Sweet sorrow

November 30th was the last day for one of my kindergarten students. He is moving back to Osaka (mainland Japan) to live with his Dad. He and his Mom were living here in Okinawa just so he could attend our school. It is the only Christian Japanese School there is. In a way it is good that the family will be reunited, but it is always hard to say goodbye. I only knew Kousho for 3 months, but I enjoyed him so much. He is such a bright boy with so much energy. He loves to laugh and have fun and make his friends laugh. He wasn't always the easiest student to manage, but he is such a loving boy and has a very infectious smile. I miss him so much and our class is not the same without him. There is a certain level of life and energy that is missing in our class now and no one can quite replace it. You always feel a special connection to your first class as a teacher, and losing one student, even after only a short time of teaching them, leaves it's mark. Kousho, 大好き! (I love you!)

Birthday Fun!

I had a lovely birthday! On Friday, my co-workers had a cake for me and had the kids make a sign and they all sang Happy Birthday to me! It was so sweet.

On Saturday I got to skype with some family and friends, so that was wonderful. And then Saturday night my roommates took me out to an Italian restaurant where we had an incredible meal! It was delicious! And then there was the card from my parents and all the emails and comments on facebook wishing me a happy birthday. So thank you for making my day special!

Pictures tell a story better, so here they are:

My kindergarteners wrote these birthday signs for me.

All the kindergarteners and pre-schoolers drew a picture on this banner for me. It was so sweet! They did a good job.

Me surprised by all the kids and teachers with a cake for me. (There were only six candles on the cake so I held up my hands saying I was six years old. That's how you show "six" with your fingers in counting in Japan, just in case you were wondering why I was pointing to my own hand. =)

Aren't they sweet!

It was such a nice surprise for me because I didn't expect them to do anything for my birthday.

My beautiful birthday cake. Of course it's chocolate! =)

My roommates took me out for a delicious dinner at a really nice Italian restaurant.

Me and Miwako

Me and Nana

Amazing steak dinner!

My sister sent me the newest Elephant and Piggie book for my birthday. (If you haven't read any of Mo Willems' books, you are really missing out.)

And It's signed by Mo himself! How cool is that!

A Psalm

Of God for his lost and precious child

How long, my child?

How long will you forget and neglect me?

When will you come to me and be with me once again?

Why do you let sin master you and the devil tempt you?

Why do you scorn my grace and refuse my strength?

How long will you continue to harm yourself, and continue this cycle of self-destruction?

Can't you hear me calling to you? You have forgotten how to hear me.

You have strayed like a senseless sheep, and yet you wonder why you're lost.

Stop your feeble efforts and allow me to comfort you and bring you to myself.

Surrender to me and I will be your master and your true lover; you will want for nothing else.

Unspeakable Blessings

As I sit down to write this blog, I am chowing down on a bag of beef jerky. Where, you might ask, did I find a bag of beef jerky? Well, I would respond, in my mail box! =)

Today I received a package from my close friends Jen and Jon Newsham! Everything about the package was a testimony of how much they love me, from the amount of money it cost to ship it, to the details they remembered from our skype conversations or my blog posts.

To the casual observer this package may seem like a random assortment of odds and ends, but to me it is a wonderful treasure. The items themselves don't have high intrinsic value, but each item represents how well my friends love me, and that is infinitely valuable.

Let me explain: My friends know that gifts are my love language. And I'm not just talking about receiving presents. I am talking about receiving something personal from someone, something that they thought about, something that represents them, or reminds them of me, something that demonstrates that they know me well or remembered details I mentioned at a previous time.

If you read the captions you will get some explanation of why each item is meaningful to me. Some are obvious, like M&Ms =), but others, like the powdered sugar, have more of a back story to them.

The title of this blog is "Unspeakable Blessings." I am not referring to the package, even thought it was a delight to receive. I am referring to my friends Jen and Jon. The Lord has blessed me so much through these two people. They love me better than I deserve, and are a constant embodiment of God's grace to me! I thank the Lord for them and for his grace in bringing them into my life.

