The Good-bye

Mayu left today.  She and her class will go to Banff for a day, and fly home to Japan tomorrow.

It's been a great visit, but the truth is that I was a little annoyed yesterday.  I asked her in the morning what she wanted for dinner, and she asked for beef (which is a delicacy in Japan).  I made her a hamburger with all the fixings.  She seemed to enjoy it but after dinner was over, she went into her room and shut the door.  I was on my own for the rest of the night, and feeling frustrated. After the last couple of weeks, I didn't understand why she didn't want to spend time with me.

This morning, we got up and ate a quiet breakfast.  She finished packing, and it was time to go.  I helped her with her luggage and then went to stand in the crowd.    Mayu stood with me, but her friends gathered around and they spoke Japanese.  I'll admit to feeling unappreciated.

When the bus arrived, Ryoko, one of Mayu's friends who had spent a lot of time at my house, came to say goodbye.  Then Nanako, who stayed next door with Jen, came to say her farewells.   Finally, I turned to Mayu.  I told her how great it had been to meet her, that I had had a wonderful time, and that I wished her all the best.  She said a simple thank you, and turned to go.  She took two steps before she crumpled to the ground and started to weep.

My stoic girl who had been so quiet and hard to read all this time couldn't be consoled.  She cried for ten minutes, until they boarded the bus and I waved her off as they drove away...  tears running down my cheeks by then as well.

After I came home, I went into the room where she'd been staying, I discovered that she'd left me a gift and a letter.  Where she only had a vocabulary of about 10-15 English words a few weeks ago, she had worked really hard to write three (short) pages of gratitude, and to tell me what she liked most about our time together.    No doubt, it'd taken her hours to write that.  I realize now that that is what she'd been doing last night.

Drumheller...

Today was the day that Mayu and I went to Drumheller.  And, my wonderful dad agreed to tag along as well.  He said he wanted to go and see the sights, but I strongly suspect that he came because he knows that his daughter is directionally challenged incapable.  Which I am.  I thought maybe we could find Drumheller with the assistance of google maps, but realized once we were there that I would have had trouble... we maybe might have ended up in Montana... and I never would have found the little side trips.  I was happy to have him come as navigator.

So, anyway, the three of us went to Drumheller.  I took loads and loads of pictures, because I'm putting together a CD of them to send home with Mayu.  Some of the key ones are below:

(Some of these pictures were taken through the window of a moving car, and may not be entirely focused)

Windfarms, which are popping up across Alberta

Bleriot Ferry, which uses the power of the river's current and some stationary cables to move back and forth and carry up to about 6-8 cars across the river.  

I've decided that I want a career change.  I want to be the guy who rides the ferry back and forth all day and waves the vehicles on and off.

An oil Derrick, because this is Alberta.

We spent about three hours at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology, learning about dinosaurs and seeing fossils.  We were able to rent a little machine that had a pre-recorded guided tour in Japanese for Mayu.  At each major exhibit, she put it to her ear and listened to a description of what she was seeing and other related scientific tidbits.

After the museum, we stopped to see the HooDoos.

I realize now that by working so hard to get shots without  tourists in the background, I took away any sense of scale.  Each of these hoodoos are about 10-12 feet tall.

Then we stopped to cross a suspension bridge that crosses the Red Deer River.  It goes over to an abandoned mine, which is closed, so the point is to cross it, get jostled around and not fall on your ass.  It's essentially made of chain link, so it was a wobbly trip.

Really, though, what I liked most was the scenery.  I think I may have scared my dad when I started to point out the houses for sale and talk about the costs/logistics of moving to the area.  

After the suspension bridge, we took a roundabout route home and stopped north of Calgary at the Cross Iron Mills Mall.  (Mayu is a 16 year old girl, after all.)  We managed to track down gifts for each of her parents, and chocolates for her - and I quote - "homies".  I did not teach her that word.

We got home in the early evening, ate some left over pizza for dinner and watched the Mr Bean movie.  (For the record, Mr Bean transcends language barriers, and is apparently laugh out loud funny to Mayu as well.)    It was a good but very long day.  I was (am) absolutely exhausted.  I felt like I needed toothpicks to keep my eyes open to get to the end of the movie, but Mayu was enjoying it and I knew that she'd go to bed if I did.  

