DAY 2

On Tuesday the 22nd I went early in the morning towards the Hankyu train station to meet my interpreter for the day (in case I would need one). Once I arrived at the school all the 52 children (age 5 – 10) were studying. This is what they always do in the first 30 minutes. The teacher made sure all the children were working and checked that they had done the math equations correctly. after half an hour and a certain amount of finished assignments, they could pretty much do anything they wanted to. They had a lot of puzzles and games and a type of gym hall where they could also play. Towards 11.30 they had to tidy up all the games and get ready to listen to the announcements by the head mistress. When she was finished everybody headed downstairs to get their 'obento'. All the girls sat downstairs in the dining room and the boys upstairs. Sadly it was time for me to leave because they thought maybe a full day would not be any fun. So I headed over together with my translator to my third WISWEX place.

My third placement was a summer camp that started from one o'clock to the next day eleven o'clock. They had a time schedule for what they did when. We started just waiting for everybody to be inside whilst making small preparations. Our day consisted of mainly making sure everybody would survive. Once all were there we sang and soon after all had some ice cream. We had some games that we played, some sensei that were made a fool of, but we did make the kids laugh. All the kids had to take a shower. So it took a while before all the 5 boys and 10 girls had taken their shower. Once they all were downstairs again it was time to make the pizzas for our supper. The flavours were outrageously weird but also very nice as I found out. We had to help show the children how to make it and give instructions. We had to clean up after them and make sure they washed their hands before and after. After our supper, we prepared ourselves to go outside to do some hanabi (fireworks). We made sure nobody burned them or got injured. As the teacher/leader, we had to make sure that safety was first priority above our own pleasure of lighting the firework. Now we had to make sure that the little children got changed and ready for bed. As soon as they went to sleep the young leaders (13 till 21-year-olds) could chat with each other and do whatever we wanted. We mainly talked and read and laughed together until we got sent upstairs because we were too loud. Because I had to work in the morning I thought it might be smart to walk home to sleep.