Maybe I Am a Playboy?

[picture one: School concert and play at Geruma]
[picture two: Taken from Ama looking towards Zamami. There are two small, beachy islands in the foreground, Gahi and Agenashiku. Amuro is in the foreground on the right with Tokashiki in the background.]

I had hoped to make my inaugural kayak voyage to Geruma today for their school play that began at 10am, but wisely opted out after doing the high route run and encountering significant winds. On Thursday I met an American girl visiting Zamami because the Japanese girl whom I have a crush on waved me over to her restaurant that's near my house. It was a cruel bait-and-switch, but it enabled me to talk fluently in a language.

In a purposeful attempt at increasing my karma, I invited Jane (American) to Geruma with me yesterday to see the school play which I really knew nothing about. Jane has been staying on Zamami for a week and I realized how difficult it is for a visitor to get word of the cool local happenings without a cool local insider to tell you. So I told her.

It turns out the 'school play' was a instrumental concert, singing, taiko drumming, then speech-contest entrants (competition is in Naha) delivering their speeches, then an actual play set during the war (when the bombs hit I turned to Jane and said 'perhaps now we should leave?').

It was a great community event attended by few people, but only because the island has a population of just 70. The superintendent was there and asked me why I came. I said "because I wanted to!" He reminded me it wasn't in my contract and I reiterated my reasoning. I think this impressed him enough to forget my Halloween costume.

The inevitable assumptions and questions arose after I showed up with an unknown American girl. One teacher asked if she was my girlfriend and I tried with great difficulty to explain that I had only met her two days prior. During a moment of my floundering, the teacher pointed into my eyes and said "maybe you are a playboy?" and then he walked away smiling slyly.

The play ended at 12:30, 15 minutes after the boat had left for Zamami. The next boat wasn't until 3:30 so the Geruma English teacher, Ayano-sensei, lent me her car to explore Aka and Geruma with Jane! I only ever get off the boat and go to the schools so this was a wonderful opportunity. An interesting note on Ayano's car: she uses it only to drive the 1.5 miles from Geruma to Aka port so she can take the boat into Naha on weekends. She has been living on Geruma since April and I think she said she has filled the gas tank only once.