These are my virtual suitcases. Whenever I have gone on an interesting trip, people sometimes ask "Can I go with you in your suitcase?" Well, now you can! Just squeeze on in and get comfy, 'cause we're about to embark on a journey that will take us half way around the globe!
... and it begins in the most unlikely place, through the eyes of a child of 18. After sleeping most of the way to Chicago, I started a casual conversation with Abbie, the girl with the window seat, going to Boise, Idaho. Turns out that Abbie spent a month last year in Japan and Hiroshima staying with host families! Having just graduated from high school in Massachusetts, she is now going to Idaho for three months of nursing training designed to prepare her to work for three months in the slums of Manila, the capital of the Phillipines, providing health care to the poor who otherwise might get none. Suddenly I realized this is one of the wonderful benefits we earn when we teach: we get to touch the lives of people like Abbie, who will go on to do things that we wouldn't even dream to do. Good Luck, Abbie!
Umm .. about that orientation ...
Well, getting there was a trip, as we slowly ran into fellow JFMFers. My first was Angelika Baker, a Montesori teacher from Providence, and then on the San Francisco leg, there must have been 20 or so on the plane, many revealed only when they donned the all revealing name tag. Then, in orientation we listened to the people who have had and will have an influence on our lives:
Chris Powers - Institutite for International Education
San Francisco Counselor General Yamanaka-san
Kyoko Jones JFMF Program Director
After meeting in our Prefecture group, we got the real scoop from JFMF alumni!
These are only three hints of the amazing journey yet to come:
1. We will meet strangely dressed dogs all over the streets of Tokyo!
2. Students will feed us!
3. There will be unspeakable adventures presented to us, whose solutions are best left to pictures found on an elementary school bathroom wall ...
