いきいき牧場

Today the sign language circle visited a place called "Ikiiki Bokujou" on the outskirts of Morioka. It is a community for people with various mental and physical problems. About 50 people live there and they do simple work such as growing vegetables, sewing, newspaper folding and packing and so on. They also grow a herb garden and enjoy many events and activities throughout the year.

They are roughly divided into three groups; people with very light problems who are capable of organising themselves and lead fairly normal working lives on the farm or in the library, then there is the group who can work, but need a fair amount of supervision, then finally the group who have very severe problems.

The idea of the project is that it allows them to lead as close as possible to normal lives so they keep their brains and bodies active and use them to their full potential. They all live on site and work together to make a friendly and happy community.

We had a chance to talk to some of the people who were doing sewing. Everyone seemed so content in their work and they took as much time as they wanted to do whatever they were interested in doing. One lady was making a really beautiful cross-stitch cushion. It was certainly better than I could ever do!

If you ever have the chance, they are amazing people to meet.

Ikiiki blog (Japanese only)

July Cooking

This month we had a special request to learn how to make Quiche. So today we made a "Broccoli and Sausage Flan". Flan is the English name for the French quiche. This takes a really long time to cook in the oven though, so while we were waiting we made an old English favourite, "Sausage rolls".
Due to last night's earthquake, numbers were down a little, so we ended up with quite a lot to take home as well, so everyone enjoyed eating together and got to take something back for their families.

Summer Party

This year we had about 50 people come to the Zenrinkan summer party. The guests enjoyed some delicious food prepared by Hiroko, then had a chance to try lots of different activities organised by the teachers.
Alicia F had a Casino Night where the students could learn some words about poker and try playing (with fake money of course!).
Michiko helped people prepare a simple Aroma Therapy product using natural herbs and oils.
Gladys taught people a very energetic Latin dance which was almost like aerobics. Some very sweaty people came out of her corner!
Miura-sensei helped people write their tanabata wish using calligraphy brushes and ink. There was also a chance to write a Chinese character on a stone to take home.
Alicia S showed people all about American high school life in a photo presentation and discussion. Everyone was surprised how different it was to Japanese high schools.
In the hallway, Nicola taught an English traditional dance called Morris Dancing. As it involves hitting sticks together with your partner it was popular with the kids!
Rudy helped people make a bracelet that is popular in his state.
After everyone had tried their hand at the different activities, there were two quizzes - Chinese and English. In the Chinese quiz everyone guessed the meaning of Chinese words related to the Olympics using the sound and characters. Then the English quiz had two teams compete in front of everyone. Maybe the most entertaining part was the "picture relay" when four out of five members were shown a word and given 10 seconds per person to complete a picture of the word and then show it to the last member of their group who guessed what the picture should be.

Then the evening was finished off in the usual style with a song from the Saturday "Let's sing" group.