When it was finally over,  I went to let the dogs out for their final pee of the day and I realized that tonight is the first night since Mayu arrived that it's been a clear sky.  She had three wishes when she arrived in Canada - see the mountains, taste maple syrup and see the stars.  The stars are the last one on her list to do, so we couldn't pass it up.  We jumped into the car in our sandals, pjs and wet hair  and headed down the road to the edge of town.  There, Mayu got a clearer view of the stars than she's ever seen before.  (Apparently, the cities are so bright in Japan that stars are very dim, as well as few and far between.)  

I don't know the constellations very well, but I showed her the big dipper and the north star.  Then we got back into the car, opened up the sun roof and Mayu rode home with her neck cranked, looking up through the sun roof to watch as many stars for as long as she could.

Pizza Night

Tonight I had three Japanese girls and Jen over for pizza.  Jen was running a little late, so the girls and I entertained ourselves by practicing Italian.  I recently bought a phrase book for my visit in Italy.  I'd say a phrase in English, they'd translate to Japanese and then I'd slaughter the otherwise beautiful Italian language.

How sad is it that "I want a kiss" and "are you gay?" are at the front of the  phrase book?  Not far behind it was "leave me alone" and "stop bothering me".  Come to think of it, if I knew that the book contained a section for Romance, I might have chosen another one.

Before I serve the Japanese girls anything, I give them small tastes.  Tonight, I gave them some ground bison that I'd cooked earlier... I didn't think to warn them.  While they were chewing (after they said it was good) I told them it was buffalo.  Mayu choked in her surprise, and then got a case of the giggles that lasted a good ten minutes.  I guess they learned about the wild buffalos that used to roam Canada in school today, but she never guessed that we'd eat it.

Photos were taken of dinner tonight, which I'm learning is a good sign.  One girl, Nanako, took pictures of my kitchen to show her mom... I hope she doesn't think I'm a slob, as I was in the middle of making pizza dough, and had all the toppings chopped up and spread out.  There were also many, many shots of the dogs, and for some reason, the dogs toys.  José (Tallulah's pet rat) seemed to fascinate them, and was featured in many pictures - with and without Tallulah. 

Tomorrow, I get a lesson in cooking Sushi.  I was worried when I heard that, but I've been assured that it can and often is made without fish.  I will have to report back about that, because I thought sushi was a fish dish by definition.

Annoying Canadians

Yesterday we went to a pot luck birthday party for one of the Japanese girls.  Although I saw most of them on the day that we picked up our girls for the first time, this was the first time that I spent any quality time with any of the host Canadians.

This might sound all judge-y and negative, but I didn't like them.  I thought that, as a whole, they made apoor impression and I wasn't happy that they were the people representing our country.  Frankly, they seemed like white trash to me.

For example, the "dishes" that everybody brought to the pot luck consisted of 10 bags of chips or Dorritos, 3 macaroni salads - two pre-made at the grocery store, some beans, three pots of rice and a spinach salad.  Take a wild guess who brought the spinach salad? (Me.)

There was a lady there who had a 2 month old baby.  She waved that baby around like it was an accessory and not a human being.  After a while, I had to get up and move because there was only so many times that I could smile, coo, or say how cute she was.  Except, shortly after I moved, the boyfriend - not the father - took the baby, sat beside me and started to feed her formula.  He then spent the next 10 minutes telling me that even though he'd only known her for a few weeks, he felt like her father.  And look - she had blue eyes, just like him.

I got up again and started to clean up.  We'd been there a half hour... the others, who had arrived about an hour before us, all got up and left and made no move to help with the cleanup.  I spend over an hour cleaning others' messes.  I had to really watch myself at that point, not to be the cranky b!tch I felt like being.



Shortly before bed, Mayu  told me that she'd been invited to go to the house where her friend is staying.  She didn't know where they live, how they'd get there or how she'd get home but I didn't want to say she couldn't go.  This morning, we talked about it again and I told her I'd meet her at school so that I could talk to the other host mom.  If you can believe it, that host mom was a no show - she didn't pick up her girl from school... just left her hanging with no phone call to the school or anything.  In fact, she didn't even pick up her cell when we tried to call.

We stood around and waited for over a 45 minutes before the program director finally decided to take Mayu's friend home (and hope there would be somebody there to let her in).  I do realize that Mayu is 16, relatively independent and intelligent but there's no way I'm letting her go there.  So, instead, I told her friend that she could come to my house for pizza tomorrow.  I'll have to call the other host mom tonight and make arrangements.   I'm a little afraid she won't pick her up then either, but I guess the worst that will happen then is that the girls will have a sleep over.

