A Day of 'Fun' Activities

At the moment it's test week at Ohka. Test weeks are always good; I don't have any lessons, I'm not required to prepare or mark any tests and the teachers often take it upon themselves to go off for long lunches and I'm usually invited along. All good.

Yesterday we had a whole day of 'fun' activities planned, I guess it's supposed to be a whole ice-breaking, team building kind of a thing.

In the morning we went down to the school kitchens and helped to make; pasta, salad and tiramisu and then the 'highlight' of the morning was to make our very own pizzas. Everyone was very excited about this. I patiently pretended to understand everything the teacher was jabbering in Japanese about topping this pizza, she seemed very concerned that I might mess it all up. I wanted to exclaim 'Hey I worked in a pizza shop when I was at uni, I've made more pizzas than you can imagine' but of course I didn't, I smiled and pretended I was learning something very exciting for the first time.

Then we got to eat our culinary delights, I decided it really wasn't necessary to eat a pizza, a whole bowl of garlic pasta, a salad and a tiramisu at 11:00am. To which I received a hundred and one comments asking why I didn't want an oily, garlicy but otherwise incredibly bland looking bowl of spaghetti. I told them I was on a diet (which isn't really true), this more or less shut them up especially seen as though they're always telling me how fat I am.

Which brings me on to say that they all did eat all four dishes and I just continue to be astounded by how much food Japanese women can pack away and yet they all remain as thin as toothpicks.

I've made the review of the cooking lesson sound really bad, but really it wasn't. It was fun, especially compared to what the afternoon had in store for me ... volleyball.

In the afternoon there was a volleyball competition for the teachers. I was not looking forward to this. Last year I seem to remember holding back the tears, they took it so competitively and I felt really uncomfortable the entire time. But anyway maybe round two would be better.

It doesn't hold well that I hate TEAM sports, this probably all stems from PE at school which I despised. I meet so many people who loved PE at school and at Ohka when the students had to create a dream time table, every period was filled with PE, PE and more PE. I shudder at the thought. Maybe it's because of the school I went to but PE was a nightmare. There was basketball where you feared having your eyes scratched out by Bernadette and her incredibly long and vicious nails or there was the changing room where you feared being beaten up by the hard girls in the corner merely for looking in the wrong the direction. Of course on top of that there's always the popularity contest of team picking. Why do teachers ever allow this? They should pick the teams. It should be the rule.

Anyway, enough horror stories from Trinity ...

I wasn't filled with quite the same dread as I used to have for school PE though and I decided I should take the time to view it as an interesting cultural activity. Which I'm pleased I decided to do as it proved to be very entertaining.

The afternoon begins with us all entering the school gym. Now the 'sports' outfits the Japanese wear have to be seen to be believed (take a look back at the hiddeous sports uniforms the kids at Matsu-ko wore on the ensoku). So they're all stood around in their crazy outfits and then we're going to do some stretching. Fair enough. But this is taken very seriously, with several people sprawled out on the ground doing these elaborate stretches. In some cases they even assist each other; one lying on the floor the other pushing their knees back. It's a very strange sight.

Stretches done it's time to start. I think I have an electronic field around me which repels the ball, it NEVER seems to come near me (which is more than fine with me) although on second thoughts it's probably more because I'm quite happy to stand there and if it come my way I'll hit it but there's no way I'm enthusiastically diving for the ball at any given opportunity (and therefore skidding along the floor). Then when I do hit the ball, there's great exclaim from all my team along the lines of 'wow, Heren, great'. No, please don't - it's only the fourth time I've hit it all game.

Whenever we scored a point, my team members would all congratulate each other by slapping each others hands. This made me feel very uncomfortable, after being surrounded by the most unaffectionate people for two years I don't know how to deal with people coming up and slapping my hands, especially half of whom have never spoken a word to me and probably never will do again. (I think I've been in Japan too long)

Needless to say they take at all VERY seriously, we played one team that every time they lost a point, every member of the team dropped to the floor in a very dramatic fashion and rolled around. I think I was probably stood gaping in astonishment.

Then there is the poor person who lost them the point; bowing and apologising profusely. This all makes for a long game.

Half way through one of our games (we had been winning) a new teacher came to join our team, he was briefly told 'Ohka koko soft volleyball rules' but inevitably he made some mistakes. We ended up losing the game, I looked around and this teacher had disappeared. I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that he'd left because he felt so disgraced that he'd lost us the game. I hope I'm wrong.

During the third round, I sat out as we had an extra member. I looked across and the people stood on the side line were; kyoto sensei (vice principal), the caretaker and me. Perhaps I'm very cynical but I don't think this is any coincidence. All three of us are considered 'different' to the other teachers and therefore we're not really ever part of the team.

If you wanted to know the result ... our team came third. I won a box of tissues and some curry rice sauce.

So there you have it, my long winded insight into the fun team building sports afternoon at Ohka.