Bringing Knives to School Tomorrow’s forest Day,・they said. “Oh, ok,” I thought, “Whatever that means.” I was told we would be “cutting grass.” “Wear your rubber boots,” they said. Never mind the fact that I didn’t own any rubber boots, or never have for the entire expanse of my 23 years, for that matter. So I purchased some periwinkle slickers, \1050 at Funehiki Park. I was prepared for mud. I was prepared for rough terrain. I was prepared for bugs. I was even prepared for snakes…well, if you consider knowing that I would shriek like a dying cat if I saw one, being “prepared.” In spite of it all, though, as usual, I was not truly prepared for, well, today. I’ve heard stories about forest day. Well, just one, to be exact. I heard that last year’s ALT, Mike, borrowed a machete for the occasion. This I found quite humorous. From what I’ve heard about him, he was quite a jovial person, ready to cheer and make merry through whatever means necessary. So, the thought of him carrying a sizable blade to the rural, family-like junior high school evoked from me a smile and a chuckle. Last week I tried to share my amusement with my co-teacher, but when I told her I’d caught wind of the tale, she merely smiled and nodded her head. “Oh well,” I thought. “She’s probably just tired or busy.” This morning Kyoto sensei (vice principle) asked me with a goofy grin if I was ready for our adventure. I smiled back, communicating in my usual non-verbal way, “You betcha!” “ "So you brought your rubber boots?” Tamaki sensei asked me. Proud of my purchase, I confidently answered that I had acquired the appropriate footwear the night before. “And your knife? Did you bring that?” The smile faded. “Knife? I need a knife?” “Yes, of course. How do you think we cut the grass? I told you last week…” Well, I hardly thought not laughing at what I thought was a humorous story about last year to be “telling me that I needed a knife,” but she was visibly upset with me for not “heeding her warning.” My whole body turned a deep shade of crimson, and I could feel the top of my head start to tingle as I caught stares from all corners of the teachers lounge. I couldn’t contradict her. “No you didn’t tell me!” was not the appropriate response. But the appropriate response, try as I might, I could not find. So I just stared blankly like a publicly chided three-year-old and tried to hold back the rapidly developing tears. “Well, ok. I have two knives. I can lend one of mine.” It seemed the only solution to the “problem of my irresponsibility,” so it was solved. I would borrow the blade. And no more would be said about my apparent error. That was that. We continued planning for our 8th grade class. Later on, just before the start of our class, Tamaki sensei turned to me. “We’ll have to change our clothes quickly,” she warned. Whenever a Japanese person says “move quickly,” my nose starts to twitch for alarm. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a “quick” kind of person. I belong in Africa, or some other tropicsish-paced area of the world, this I have begun to grasp, but here I am, among people who, every day rush around like ants at a picnic, the final day before winter. When someone tells me we will have to move faster than “normal,” I know for sure I will be panting for air by the time whatever action I have to do is completed. Today was no exception. When the 2nd period “chime” rang (it might be irreverent to call the thirty-second-long-class-marker simply a bell), I altered my attire, took a tinkle, and slipped into my slickers in about 2 minutes flat. I ran outside, just as 100 pink, green, yellow, white, and multi-colored rubber boots began scurrying in the direction of our charter buses. The colorful boots all donned their most skin-concealing apparel—including long pants and sleeves, hats, towels around necks, and gloves. Might I remind you it is JUNE 27th? (or was, rather, when I wrote this 3 days ago…) But, we were, after all, trekking into the woods. We wouldn’t want to leave any part of our bodies unprotected. Too dangerous. Far too dangerous. Then, off we were. Into the wild blue yonder. Through rice fields and over bridges that I thought only capable of withstanding the breadth of a bicycle. I’m always amazed at the skill of some of these drivers. These buses seriously had about 1 inch between the rails and the tires on either side. Truly astounding. We stopped at the bottom of a dirt path, the end of which was hidden by a thick blanket of emerald undergrowth, and exited the air conditioning. From there on it was ji bun de, sanpo de, for all of us (well, except for our fearless leader, Kyoto sensei, who bravely suffered through the journey in his