Teenage Angst

• Dinner last night was a success, I think.  I made beer stew, and after Mayu tasted it she got up, went to her room to get her camera and then came back and took a picture of her plate.  We didn't talk about it, but I'm choosing to take that as a compliment.

• I do have to watch myself, because I think our culture tends to keep ourselves busier than the Japanese do.  It's quite common for Mayu to just sit quietly and stare ahead at nothing.  My instinct when I see her do that is to assume that she's bored and give her something to do; but I'm starting to suspect that quiet time to sit and think is what she needs.  (It makes me glad that I also put a chair in the spare room before she arrived, so that she has a chance to get away from all my hustle and bustle.)

• Yesterday was a bit upsetting.  Nanako, who is the girl staying with my friend Jen, and who we spent the weekend with, planned an impromptu party last night and didn't invite Mayu.  Jen and I  had planned for me to take both girls last night, so that Jen could go to a meeting.  However, when Mayu came home, she said that Nanako had made other plans.  I soon got a call from Jen, who said that her husband was inundated with a gaggle of girls in his living room and didn't know what to do.  I asked around covertly and confirmed that Mayu had not just chosen not to join them but was in fact not invited.    We couldn't force Nanako to invite Mayu (nobody wants to be that girl who is only there because the adults say she has to be invited), but it didn't seem right.  While it may be different in their culture, the general consensus around here is that if you are part of a group or small class, and some of that groups makes plans without you, then it feels like you have been deliberately excluded.  I got all mama bear and set about making sure that Mayu had a great night without the other girls.  We didn't have a lot of luck with our plans, but I think she had fun.

• We tried to go paint pottery, but that store is closed on Mondays.  Then we decided to go out to a par 3 and introduce Mayu to golf - a storm blew in and there was lightening, thunder and funnel clouds.  Golfing wasn't meant to be, so we ended up shopping.  We went to Chapters so that I could get a Japanese/English dictionary and we could look through some books on Japan.  Then we wandered around a pet store, where Mayu seemed to fall in love with guinea pigs.  Finally, we set off to Michaels, so that she could pick out beads.  The next time we have a slow night, I told her that we would make jewelry together.

• With the long weekend coming up, I wasn't sure what we'd do.  I was waffling between the Calgary zoo and Lake Louise.  My mom suggested that I take her out to Drumheller to see the dinosaur museum.  Honestly, she's such a girly-girl that I ruled it out right away.  However, when I asked her about the weekend and gave her the three choices, she jumped on the dinosaurs.  I've come back to it a few times to make sure that she understands what she's picking (I can't imagine picking bones over mountains), but she seems adamant.   I've shown her pictures, and she wants to see the "Die-no-soars".  So, I guess we're heading to Drumheller for a day on the weekend.

The Farm Tour

We took the girls out to a farm tour yesterday, so that they could get an idea of what agriculture is like in Alberta. I suspect that a lot of the talks went over their heads, but we tried to explain the basics to them and I think just the sights were something for them to experience.  And, they got to taste local produce at each stop, which they seemed to like.

Last year, when I went on this tour, I didn't think to bring my camera.  This year, I did bring it but I inadvertently left the telephoto lens instead of the usual one.  I took loads of pictures, but most of them were of the girls from a distance (telephoto lens) when they were unaware.

So - some shots of what we saw...


Cherry tomatoes, growing in the greenhouse

They're already ~20 feet tall, and will keep growing taller until November.  You can kind of see supports along the ceiling between the rows in this shot - the plants are tied to lines that hang from the supports.  As they grow taller, the tomatoes are more productive near the tops of the plants, to the lines that support them are lengthened and the bases of the plants are stripped of leaves and wrapped around the pots.  By fall, there won't be any space to walk between the pots.

This is brussels sprouts, I think, although the truth is that the plants looked exactly like cabbage to me.

This is definitely cabbage in this shot.  There are four different kinds, but I mostly took this shot for the girls because of the derrick. We have derricks all over oil-rich Alberta ... Except, now that I look at it again, I don't think that's a derrick.  I think it's farm equipment of some sort.

Asparagus.  So pretty, I might just grow it in my gardens next year for its aesthetics.

We actually got the girls to use a pitch fork and then dig around in the dirt with their hands for potatoes.
I'll bet they never expected that they'd be doing that on this visit.

