I may or may not have mentioned this before, but the study abroad program I participated in last summer goes both ways. It's a little different for students coming to America, though. My understanding is that when the students of the English school are in middle school, interested students go to America for a week to experience America and tour schools (a high school and an English school) then later they can go to high school in America or graduate high school in Japan then go to English school and eventually community college in America. Or something like that. These are just some of the options I've seen.
Anyway, sometime after returning from Japan the program coordinator messaged me asking if I could host some students that December. I said I would love to and come my last final I quickly pack up, say goodbye to my friends, and hop on a bus home. The next morning I go to the airport to meet their leader (an Australian girl who was in the study abroad program with me) and the nine girls at the airport. Recognized most of the girls from lessons at the English school and it was wonderful to see everyone again. Corgimama (the Australian girl, their bilingual America trip coordinator) was exhausted and the girls wanted to shop so being familiar with the airport I took the girls to the shops upstairs. Had seven of them with me and took them around to various shops, counting to seven a lot to make sure everyone was there. Let me tell you, it's a lot to keep track of seven girls wandering around shops. Often they would point at things and ask me what they were and I did my best to explain in my limited Japanese or simple English.
Corimama and me worked together to show the girls around the city for the day before taking them back to a hotel for the night. The next afternoon, the girls were going to various host families for the weekend, my family being one of the host families. There were a lot of girls, so I was asked to host three girls. Originally three high school girls were going to stay with me, but two middle school girls who were my students previously said they wanted to stay with me so things got changed a little :D. My mom and I picked up the three girls and I did my best to translate for my mom when asking questions or explaining where we were going. Actually tried my best to translate a lot that weekend despite not knowing much Japanese (the girls knew more English than I knew Japanese but I tried anyway). Because I knew the girls, I didn't mind messing up a lot while trying to speak Japanese Sometimes they would say "Juno, we don't know what you are saying" 😂.
Over the weekend, we took them to a Christmas tree farm (and met Santa!), the mall, mini golf, and the zoo, which had a special event going on where everything was covered in Christmas lights. The girls also taught me how to make onigiri and origami. They instructed me in Japanese and despite not knowing what they were saying sometimes I managed to understand what they wanted me to do (learned a lot of new words too!). I'm not particularly good at either but they were patient with me and laughed with me at my mistakes. There was a lot of fun had and speaking in a mix of languages to communicate. We shared our cultures and I got to share my home with some of the people that welcomed me into their community that summer.
When I took them to the mall, they would often come up to me and ask what things were. It was super cute (well, basically everything they did was super cute but I found this particularly cute). We also yelled a lot and otherwise had a good time while playing mini golf. Spoke very little English while playing so my parents were just watching on wondering what was happening XD. Something else really funny is due to both jet lag and the magical ability of Japanese people, the girls fell asleep if they were in a vehicle for more than 15 minutes. At one point I was sitting in the back seat of the car with one of the girls and hugged her because she was cold then she proceeded to fall asleep in my arms for the remainder of the 45 minute car ride. Something really funny that they liked was "uh huh" so while waiting in line at the zoo we said "uh huh" a lot and were otherwise ridiculous. They also had me recite all of hiragana then when I successfully did that one said "welcome, you are Japanese now." When it finally came time to drop them off at their hotel near the airport, they all said "see you again!" before we parted. The optimism and happiness was so adorable. So many precious memories that I could never fit into one blog post. These girls will forever be part of my life.
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