SUV.) So, up we went. Unfortunately “up” was not a direction I had derived from “forest day.” A better term for the excursion, I have decided, would be “mountain day.” Or, alternatively, “really high mountain day.” We trekked on and on—in our very supportive, good for the ankle…slickers. My feet stayed dry, that’s for sure. They were good to go. I can’t necessarily say the same for the joints connecting those feet to my legs… After what seemed about 45 minutes, our guide finally stopped. “Mizu! Mizu!” I heard students wheeze in all directions. “Sorry, we brought water last year, but not this year. Yeah, sorry about that,” I overheard a teacher explain. “Well, it’s a good thing we prepared for this adventure by wearing every piece of clothing we own!” I wanted to “explain” back. But I didn’t. So, dehydrated we stood. Through the long-winded explanation of the forest ranger. About how much we would learn on this adventure. What we were supposed to do. How it would help the environment. Yeah, whatever. We just wanted to chop things down. After the guy finally ran out of breath, we dispersed in all directions, ready to fell the bothersome scrub from the woods…and swing our blades in every which direction. I tried to stay with the 7th graders for the beginning, trusting the slightly shorter expanse of their arm swoops more than the rowdy 9th graders’. After a while, though, I got bored, and headed toward a more adventurous crowd. I ended up by two ninth graders, Hiroshi and Asami, and watched as they effortlessly cut through 1/2 inch-thick tree sprouts with their freshly sharpened blades. Seeing as my blade was a slightly older “borrowed” version, I had a little more trouble. I was hacking away at a particularly frustrating shrub when I heard Hiroshi complain about some “hari” on his plant. “Ha, I know that word,” I thought. Since it was an option for how my name would be translated, I had researched it before coming to Japan. “If it means ‘needle,’ then in this case, it must mean ‘thorn.’ “ Proud of myself, I went back to slashing. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I looked down at my bare hand. (Gloves were also something emitted from the “things to bring list”). Apparently, unbeknownst to me, the plant I had been futilely chopping at also possessed a considerable amount of “hari,” for, my right index and ring finger were covered with blood. Woops. “What should I do?!” thought I, not wanting to again draw attention to the fact that I had neglected to bring the gloves that “I was told to.” So, I turned to those students around me and beseeched them for tissues. None were to be found. “Well,” I thought, “I guess I’ll just wipe it on something.” I had managed to find ONE glove in my desk that morning, which was, at the time, guarding my left hand, so with that hand I grabbed my right and, slightly unsanitarily soaked up the sticky red liquid. Sometimes you just gotta make-do. (I did throw the glove out, by the way, when I got back…) After my unfortunate injury, we had only a few minutes to fell the remains of the forest (or whatever the heck we were supposed to be doing…I still haven’t figured it out), so I lingered hidden from other teachers eyes behind large trees, until the ranger “ikimashou”ed us out of the wild. Again I heard desperate gasps of “mizu” on our way back down, but I think we were so grateful to be heading back to air conditioning, that many of us forgot about how thirsty we were. On the downward journey, I ended up coming alongside a sweet 7th grader named Madoka. Every time she sees me in the hall, she always bats her eyelashes, gives a cute little wave, and in her most swoony voice, calls out, “Hiiii!” She never fails to bring a smile. But today was the first time I actually talked to her. We chatted away in Japanese about cookies and birthdays, the heat of summer and the craziness of boys…covering about every topic my limited Japanese would allow. The best part of it was: she was, in a way, apprehended. She had no classes to scurry off to, the lunch break chime wasn’t about to go off, and no teachers could really interrupt us to elicit some sort of homework from her. She was mine. For a full 20 minutes she was mine. I got back on the bus feeling quite full. After all, I had climbed a mountain fully-clad in the middle of summer without passing out, “worked” alongside my favorite kids, and had a delightful conversation—in Japanese with a beautifully-spirited 7th grader. I looked at the gashes on my hand, and my blood stained glove wrapped around the blade of my borrowed hatchet, rolled my eyes, and grinned. “Oh well,” I thought. “So, I forgot to bring my knife to school. I’ll remember next time.”