Dazaifu, Day 24 - Last week begins

It is the beginning of my last week here at Gakugyoin, and I have a lot of things to accomplish this week. I need to start packing items to ship home and things that will go back in my suitcase; while I have given the things that are gifts to my partners and the school, I have a whole host of other items that must be taken home with me - gifts from my partners and other staff here at the school, items I have purchased for myself and family, lots of papers accumulated from classes and sightseeing.

I'll have to stop at the post office this afternoon and pick up a couple of shipping boxes - no way is all of that going to fit back in my bags.

My first chore today is to begin to assemble my summer report on the trip. Since I use this blog to maintain a more-or-less daily record of events, I will copy sections from it into a weekly journal that will be posted on XOOPS and also (eventually) submitted as a full report of the time here when I return to Tokyo.

Gathering the text is relatively easy; I just have to 'reverse' the order to create a chronological record. (Blogs, by their nature, are 'last in, first out', but a written report needs to be done in a timeline fashion.)

However, I also need to gather (and resize, in some cases) pictures that go with the text. Those of you who have been following this account and checking the pictures link know that I have a lot of pictures; I tend to 'point-and-shoot', hoping to get plenty of different angles so that I can find the best shots for my formal reports. Now it's time to go through them and pick out the best ones. I've only got about half a gig of photos to look at... shouldn't take more than a few hours...days...weeks..... :-)

Okay, the text is done, and I have a start on photos - what's next?

Well, there's lunch - always a good thing. After that, one of the English teachers asks me to listen to a student as she reads a short essay that she has written; she will be reading it aloud at a special event. We head for a meeting room where I listen and offer suggestions on pronunciation and voice inflection. At the teacher's request, I read the lines aloud, and the student marks inflection points as she listens. I point out that, in English, punctuation marks offer guides to out-loud reading as well as organization during silent reading (something that many native-language speakers often forget as well). By the time we finish, the student's reading is clear and fluent - no hesitation, no pronunciation problems. She will now work on memorizing it so that she can speak clearly when she is in front of the group.

At the beginning of the day, I had noticed a small brochure sitting on my desk, showing a picture of the broken dome that is part of the Hiroshima Peace Park and an apparent list of activities. A teacher a few desks down from me stops to ask if I have seen it, and I hold it up as a response. He asks that I come to the gym at 3:00 PM with the students and other teachers for a presentation.

When I arrive, Sasaki-san joins me and explains that this will be a special event - a dramatic reading with pictures and sounds - performed by members of the Drama Club. This is both a memorial to the victims of the bombings (this year marks the 60th anniversary of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs), and a reminder of the "Never again" philosophy espoused by those who are active in the movement to eliminate nuclear weapons throughout the world.

One student serves as a narrator, giving a timeline of the events, while other students provide sounds and voices of those who were victims. While the language was Japanese, the message was still crystal-clear; the pictures (pencil and ink drawings of people and places and images) and the cries of those who suffered told the complete story.

I am struck by the careful attention paid by the other students; as one of the teachers reminded them at the beginning, Japan is unique in being the only country in which an atomic weapon was used on citizens during warfare. These students' grandparents lived through that time; the students themselves must carry forward a legacy of peace for the future to ensure that such a weapon will 'never again' be used in such a manner.

Our last weekly video conference takes place - we are all fine, and we are all having no problems (definitely a refreshing change from two years ago). Most of us note that we are looking forward to seeing each other again in Tokyo but that leaving our host schools will be difficult; we've made friends and gotten to know the students and staff fairly well.

Then it's home, to eat, pack and prepare for another day.