Lithuania & Swans

Yesterday morning, I went to FIK for another World Friends Day. This one was presented by a man from Lithuania. He was well meaning, but it wasn’t the most exciting presentation I’ve attended. I think it’s really cool that the school holds these events. The Principal said they had hosted people from over 40 countries in the past few years. I think she does it to promote diversity in a society that has little- one of the reasons they were happy to accept Catie as a student. Plus, it’s a nice change in routine for the kids. Today they are being visited by a large (person dressed up in a big plush suit) character from a Japanese cartoon. I don’t think parents are invited to this one, but I’m sure I’ll hear about Goaity on the playground. 

I was also amused by the new table names. FIK has 4 tables where the kids to eat lunch and do projects. Each child and their partner are assigned to a table. The current table names are: Turkey (Catie & Anna are turkeys), Scarecrow, Pumpkin, and Persimmon- not a name you'd hear in the US! I love it!

Catie had a new confidence yesterday. She raised her hand every time someone asked a question or needed a volunteer. Unfortunately she thought Lithuania was in Madagascar. We're taking baby steps :-)

A pig pile of FIK students looking at a book

They were playing a Lithuanian version of duck-duck-goose

 

Juju is the fashion maven of FIK. I'm really going to miss seeing her outfits everyday.

After World Friends Day, Reiko & Ichika came back here for lunch and we hung out until pick-up time. Then we took Haruto & Catie up to Takamatsu no Ike to feed the swans. There were a couple of hundred swans on the lake. It was beautiful! As I was trying to explain to Reiko, I’ve never seen wild swans before, at least not huge numbers of them. This time of year, the skies of Morioka are filled with honking Vs of migrating swans. Even the swans on the lake couldn’t stay put. There were constant new arrivals and departures- presumably to the other swan wintering areas on the local rivers. It is a noisy, exciting time to be up at the lake. 

the swans were not the only creatures being fed

We could see a huge group of swans across the lake, but they never came over to our side of the lake.

We also had another fun leaf fight. We were making so much noise that we attracted the attention of a photographer! He ended up taking a bunch of photos of us and offered a posed photo of the 5 of us as a gift for allowing him to photograph us. I’m interested to see how it comes out!

Here comes TROUBLE!

 

Catie & Haruto amused themselves by climbing to the top of this hill and then sliding on their butts down it. It did look like fun, but the 2 of them were COVERED in mud!

After sliding, they discovered that burying each other in leaves was fun. Haruto was pretty gentle, but Catie was a brute!

"I said STAY DOWN!"