Now for a walk-thru of the package in pictures:

(I have to give my parents credit for sending me my first package, even though I requested it.) But this was not something that I personally requested, it was just a package from two people who love me so well.

Here's the open box! It's so fun to open packages from people who love you!

The caption inside: "When you're cute, it doesn't matter what costume you wear!" I love pirates!

I love writing and journalling and Jen knows my style.

Jen loves Halloween and I enjoy it because I love her and it's so fun to be festive!

Jen loves Disney, especially the villains. (Is that why we're such good friends?;) It just makes me happy to have something she loves because I love her!

For anyone who has lived overseas you can imagine how hard it is to get American candy or how expensive it is even if you can find it. Yeah for dark chocolate M&Ms!!

When I first got here I was having a hard time finding tortillas at the store and was resolving to make my own. Now I don't have to for a while! And I love tacos!

I wrote in an earlier post that one of the foods I missed growing up in Haiti, was beef jerky and I still love it! I also told Jen that I attempted to make chocolate chip cookies, but they didn't turn out very well.

I told Jen over skype that I was trying to find powdered sugar at the store here. I finally found it. It was a tiny bag, a little bigger than a Taco Bell sauce packet, and it cost over $3! Jen sent me a 2 pound bag. =)

Tonight I'm having tacos!!

Educating Esme by Esme Raji Codell

My sister bought me this book on our last trip to Powell's before I came to Okinawa. It took me a while to get around to, but once I started, it was quickly devoured. =) It was a fun and thought-provoking book for me.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"So much of teaching is sharing.... You can't test what sort of teacher someone will be, because testing what someone knows isn't the same as what someone is able to share."

On the efforts of a curriculum expert from the board of education: "Only, I wonder if he can see that the efforts to try to regulate teaching could limit learning as much as ensure it."

"Children rise to meet our expectations, good or bad."

"I look around and see that even grown-ups are really children, making mistakes and needing love."

To a misbehaving student: "You think you're not telling me about your problems, but you're showing me, everyday, and in every way. The problems aren't going to leave until you start talking about them."

"But certain people just think it's their job to freak out. As long as they're freaking out, they feel busy, like they must be doing work. Getting upset is force, but no motion. Unless we are moving the children forward, we aren't doing work."

She is a bold, vivacious teacher and it was fun to read her own story.

Maintaining the tension between Flexibility and Volition

My personality type likes structure. I work well when I know what's coming and I know how to plan for it. But I have this weird quirk to my personality: I grew up in Haiti.

Often Americans who go to Haiti get very frustrated because Haiti is the essence of borderline chaos and constant change, which causes unexpected situations. But I grew up in that culture, so it doesn't bother me. I have the ability to override my natural tendency and desire for structure and be completely comfortable with the unexpected. I have a fairly well developed ability to "fly by the seat of my pants."

So when I came to Okinawa I switched into my "flexibility" mode. If I hadn't, my transition would have been much harder. I became almost completely non-volitional. I submitted to everybody else's plans for me. I didn't make plans. Which in some ways was necessary since I was basically entirely dependent on other people to function here. It's like being a child again and having to be dependent on other people to take care of you.

So I would go to church with one of my roommates and find out after church that I was going with my other roommate to visit some place or other. I would go to work and find out halfway through the morning that we had a special class or chapel to attend. I would go home and eat whenever my roommates ate and eat what they ate. There are often sudden changes in plans and people often forget to inform me since I'm there when they discuss the change in plans. They forget that I can't understand anything. So I just wait until they are finished and someone tells me to go with them to some place or other or to do something or other.

I thank God for his blessings in preparing to function in these type of circumstances and to remain flexible. But I realize, just as kids grow up and become independent, I have to reclaim some of my own volition. I have to make my own choices. I have to take care of myself. I have to create boundaries within which I can function.

So this is the tension that I am struggling to understand and maintain: How to plan for the future while graciously accepting sudden changes; how to take the time to create structure but holding onto it with a flexible grasp.

