English Camp!

Last Thursday I headed up to the northern mountains of Nago with 3 fellow English teachers and 40 excited 16 year olds for 2 fun-packed days of adventure at English Camp. To the right above you see the view from my bedroom window, at the youth center where we stayed. This spectacular view might give you the impression that the Nago Youth Resort is a relaxing place to take a break in nature... which it is, in one way. However, it's important to know that one of the horrendous downsides of staying at the low-cost youth center is that you are required to rouse yourself from slumber at 6am in order to participate in group morning exercises. Oh, yes. I was twirling my arms in the early dawn along with my kids and 100 elementary school students who were much genkier than my surly, heavy-lidded lot. Apparently these exercises are traditionally done every morning, everywhere in Okinawa. The instructions are played on the radio every morning. ALTs from rural areas who teach at junior highs and elementary schools are all familiar with them. The really weird thing about these exercises was that the tape recording they put on giving us instructions was in ENGLISH. Which of course no one could understand, but I guess they all know the exercises by heart from childhood. The tape was a bubbly guy shouting out things like,

That's the spirit! Now swing your arms so hard over your head you think you're going to smack yourself in the face with em!"

Ah well. I haven't begun at the beginning. First thing, we all gathered at 9am at school to pile into a bus and drive up north. The bus driver decided it was ok for the kids to play with his microphone during the 1.5 hour drive. So Ryouji (a very funny and nice little boy, when devoid of microphone) decided to tell jokes on the loudspeaker the whole drive. I was trying to sleep, but Shintoro took it upon himself to poke me in the ribs and use his newly acquired phrase, "wake up!" every time he walked up and down the aisle. We arrived at the mountain. Then the bus stopped. "oh Joysu," Junko sensei says, "we will walk from here." What? The bus went to all the effort to drive us to Nago yet refuses to drive us the last 5 minutes up the mountain? At first I thought it had something to do with ability (the mountain was too steep for the bus) but it turned out it was just a private bus company that didn't like to send their buses where there was underbrush or foliage because of the possibility of the paint getting scratched. So 40 children get out with their overnight bags and begin a very steep hike that turned out to be about 30 minutes up the mountain to the youth center. Can you imagine what would happen if you tried to make 40 American high school students do that?

English camp was quite a bit of fun! To the left is my croquet team, Friday morning. After unpacking and lunching Thursday, 3 other ALTs arrived to help give the kids special English classes. They rotated in groups of 10 through the 4 of us. So I gave 4 hours of the same class. I had kept that knowledge in mind when planning my lesson, and therefor decided to do a fun game (for me and you, kids). I won't explain the game entirely, but it involved me shouting and jumping around, and them stampeding from the back to the front of the room repeatedly. The weaklings were trampled or left behind. I made sure to bring loads of candy for prizes, as that makes 1. everyone happy 2. everyone love ME.

After dinner we got 2 hours in the gym to go insane. This was a wise plan on the part of our camp planners. Junko said last year they only had classes and no activities, and she was up 'til 5am catching kids sneaking around in the night out of bed. New plan for year 2: wear them out before bedtime so that all they can do is collapse. I'm not sure if someone slipped the bus driver an extra 1000 for the hike up the mountain? I found the plan clever until the final stages were revealed to me: spend all day wearing the kids out, then gather them at 10-11pm for a candy/snack party where we will stuff them so full of sugar that they will be wired until next Monday. Hmmmm. I could only think that the one teacher present with no children of his own has been responsible for this part of the plan.

After a buffet breakfast of hotdogs, meatballs, salad with ketchup and mayo mixed together as dressing, miso soup, white rice, sour plums, and pickled radish and a stab at western scrambled eggs we had a special treat. My friend Michael (one of the other 3 ALTs I organized to come to the camp) dressed up in full Scottish gear and gave a presentation on the glories of SCOTLAND. His homeland. I have to say, I was probably the most excited person in the crowd. You'd think that 16 year olds might perk up for a blond haired blue eyed man in a skirt but no. I guess you have to factor in the frequency that cross-dressing seems to pop up in Japanese festivals here to account for that... maybe men in skirts isn't so exciting after all.
After Michael drilled us on how Scotland wasn't England and he wasn't an Igurisu-jin (though the Japanese language apparently doesn't have a separate word for a Scottish person other than England-Person, ouch!) We all rallied our remaining genkidom and played an energetic game of grand golf (which turned out to be a mix of golf and croquet) outside on the lawn. Actually I think I spent most of my golf-time answering these 3 questions from every single female kid at camp:

- Joysu, Maikuru wa daaringu? (Is Michael your "darling"/boyfriend?)
- Joysu, Timu wa daaringu? (Is Tim your "darling"/boyfriend?)
- Joysu, Jun wa daaringu? (Is Jun-sensei your "darling"/boyfriend?)

Yes, their minds were focused on learning.

Yay English camp!