Meetings and Greetings

After finally arriving in Minamisanriku I met my roommate, Anne, and my supervisor from the Board of Education, Suzuki-san.  I was feeling pretty worn out at that point (and a bit shell shocked from the sight of the town) so I'm not sure if I said very many coherent things to them on the way to the apartment.  Suzuki-san said that he'd pick us up again in a few hours to go out to dinner with him and his supervisor.  I just wanted to rest for a while but I figured that it really would be best to try to stay in the time zone and stay awake until at least 8 PM.  In the meantime Anne showed me around my new home.  It's very spacious by Japanese standards but it is kind of an old building.  The refrigerator, TV, washing machine, microwave oven, and rice cooker are all new though and were donated by the Japanese Red Cross.  Some things I noticed right away were the huge closets, tatami reed mats which cover some of the floors and are very nice to walk on, futons instead of beds, heated kotatsu tables (amazing invention!), and that the heated water system is kind of complicated (I'll explain this in another post).

Suzuki-san and Kachou (the section chief of the Board of Education) arrived around 6 PM.  We headed back toward the fancy hotel I had passed earlier known as the Hotel Kanyo.  Since the tsunami hit it has pretty much the only restaurant in town.  The food was probably very good but according to my stomach it was 5 or 6 in the morning and I couldn't eat very much (darn jet-lag!).

 

Here's the ramen that I tried- real ramen, not from a cup!

Anne did most of the talking on our end and translated for me a bit though I could actually follow the conversation fairly well.  Luckily the dinner was over quickly and so I pretty much just unfolded my futon and fell asleep right away.

Friday the 30th was dedicated to filling out paperwork and visiting the schools where I would be working to briefly introduce myself to the staff (these kinds of greetings are known as aisatsu).  I also met with the principals/vice-principals over hot tea along with Suzuki-san and Kachou so that they could meet me and decide how I was going to get to school everyday.  Basically Anne and I don't have a car and can't legally get one until one of us has her alien registration card.  I filled out a form to get one but it probably won't arrive until next week.  Anne wanted to fill out a form but was unable to her first month and a half in Japan since the temporary government office didn't have the paperwork (all of their copies had been washed away in the tsunami).  So Kachou had to ask the principals whether it would be possible for another teacher or staff member to pick me up and drive me to school since it's definitely too far to walk.  I couldn't really understand most of what was said during all the conversations but I could tell that no one wanted to suggest a person right away.  Everyone took turns saying, "Hmmmm.... what should we do?" with many long intakes of breath as though proposing an idea might be painful.  Finally a few names were mentioned and the meeting ended though I had the feeling that it still wasn't 100% decided.  I guess this is what group decision-making in Japan is all about... haha.

I met a funny teacher at one of the elementary schools when I was introducing myself (named Shuu-sensei).  He spoke English pretty well and was able to get me to understand his Japanese too.  He asked me how old I was and I told him, "Twenty-three," then he said, "Me too!".  I couldn't help gaping at his response since he has graying hair and wrinkles and definitely doesn't look like a twenty-something year old.  He said that he had been kidding but he thought that my reaction was hilarious.