It's like I can function in two different modes: rigid structure and Haiti-grown flexibility. But I can't function in both of those modes simultaneously. It's the tension I feel in teaching: remembering to love the kids above all, even at the expense of my lesson plans while also taking the time to plan and create initial structure so that good learning can occur. By God's grace I will find some measure of balance in this area.

My Roommates (finally)

Nana and Miwako

Nana, Miwako, and me

Miwako and me in front of our house

Nana and me in front of our house

Nana and Miwako and me at dinner

Foreign vs. novel!

Please "read" the picture book/graphic novel entitled "The Arrival" if you haven't already done so. It is an excellent book by Shaun Tan with beautiful pictures depicting the experience of transitioning from one place to another. It mirrors the experiences of early immigrants to America, but it is done in a way so as to make you experience the transition along with the main characters. It's fascinating.

A friend of mine left a comment on facebook that made me consider the difference between novel and foreign. I can relate to a lot of the ideas about transition and interacting with a new culture, but I never realized how much I had not yet experienced.

In the book "The Arrival" the main character leaves his home and travels across the ocean to a new world. When he arrives he can't speak, read, or understand the language. He has to communicate through gestures and pictures. He is introduced to new household appliances and new ways of doing things. And he is introduced to completely new foods. Coming to Okinawa has been much like the experiences depicted in that book.

Novelty

In Haiti we didn't get a lot of things that we have access to in the U.S. When we would come back to the U.S. to visit, it was always fun to splurge on the things we couldn't get in Haiti. Here are some of the things that were novelties for me as a child growing up in Haiti:

Food (I could go on about food forever =)

-beef jerky (I don't know why, but I loved this stuff as a kid, and still do!)

-strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, blackberries and any other kind of berry you can think of

-ice cream (we had ice cream in Haiti but it was expensive so we didn't have it often and we only made our own on special occasions)

-apples (the apples in Haiti were small and usually sour- they made great pies though)

-sweet peanut butter like Jiffy (now I prefer natural PB like we had in Haiti but it's still a nice treat every now and then)

-candy bars like Snickers (we could get these in Haiti, but again, imported items were expensive)

Around the house

-carpet (we didn't have wall-to-wall carpeting in Haiti, we just had a few rugs on our cement/tile floors)

-vacuum cleaner (I remember having to learn how to use a vacuum in the U.S. since we just used a mop and broom in Haiti)

-fireplaces/heaters (some houses up in the mountains of Haiti have fireplaces, but they are not something that I was accustomed to seeing or using regularly)

-garage door/door opener (we did not have a garage in Haiti and it was always so fun in the U.S. to push the automatic garage door opener and watch the door open before you even pull into the driveway)

-TV (we did not have a TV in Haiti until I was about ten and then we didn't get basic cable until I was in my teens, and even then the reception was usually poor)

Shopping

-malls (we didn't have malls in Haiti)

-size (huge stores, I remember getting so tired from walking around shopping with my mom)

-variety (so many different brands and options for the same item, and stores for every conceivable specialty item you could want)

-quantity (there is basically a store on every other corner)

Driving

-seat belts (we didn't wear seat belts in Haiti so we always had to retrain ourselves when we visited the U.S.)

-road/street signs (these are basically non-existent in Haiti-you give directions by landmarks and people just know the names of streets without signs)

-stop lights/stop signs (there have been a few of these put in since my childhood, but stoplights require electricity to run, and that's not always guaranteed in Haiti)

-nicely paved roads (we have these in Haiti, but they are usually the exception)

-freeways (nope)

Well, I am sure I could go on for quite a while. It's actually fun to remember the things that are so different. I would have thought these things were foreign to me since I didn't grow up with them. But now I realize they were just novelties. The reason for this is that I knew of their existence. Granted, at some point I had to learn of their existence, just as all children discover the world around them, but it was at a young enough age that I grew up knowing what they were. And since I grew up understanding and knowing what they were, they were familiar and normal to me, if not common.

