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Published: June 16th 2008
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Went out Saturday night and on the way to the subway the 3 of us found 22000 yen and a sucia card ($220 and a $7 card to get on the subway)! Met some girls at the club - thought that they were our age but ended up being 35-40!!! THEY LOOK SO YOUNG HERE! Got home at about 2-2:30, took a taxi (we were able to with the money we found!) and it actually was only $8 for all 3 of us (Haley, Chelsea and I).
Went to a flea market in Tokyo Sunday, thought it'd be bigger but was less than 10 booths, but still neat to see all of the old stuff, got a few things. Walked around a bit in that area of Tokyo (actually felt like Japan!) and there was a Jazz Scramble going on with lots of music, but it was full and we couldn't get in. At the Metro Station there was this bread store where they had bread all over the place (freshly baked and pasteries).. you grabbed a tray and some tongs and got what you wanted then went to pay and they bagged it for you. Got some bread and
a pastery to take home.
Had my first day with the kids today. Got to the compound at 8 to get ready and walked to the gate to get the kids at 845. At the gate I get the kids out of the cars - the parents pull up to it since they aren't allowed in and I just take them out of the car, the parents aren't allowed out. Then I take them to the gate entrance and they go meet up with the group. Went inside to get started and it was crazy! Not all of them speak english, a lot were shy, and some crazy. They wouldn't all listen, we were suppose to go to the pool and it was closed because someone pooped in it and to much chlorine got put in to shock it. So all of our programming was screwed up and we had to pull things out of our butts to figure out what to do and the kids were getting bored I think. I got so stressed out, I wanted to go back to Iowa by lunch time. We made a pretty sign w/ glitter and some kids scratched a lot
Another Shrine
This was at the place where the flea market was of the glitter off and wouldn't stop so we had to take it down, I got left in the room a couple times by myself and that was crazy too, especially because this one boy was hanging all over me and I couldn't move to look around and make sure everything was ok. Then we went to the park and went back to the room and was putting away sunscreen (which is hard to get it on them because we aren't allowed to help so they have it globbed everywhere) and looked at the last name and found out it was sophia's so I looked around for her and couldn't find her, then this little girl said it was hers (we thought she was sophie) and then we started looking for sophie and couldn't find her. We thought we had 20 kids - and thats how many we had in the room - but I looked at the list and we were suppose to have 21... soooo scary, I thought we lost a kid. We couldn't find Sophie anywhere, I thought we left her at the park. But no one claimed her at the gate when we took the 1/2
day kids back so we got a little less worried. Then Sophie's mom came and said that she had a DR. appt today and thats why she wasn't there. WHEW! Sophia raised her hand during roll call twice! (Once for Sophie and once for her) That was 1 hr of pure terror. Lunch time went well the older panther cubs join us for lunch. Their lunches are so cute the japanese mom's make real meals like rice and meat in these cute little boxes. Not just sandwiches. The afternoon went amazingly better. The kids were singing songs with us and playing and we had fun. Only one kid cried a lot but he got better as the day went on, he'd just start crying in spurts after the first 1/2 hr. The kids are sooo cute! Sad that they won't be there all summer though. I wasn't to impressed with our POC.... at the gate she was yelling at the parents to not get out of their car (well talking sternly but I still wouldn't be happy if I was the parent) and to hurry up and that they couldn't buckle their kids up they had to drive down the
street and then get out to do it. We just put the kids in the car and shove them on their way, we can't buckle them in either. A lot of parents asked about it, but hopefully we'll find a happy median to make it work and safer. We learned a lot of things on how we would like the days to run better and are going to work on how it goes, hopefully it will keep getting better! It already did this afternoon so yea. I'm exhausted!!! Going to do some laundry and then crash.
I figured out how camp A works. The contract partners (embassy for ex.) pay so much for each counselor and thats what pays for our tickets, stipend, rooms. The Embassy Compound charges around $500 a week for each kid if they're coming all day long and live off the compound, $250 if they're coming half day and live off base or live on the compound (either full or half day). So they're raking in the dough! But Camp A doesn't get much money, they use the money they get to get us here.
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