LETTER FROM HAPPY ENGLISH SCHOOL　　Nov.21st, 2017

LETTER FROM HAPPY ENGLISH SCHOOL　　Nov.21st, 2017

Hello. People say spring and fall in Japan are getting shorter and shorter year by year. This fall, we have got earlier autumnal leaves and more rainy days than usual. We haven’t had many nice cool and sunny autumn days what with typhoons and lingering wet weather. Climate change has arguably brought us unstable weather, which will cause more natural disasters.

Fortunately, the first day of the adults’ camp (Oct.8th) was really warm and sunny. We went on a city hike around the old parts of Sakai City. We visited Sakai Plaza of Rikyu (the Sakai-born great tea master) and Akiko (the Sakai-born great poet), Sakai Risho no Mori, and some temples and shrines which enlightened us on the long history of Sakai City. We also found it interesting to see once-prosperous shopping arcades with some new shops which were opened by young people, making the most of the nostalgic atmosphere of the arcades in the Showa Period (1926-1989). It seems that the atmosphere, on the other hand, is rather new, hip and even cool to their generations.

The next day, we made keychains from plastic boards and did some activities in English in the morning and Kino made a great speech titled “Understanding diversity and English learning” in the afternoon. We were impressed by his experiences as a coordinator for improving medical infrastructure, working in Djibouti, Sierra Leone and Fiji. He said people’s lives in those developing countries are more peaceful than we generally think and he tries to cater to local people’s needs by observing their situations and finding out what assistance enables them to solve their problems on their own. His work is to help local people in need to get on the road to supporting themselves.

Kino is supposed to go to Zimbabwe from December. We are worried about the situation in the country. It is in turmoil after a military coup. Now President Mugabe age 93 is under house arrest. I hope a peaceful transition of power will take place so that Kino will find it easy to work there.