Foreign

I have seldom experienced something completely foreign. Growing up in two worlds (Haiti and the U.S.), and two very different worlds at that, gave me a broader understanding and familiarity with the world in general. I believe one of the first times I experienced something foreign was when I went to Morocco. And really, the foreign experiences were few, probably due to the limited time I had there. One of the first things that pops into my head is a tagine. This is a round clay pot with a conical lid that you cook in. Here is a picture:

I had never heard of or seen anything like this before. The food they cooked in it was new to me too, but it was made with vegetables and meats and spices I've heard of and eaten before. So the food was merely a novelty, not entirely foreign. Seeing mosques and being in an Arab Muslim culture was also novel to me. I say novel rather than foreign because I was already aware of and mildly acquainted with the Muslim religion and Arab culture. If I had stayed longer I would have discovered more things that were entirely foreign to me, but a ten day trip was not long enough for me to discover them.

Coming to Okinawa, has been a foreign experience. I have been here for 51 days (or seven weeks). That has been plenty of time for me to discover many of the obvious surface level differences. Working at an elementary school and teaching primary English and preparing to teach basic French has highlighted some of these things. I realized that when we are kids we learn the names of different pictures. Even before we can read, we can identify pictures. Little kids learn to look at pictures and identify things like "apple" or "ball" or "cat."

All cultures have their normal pictures that all kids know. I took it for granted that I grew up in cultures that had these pictures in common. I remember learning the names of fruits and vegetables in English and French. They were different words, obviously, but the same pictures. Here in Okinawa they have fruits and vegetables that I have never even seen before. So it's not just a matter of learning a new word for a familiar picture or item, it is learning a whole new context.

This experience is what has taught me the difference between foreign and novel. I thought I had had a lot of foreign experiences before I came to Okinawa. Now I realize that most of them were just novel. Yes I have gone to many cultures and heard many foreign languages that I couldn't understand and eaten foods that I was unaccustomed to and experienced things that I had only ever heard about. But I have never been immersed in a context that has so many unfamiliar variables. It's fascinating!

Yogurt Land!

So this is for my Portland friends, and anyone else around the country or world who has experienced this. In Portland there are many different frozen yogurt places. I went to Yo Cream with my friend Amanda and my sister-in-law Andi took me to Swirl. It's like all you can eat, self-serve frozen yogurt where you have lots of different kinds of yogurt flavors and then tons of topping to choose from and you pay by the weight of your bowl. Healthier than ice cream, which is probably why they have so many of these places in Portland. =) Anyway, they have a frozen yogurt place here in Okinawa and it's called Yogurt Land. My roommate Nana has taken me twice now. It's cool to see the different yogurt flavors and toppings here. I definitely didn't see dragon fruit or mochi as a topping option in Portland! I love it!

A day with the Bernards

On Saturday Sam and Dacee invited me to go to a soccer game with them. It was fun and nice to hang out. Afterwards we got pictures with the mascot who apparently used to be an Okinawan boxing champion.

And here are some pictures of my friends Sam and Dacee Bernard with their two girls, Mycala and Audrie.

Julia Megumi Hiraguri

Here is the baby born to my friends Melanie and Akira who invited me to come here. Isn't she beautiful? Her middle name is Japanese and it means "grace." So precious.

Shurijo

So I have officially had my first touristy, sight-seeing experience here in Okinawa. My roommate Miwako took me to Shuri Castle (jo=castle, thus Shurijo). We went to a free mid-autumn festival that took place last night. It was cool to see the castle and read a little bit about it. The main castle was closed due to the festival but the performances were very cool. There was the electing the new royal "king" and "queen" who will be in a parade in November (I'm not sure what all else they actually do), and a dramatic performance with dancing and acting. I love the performing arts so it was a lot of fun to see traditional Japanese style. These were performances done for the Chinese envoys during the time of the Ryukyu Kingdom in Okinawa. It was a great experience and I look forward to going back to Shurijo again. Unfortunately my pictures didn't turn out very well, but here are a few anyways.

At the gate

Lion pillar

Harvest moon

The king and queen contestants

Chosen king and queen

Dance

Moon and lanterns

Postcard of Shurijo

Coaster (had to support the tourist trade!)