a ridgeline, with tender bamboo swaying in the winds coming out of the valley.  The bamboo brushed us on either side as we walked the narrow path and took in the view of mountain flowers in full bloom.  Awesome.  We continued down and then realized that we had gone over an entire mountain and had reached the base of a second.  So we went to the top?took more than another hour.  We stopped at the top of Fudogamine and decided we needed a rest.  There was a shorter saddle to the top of the next peak, about another hour`s climb, and since Dangamine`s peak was what we came for, we decided to press on.  We entered the ridgeline of trees, and the scenery changed dramatically to an old growth forest, with centuries-old moss clinging to everything that didn�ft move, and to some things that DID! ?  We continued on the path, the path winding through endless rows of cedar trees eighty feet or more in height, and the canopy of green above us was so dense that there was no single ray of sunlight that hit the trail around us.  It smelled great too?a real assault on your senses!  The songbirds were out in droves and there were sweet songs from every direction, and seemed to be coming right from the sprays of bright mountain azaleas that dotted the landscape.  I think that perhaps it is true that you get a little closer to heaven when you go to the top of a mountain.  Well, we reached that far peak, only to discover that we still had to traverse around the ridgeline and go up a little more.  This was when it started to rain, so we looked at the map, and we looked at each other, and then we all kind of looked up at the sky and shrugged.  Off we went, around the ridgeline anyway.  There was only a fleeting moment when we asked ourselves if it was a wise thing to do.  It doesn�ft matter---it was definitely worth it.  We saw deer with big fluffy white tails.  We saw tanuki (like raccoons) and we saw some snakes, too.  They were about three feet long and a pretty cocoa brown color with shiny bellies.  They were harmless, like our kingsnakes, I had read about them in our survival guide.  I thought one was particularly pretty.  I know, I know, a snake is a snake, right?  Well, he lived there and we were his uninvited guests, so we just kind of whispered hello to him and walked quietly past.  Earlier, when we saw a stick that looked like a snake, Ueda-sensei jumped three feet in the air and screamed �gHEBI!!!�h  (Japanese for:  Look out, for there upon the trail I see a snake and you can judge by my action and my volume that I am not fond whatsoever of snakes.�h)  We laughed really hard when it was found to just be a stick.  Then, I mentioned that snake is eaten in some parts of America.  Everyone literally stopped in their tracks on the trail and looked at me, horrified that I would eat snake.  Let me say that again.  My Japanese friends were horrified and disgusted to discover that we might eat snake.  They eat raw squid and horse meat.  They suck down live octopus, but chunks of fully-cooked snake meat in a gumbo is just too disgusting to think about.  I found the whole thing really funny.  Then, we saw the sign.  �gDangamine 1050m�h and an arrow pointing up the trail.  Yes, another kilometer up the hill.  On the way, the rain stopped and we were glad for the shower that cooled us off.  The trail came out on the ridgeline, where the whole world sprawled out in front of us.  The mountains, all misty and steaming from the shower, were like layers of flower petals in every color of blue and green and violet and gray that you can imagine.  The wind blew gently and the wildflowers along both sides of the trail waved at us.  Even the stones on the trail were glistening in the sunlight like tiny gemstones.  The summit was a sweet moment.  It was amazing to look out and see three peaks away where we had started.  Like I said, we climbed four mountains.  We stayed here about a half-hour, and Saiga-sensei took out her camp stove and pot and made us all a hot cup of something to drink.  It`s a Japanese tradition.  We took some victory pictures and then decided to head on in the same direction, to reach the base of the mountain and find the road that we could see from up top.  The slope was REALLY steep, but the way down seemed pretty quick, and we found the road easily.  The trouble was that the road was lower than our starting point, so we had to travel uphill again.  I am the only person I know that can go mountain climbing and have to walk uphill BOTH ways.   Hee hee hee!  On the way, though, we saw some amazing scenery, and about a dozen waterfalls.  My teachers picked some wild mountain vegetables also, and I tasted some things that I have never seen before.  No worries, they allow anyone to pick these things as they are plentiful, like picking dandelions for a salad.  They grow rapidly and taking a bagfull doesn�ft disturb the landscape or the scenery, or the balance of the ecosystem there.  It was a great experience.  I got home covered in mud and grime, the second day in a row.  I slept really well Monday night!
Well, I had not intended to write 6 pages today.  I have been at this for more than two hours now.  I wanted to tell you about the taiko practice.  Let me just say that if they didn�ft practice on Tuesday AND Friday nights, I would join this group.  That was fun.  Taiko is a dance with drums, and it is really fun to watch.  It moves your whole body, kind of like a drum corps does?and is athletic like that-an artistic aerobic workout!  It is also traditionally Japanese?with each rhythm meaning a different kind of meditation, or telling a story, or celebrating a harvest.  It is really exciting!  I mentioned drum corps just now?and I never really told you all how sorry I felt that you could not stand on the field just once to FEEL the drums surround you.  When the drums line up and get together and really slam out a rhythm, you could feel it in your chest when you sat in the stands (Mom, Daddy, Tracy, MeeMaw�cdo you remember?)  For us on the field, the rhythm is intense enough to make your heartbeat leap into sync with the music.  It is really a high!  (Thousands of screaming fans didn�ft hurt either!)  That is the same feeling with taiko.  I think that Jessica and I will attend some more practices and maybe get a few pointers.  Maybe there will be another group that we could join that wouldn�ft interfere with our weekend schedules!  I say WE because Jessica really got into it.  She kept the rhythm that they gave us perfectly, and the guy in charge said she was a natural and even gave her a pair of mallets to practice with.  Something like this could really be good for her.  Maybe I will see if they would be okay with us missing just the occasional Friday.  This is something that caught my attention, and hers, during the first summer festival that we went to?probably the first large letter I sent home talked about it.  Anyway?you KNOW I will keep you posted on that.  Okay.  I am stopping here or I never will.  I love you all?please write soon!  Oh yeah?Congratulations to Tony on his new job and a belated Happy Birthday!  I didn�ft forget you-but I did forget to mail your card.  Hey, it just lets you celebrate longer, right?  As for the job--way to go Bro!  I got your email, Tracy?good luck with that client!  Keep writing!  I will write you personally THIS week!  Hugs and kisses to all-Lynley