Days 6 and 7--a teaparty, rocks, and new teammates.

It's Friday night here in Japan. We had a full day picking rocks and nothing in particular happened. The only big change had been that a Japanese church volunteer group from Chiba (and a random schoolteacher from Tokyo) showed up yesterday and will be staying here until Sunday. Quarters are a little tight! The women's room only gained three to add to our original four, but the men gained 8 new bodies (there are already 7 men in our group). Much hilarity has ensued.

Anyway, today Amanda, Ken, and I spent the day digging up rocks and talking about spiritual warfare, fantasy and sci-fi books, Guillermo Del Toro movies, baptism, and age of the earth.
Good stuff.

Yesterday was a bit more eventful. Yet again it is late and my brain is tired, though, so you get a picture post. using mostly Ethan's pictures and a couple of mine.

Maruko-san. 

She's 76 and her husband is almost 81. They're still working full-time just to grow food for themselves to eat and earn money for other necessary things. Last year they heard the warning about the tsunami on the radio and had time to get to safety. Maruko-san drove back with a town leader, though, picking up people to help get them to safety, too. The elderly people are the ones really suffering around here. They lost just as much as younger people, but don't have the ability to recover as quickly or well. Maruko-san hires himself out every day to clean other fields to earn money for them to live on, so we're cleaning HIS fields to make them safe to plant in. 

Ono-san, a neighbour lady. She drives by to check on us. Yesterday she drove up, threw money at the team for drinks for us, and drove off again. We have bets that she's not more than 70lbs. Great hair, though.

On a break. People said they wanted pictures of me. Bet they're regretting it now. 

Ed, Anna, and I take a break in the Marukos' strawberry sorting room (they were strawberry farmers until the tsunami destroyed their fields). 

Mike and Ed.

Mike hard at work. Our nick-name for him is Saikou Mike (highest, supreme Mike).

Me, Anna, Yui, and Ed looking stylish and also looking for glass shards.

Classy ladies. Also Ed's bottom. 

Yui!

Ed wanted a picture of himself working. 

This little bird yelled at us any time we went into the strawberry room to take a break.

Maruko-san gave us some fabulous big carrots and a big bunch of spinach from their garden.

Me and Ethan.

Lunch! We ordered out from the fish market. 

Rice, tempura shrimp and veggies, fresh salmon, salad, pickled things, and awesomeness.

Ed and Anna enjoying the bounty. 

The Marukos gave us little jars of frozen strawberry preserves as a treat. It was delicious. 

Then suddenly Yui remembered (thanks to a comment from Anna) that Ethan and I were supposed to be going to a tea-party at the temporary housing in the area (Mike wanted us to go as we are the journalistic team--photographs and blogging). We had been previously unaware of this plan, so he and I rushed back to the Nozomi center, rushed through showers, and rushed out the door.

We helped a local pastor and some other people set up for the tea party and then sat down to talk to the people who came. Luckily one of our new Nozomi-center housemates came, too: Haruka-chan was born in Japan, grew up in China, and studied in London, so she was able to translate for us. She got married a couple years ago and now lives in Chiba with her husband. 

We all had fun just sitting around and talking. They gave me some Japanese language education and I learned some new words in their dialect. For instance, in Japanese if someone is telling a story, a common interjection is "honto??" which basically means "really?" (literally="true?"). The Tohaku version is "hontage??"

Their version of "cute" (normally="kawaii") is "menkoi". 

Me taking notes.

They asked where Ethan and I were from. Ethan drew this handy map on the scheduling whiteboard and circled Michigan (his home state). 

I drew a cartoon of a horse on a paper cup and wrote the kanji for "horse" on it--馬--so then one of the ladies asked me to draw a picture of her. Which I did. 

She was pleased.

Then she wanted me to write my name on it, which I did.

It was at this point I committed a lingual foux pas: She asked me to write her name on the cup, as well. I didn't remember her name, so I asked her to repeat it. Her name, as it happens, is Toshiko. 

However, it was loud in the room (there were two other full tables of people talking animatedly), and I have issues processing sounds sometimes, and so to be sure of it, I repeated back what I'd heard:  Osshiko. 

The table erupted with laughter. I realized I hadn't said it right, and thought perhaps they thought I'd said "oishiko" (which sounds close to the word for "delicious").

After Haruka-chan stopped laughing, she explained to me that Osshiko means "pee." 

I apologized profusely, while laughing, and they just all thought it was the best thing ever. Afterwards, Haruka-chan said that was an awesome mistake to have made. 

Toshiko is pleased with her cup.

Later, I told our group this story and all the linguists started laughing. Cal Cummings was delighted, and shared his own embarrassing (and less appropriate) language gaffe story, to make me feel better.

That's all for now, folks!