Art club

I joined the art club at one of the junior highs in Japan where I worked as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). I had met two girls in the club on my first day there who, when they found out I also loved art, drew me some manga and invited me to join them after school. It was a small group and we sat around laughing and talking as much as we did drawing and painting. But, as one of their English teachers, that was just what I’d wanted – a chance simply to chat (in English) outside the classroom.

When she introduced herself, Yuriya had told me she was half Japanese – her mom was from Singapore and I met her by chance as I left school one day. She had kindly invited me to visit their home and spend a day with them. Things hadn’t been easy for her – after returning to Japan with her husband she’d been widowed and had been bringing up Yuriya and her older brother on her own. Although they didn’t show it, I think things must have been difficult for the kids too – their mom worked very long hours at a factory and, although she spoke Japanese and had been living in Japan for years, she told me she still felt very much a gaijin, an outsider or “alien”. I wondered if Yuriya and her brother had sometimes felt a little like outsiders themselves. But amongst their friends at school they seemed happy and sociable.

This is the drawing that Yuriya gave me on my first day at school – the girl is in a yukata or summer kimono.

These two were drawn by Marina. She was keen to practise her English and I was trying to improve my very limited Japanese so we began mailing each other, switching easily enough between Japanese characters and the Roman alphabet by keitai or cell phone – a really good way to practise reading and writing Japanese, and a fun first for me at the time.

If you'd like to find out more about the JET Programme: http://www.jetprogramme.org/

Very, very thank you!

Anyone who has taught English in Japan (especially at junior or senior high) would have ended up with a pile of these: thank you messages from students. I worked as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) on the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Programme for two years and loved it – it was the best start for a teacher with little experience (participants actually need none and no teaching qualifications) because it involved so much creative and energetic teaching, a lot of interaction and very little marking!

These were written by some of my first grade students at Ojima Junior High in Nagaoka where I was based for two years. I had met them when they were still at elementary school so knew them well and they were a genki bunch – they got on very well with their young Japanese teacher and were always keen to take part. I really enjoyed my lessons with them.

And these are some of the comments students made on a thank you card I received at another junior high where I filled in for a few months. Although I was only there a short time (so short I seem to have forgotten its name!), I remember this school as one of my favourites. It was much smaller than Ojima and on the outskirts of the city, and I can’t say I was looking forward to simply filling in there as I trudged to school through thick snow from the bus stop down the road on my first day. But I was met with such excitement (I soon found out I was the first woman ALT these students had had), curiosity and enthusiasm that it was impossible not to enjoy my often noisy and sometimes quite boisterous classes.

They were written by some of the third graders I taught. A few students wrote only in Japanese and a few only drew me pictures, but most tried to write their thank yous in English. You can pretty much guess which are from the boys! 

You look very beutiful.

You are teaching a little time. But very interesting.

You are beutiful woman! Thank you!

I want to be like YOU!! So you are very beautiful.

I love you.

You are nice girl!!

Very thank you!!

I wanted to study with you more and more.

I was glad to meet you!!

Good. Very good.

You are good smile!!

You are nice body.

You are GODDESS.

Good for you!!

I am ENGLISH! Thank you.

You are very cute!! 

My favourite is this last one – despite the unfortunate mistake, the boy who wrote this was actually quite good at English, and bright and sharp. I really enjoyed his honesty after so many over-excited compliments...

I was grad to see you. I’m good at English. And I want to study English more and more. I will go to South Africa some day. <- It’s a lie.

From coast to coast

Surrounded by piles of papers and files and books, there were times when I thought 2011 just seemed to be flying by – and what had I actually done? So looking back at the photos I took over the course of the year was a good reminder of how far I’d actually come... I’d moved down to Cape Town, from the east coast to the west, and caught up with old school friends and friends from Japan and the Middle East. I’d shared a lot of ups and downs with friends on my course and course teachers, and lots of laughs and advice (not all from me to them!) with many of my past students. I came back for a family wedding and spent time with visiting family from the UK. And, of course, I went back to my studies after years of working and travelling in the Middle and Far East – and finally got through all of that coursework.

Looking ahead, I’ll be getting stuck into my research this year and getting back to some teaching. I’ll be driving down to Cape Town in ‘Maya’ which will make getting around and out of the city that much easier. And I’ll be back just in time to meet a friend’s long awaited and, by then, newly born daughter...

These are some of the sights from my travels last year. (I’d wanted to choose a photo from each month but I hadn’t taken enough throughout 2011 – they cover the year anyway.)

At the Odeon

When I was a student there, Grahamstown had two cinemas: His Majesty’s and the Odeon. His Majesty’s was the more comfortable and characterful of the two. It was opened in 1935 but was gutted by a fire in 1998. The Odeon was cavernous and draughty, and the leather seats were cracked and hard. But we went there just as often.

Both cinemas screened a number of films during the annual National Arts Festival. In first year, I went to a whole bunch, from the elegant ‘La Dolce Vita’ to the exuberantly hippy ‘Hair’. These were some of the others I saw that year: ‘Vincent and Theo’, Jane Campion’s ‘Sweetie’, the German comedy ‘The Nasty Girl’, the sharply energetic ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, the beautiful and melodramatic ‘Indochine’, ‘The Exorcist’ uncut and Richard Linklater’s ironic ‘Slacker’ – which I loved.

I can’t say I watched it because, although a friend and I snuck in to watch the contentious ‘The Lover’, we walked out again soon afterwards. We were curious but thought it cold and quite brutal.

This is from a sketch of my friend Qanita and me watching the opening scene of ‘Salmonberries’ at the Odeon, our legs slung over the seats in front of us. I’d already seen ‘Bagdad Cafe’ by the same director which I’d just loved but this was much quieter and slower – though quite haunting. Sitting in the Odeon on a winter’s night, we were shivering at the Alaskan snow.

Down a dirt road

I’ve just got back from the Wild Coast. My family has a cottage at Hole in the Wall and I’ve been going there on holiday since I was about three. It’s such a beautiful stretch of the coast – and such a privilege to have a camp right at the beach, just above the rocks and waves.

The original part of the cottage is over a hundred years old, and is simple and rather weather beaten. For years the camp had no electricity and no indoor toilet – only a “long drop” (with a sea view) down the hill! We still rely solely on rain water for our water supply. And we don’t have satellite or internet access – though we now have pretty good cell phone coverage.

The Hole in the Wall itself is at the mouth of the Mpako River and is known as esiKhaleni in isiXhosa which means “place of thunder” or “place of the sound”. The local people tell a story about how it came to be formed. The Mpako River was once a landlocked lagoon as it was cut off from the sea by a cliff and a beautiful girl lived in a village near the lagoon.  One day she was seen by one of the sea people (supernatural beings who look human but have flipper-like hands and feet) who fell in love with her and they began to meet in secret. But the girl’s father found out and he forbade her to see her lover. So, one night at high tide, the sea people came to the cliff and rammed a hole through the centre of the cliff with a huge fish. They swam into the lagoon, shouting and singing loudly – and the terrified villagers ran and hid. In all this commotion, the girl and her lover were reunited and disappeared into the sea. At times, they say, the music and singing of the sea people can still be heard.

Well, I already miss the sound of the waves crashing below the cottage at night...

The sea from the deck

Piglets

Reeds and huts and hills

Birds nesting at the hotel

Aloe

The Hole from Whale's Back

A wild mushroom

A claw lily growing on the sand dunes

Whale's Back

Early morning light

On the road home near Zithulele

Children swimming in a stream

(Story sourced at http://www.wildcoast.co.za)