Artichokes!  In Alberta.  The last farm we went to is expanding its horizons, and trying new techniques to grow produce that until now has been considered impossible for our weather.  They had rows of artichokes and celery to show off their success.

Then there are about 50 shots of the girls in the fields. We spent quite a bit of time in the strawberry fields, in particular.  Strawberries are a special treat in Japan, so it was just great to watch them skip around the field, filling up on something they clearly love.

Both girls are so pretty and graceful to watch, I wished I had a video camera.   I felt almost like a stalker, as I snapped shot after shot of them tip toeing through the fields or bending to pick produce, but I was very open about it.   They looked up periodically and saw me with my camera pointed at them, and didn't seem to mind.  I got some great shots that I'll pass on to them and their families, but but since they are only 16 with limited ability to communicate, it wouldn't be right for me to share them publicly.  I am actually kind of sad that I can't post them here.

Hand Gestures

Lucky for me, body language and hand gestures are universal.

Our students, Mayu and Nanako, arrived on Friday.  Mayu, who is staying with me,  speaks very, very little English, but we are making it work.  There's a lot of me waving her towards me, and holding the index finger up wait, and thumbs up for good.   I wonder if she noticed if these are the same gestures we use with Jen's deaf bulldog?  If she has, I hope she doesn't take offence.

So far, we've mastered "I like"  and "I don't like", "I want" and "I don't want", "I am full", and the big one: "OK" and "Not OK".    For the first day, everything was OK, so I wasn't sure that she understood that things could be not OK. Mayu is such a respectful and accommodating girl that at first, I was afraid that she'd go along with me and do or eat things she doesn't like rather than risk being rude.    Thankfully, I think we've got it worked out and she's managed to tell me when something isn't to her liking.


This, of course, means that I'm now going to broaden her horizons and try new things with her, expecting her to tell me when she doesn't like it.

Yesterday, the four of us went to the local market.  The girls, who have never met each other before,  didn't even really talk amongst themselves as they followed Jen and I around.  They did laugh at the silver guy acting like an Elvis statue.  Then we took them to the spa and we each got pedicures.  They seemed a little stunned at first, but I think they liked it.

After that was the breakthrough.  We took the girls to the grocery store to buy the food for their stay.  They laughed and laughed.  I don't think they've ever seen so much food being purchased at once.  If they pointed at something, we bought it.  If they said "I like" to something, we bought it.  (Within reason).  Eventually, we had a cartful for the four of us, which I don't think is unreasonable for four people for two weeks, but the girls seemed surprised about the volume.

I was expecting her to not like most of our foods, but so far she has seemed OK with it.  There have been a few things that got an apologetic "I don't like" but for the most part, I get a smile and an "OK" as she tastes new things.  This morning, I even got a request for more pancakes with maple syrup.  I've heard horror stories about how our food tends to make the Japanese sick, because it's so different from theirs.  I suspect, though, that that's the processed food that we North American's eat.  I've been giving her simple, whole food with an emphasis on fresh fruits and veggies and trying to cut back on the dairy.  So far, as far as I can tell, it seems to be working.

Today we are off to do a farm tour.   A local co-op of 5 farms that work together do an annual appreciation day where the public is welcomed out to their farms and given a tour.  Some friends and I went last year and had a blast, so we're hoping that the girls like it just as much today.

Tomorrow, they'll start "school" for week.  We aren't sure what will happen after that - if they'll want to hang out with the other Japanese students in the evening or if they will want to spend time with us.  We have some rough plans for things we could take them to, but for now we're thinking we'll play next week by ear.

Irasshai

That's "welcome" in Japanese.  It isn't the word I thought it was going to be, but I've got a lot to learn over the next couple of weeks.

Tomorrow, a young girl from Japan will arrive to stay with me for two weeks.   I don't know much about her - she's 16, and is here to learn about Canada.  She'll be going to school down the road from me, says she's shy, and that her English is "not good".

My friend Jen, who lives across the road from me, is also taking in a Japanese student.  She talked me into it but it didn't take much convincing; we both agree that it'll be easier for us and the girls if we both have support groups near by (across the road).

I was matched with my girl (Mayu) because I have previous ESL experience, she wants to learn about nature in Canada and because she doesn't like seafood (of which I'm allergic).  She also likes Japanese Pop music, which I've never heard and likes to dance.  She says she can't dance well, so hopefully she won't judge my lack of dance moves.

For the next two weeks, my job will be to show her around Central Alberta, have fun and teach her all things good about Canadians.  I can hardly wait.