Rina is Yoshito's older sister and it showed more and more every day. Not just because they both look very alike, but because they fought and bickered and then made up and then beat each other up like only siblings could. Needless to say, I got to be quite good at anticipating a fight, listening for crying and then restraining both of them at the same time. Thanks to these two, I got to work on my strict disciplinarian skills this past month too!
Aya is an 11 year old girl who tagged along on this trip for reasons no one is entirely sure of. Weighing all of 65 lbs, Aya was prone to fits of tears and breakdowns when it came time to train karate because she saw that she was (by far) the smallest of all the students (not to mention the fact that the men and boys all looked like they wanted to take off eachother's heads whenever they were together. In a friendly way of course...). I feel quite bad for Aya (and also ashamed of myself) because after the first week of their stay, she still spoke no English words to anyone and even when I spoke to her in Japanese she would only stare at me blankly and then run off giggling, so I started to think that maybe she was a little bit... slow. I'm thinking now that she was just overwhelmed by everything being so incredibly opposite of her life in Tokyo.
Takuya is probably the sweetest and most bashful little 13 year old I've ever met. By far his most endearing quality was that he tried so hard to speak to me and to keep everything clean and together for the whole group.
Finally there was Hiryu who could be a little bit of a bully and a little bit of a kill-joy. This only child was the only one out of the group, who, when asked if they were excited to go back home to Japan, fervently said yes.
No comments:
Post a Comment