before summer's completely over -

So I do have more written in a draft for this blog - but I'd been working on it late at night, and when I read what's there during the day, like right now, it sounds like drunken nonsense. Heavy editing needed!

I was too busy most of the time during the last couple of weeks or more to really write anything, and since getting back to Boston I've been spending all my time looking for a place to live - I've tried as much as I can not to forget too many details, but it's impossible to keep everything in after so much time concentrating on other things. I finally signed a lease, though, and will be able to move in soon - this weekend or on Wednesday at the latest. While I go over my photos and try to remember more, the Nou En blog has some great posts with photos and videos from the time that I was there. There should be a link on this page - look for Nou En Sasayama.
I've also been having frequent bouts of Japan withdrawal despite being so busy trying to get back into things here - I've been looking at websites recently for schools in Osaka that teach month-long Japanese language courses... already thinking about next summer!
If I look back to the last post written about day to day events back at Tsuji, I think I dropped off around the time we had all those kids stay at the house for the first day camp event. It was a lot of fun, but by the time that video on Nou En was taken, where Hanno and Faye are playing and singing while all the kids walk around on their futons, I was half passed out in the next room. I remember listening to them singing but just couldn't get up to join the fun. Why I was so tired, I can't remember.
From what I was told, most of the kids aren't from that area - they live in much more densely populated towns like Sanda, and so didn't really have any experience doing fun stuff like swimming in a mountain stream, picking tomatoes, chasing frogs, or lighting fireworks in a pitch black field at night. It was a great time for everyone, Tsuji has held similar events at least a few more times since then, and the day camp idea is continuing to evolve over there as a potential way to make Tsuji, the house full of WWOOFers in Sasayama, self sufficient - as it is, the host family has to pay out of pocket for most of the expenses, because we work for food and stuff like soap and towels, not money - but the house is rented and there are electricity, internet, and water bills to pay, in addition to other things. If they can figure out how to balance out income with expenses and get the house to basically run itself, they plan on trying to open more houses in the future. I really hope they can figure out how to make it happen, and I'm hoping to go back next year and help out on my next trip.
Next - when I'm on my laptop and have uploading access to my photos - the return trip to that shrine we found when we got lost!

sasayama photos - click on the picture

I'm going to try to upload all the good ones here, onto picasa - there are lots of blurry and doubled ones to sort through though, so I'm adding them in small batches

where the hell am I?

I am really disoriented! It's like being in two places at once, but then not really being in either. the trip back was dragged out by another day, first because the flight out of Narita was delayed 5 hours, and then because I had to sleep in Toronto because I'd missed the connecting flight. They did put us up in hotels, at least.
My brain's been completely scrambled since about 3-4 hours into the wait wandering around in Narita, trying not to get bored during my last hours in Japan. There's a small shopping mall full of restaurants in the airport, so there was a lot to see when you've got 7 hours to kill, but it was still difficult, physically and psychologically. The trip itself was pretty rough, as well. Got back into Boston yesterday morning, felt drunk and stupid all day. My ankles had swelled up like balloons, and I could not think straight at all. I slept terribly last night, drifting in and out of confused dreams mostly in Japan, and whenever I woke up enough to remember where I was, this splitting headache would force me back under. My first Dunkin Donuts coffee in over a month is good, but not quite as good as I expected it to be, if you know what I mean.
I really want to write about and relive more of the things that happened on the trip, but right now just trying to reground myself in Boston is taking a lot of focus. I'm going to head out to the office at MIT and try to catch up on what's going on there to try to give myself some sense of the old routine, and hopefully start to get my balance back again. I'm so happy I went, but of course now I'm also sad that what has become a really meaningful place in my life is on the other side of the world and not easy to go back to whenever I feel like it. No doubt, though, I'll be working on my language skills and heading back there whenever I can save enough money and repress enough of my fear of airplanes to make it happen. Sasayama definitely started to feel like a second home, and on top of that I have friends that live all over the damn world now - after just living and working in Boston for over 15 years, this has been a seriously valuable experience!

I'm very aware of the fact that as time goes by, more and more details slip from my memory- like the smell and sound of the woods up the dirt path by the swimming hole - the million different kinds of sound the cicadas make, the unending stream of bad puns that flows from Toby's Aussie mouth - unfortunately, for me to sit down and really write a lot, I'd need to monopolize the only computer here in addition to having to remove myself from all the activity. So, now that the end is coming I should soon have more time to concentrate, and hopefully the 1500 plus photos I've taken so far will help keep my memories pretty fresh until then. I need to do this for myself as well as for all of you, and all of the new friends I've made here who have been sharing the same amazing experiences. It's pretty heartbreaking to think that we're all just passing through, and will never all be here or in any one place at the same time again.

Happy/sad/yakuza ja nai!

Photos are torture to try to upload from the computer here, otherwise I'd be posting a lot more! Did half a day of weeding for a farmer this morning (the bean field photos are from today)- he and his wife then took us to Sasayama city for lunch and then to an onsen after stopping at the train station to say goodbye to our resident translator and all around good shit, Hanno. I got kicked out of the baths when someone finally noticed the towel I never took off. The farmer, whose name I really need to learn, then bought us all bowls of soft fresh made tofu with ponzu (...that you can get right next to an ice cream stand...) at the onsen's shops -I think he felt bad because he could tell I felt awful about getting booted from the baths- they were really over the top generous to us today for some reason! Then we came back and worked for a little longer at Tsuji, I touched some hellfire flower pollen or something while tying tomatoes and my inner elbows got insanely itchy, we went to a Kendo lesson taught by a friend of Gen-san's, made asses out of ourselves, tore our pansy gaijin feet to bits on the maple gym floor, then went to another festival on the way home. Phew. And now, work at 6 again tomorrow! Need to plan my last week -Soon-
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