Accidents do happen

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This has been a bad week! On Monday after school I drove over to Matsukawa, a neighbouring town about 40 minutes north of Takagi. I needed to drop some photos off with my block leader Marion, who is an assistant English teacher in that town. She lives in a block of teacher flats, and when I got there I was struggling to park in a small area near to the entrance. I was in the process of reversing to give myself more room when someone drove behind me and I clipped the back of the car as I went back. It turned out to be one of Marion's JTEs (Japanese English Teacher), who I also know from karate class.

She came over to me once I was parked and asked if I was ok. I apologised and said I was fine - then she disappeared into her house. My car had a small circle of paintwork damage and I assumed hers must too, but I wasn't sure what else to do at that point. The next day Marion called me and said her teacher wanted to speak to me about insurance. I called her, but it was difficult talking on the phone - even though she is an English teacher, her spoken English is not that fluent. She said she wanted her insurance company to speak to me the next day. I agreed, but stressed my Japanese isn't up to an in-depth insurance conversation. Despite this, I had someone from her insurance company babbling on to me the next day, stressing me out no end when they ignored my protests (in Japanese) explaining my Japanese is pretty limited. I enlisted the help of my supervisor, who as ever was very supportive and helpful and dealt with the company for me. Unfortunately that lead to my school being informed and me being called into the vice principal's office to explain what happened (they take any sort of accident very seriously in Japan. Apparently if I'd got a speeding fine, I would have to publically apologise to all my colleagues. I'm hoping that isn't the case with minor prangs, but you never know). Next week I will have to go to the police station with the other teacher involved, to report the accident....I am really dreading this! Luckily, my new JTE, Suzuki-sensei, will come with me to translate for me, which will be a big help.

Other weird happenings this week - frogs seem to be taking over my village. During the day and especially at night, there is a deafening frog chorus. I guess it must be mating season! Aside from the din of mating frogs, I think something is trying to build a nest made of mud and straw above my front door. I was alarmed at first thinking it was the work of wasps, but I now suspect it is some little birds I've seen darting around. No sooner do I knock it down, the next day it is built up again. I wouldn't mind if it was anywhere else around my house, but over my front door bits of mud keep dropping on my head! Several of my friends have had mukade (giant poisonous centipedes) in their houses now the weather is warming up. Touch wood I haven't, but I put out some fake plastic ones in my bathroom to trick my friends with when they came over for a meal....so it will be karma now if the nasty beggars show up.

On a brighter note, I will be attempting to get up half an hour earlier tomorrow in order to see a rare "ring of fire" eclipse. Weather permitting, around dawn there will be an annular solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon moves across the sun, blocking all but a halo of light. An eclipse like this was last seen 932 years ago. I have bought myself some special Eclipse glasses to watch it with, so I hope I manage to see it now!

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