Each year a group of students from Tokyo’s Musashino Art University do a project with children in Kamibun.  It takes place in the old Junior High School and honestly we were very happy to help and excited to see inside the old school (which is almost always locked and unused).  The school was rebuilt just over 30 years ago and it probably stopped functioning as a school within the last 15 years or so.  Perhaps.  Inside, it’s almost perfectly preserved with a science lab, art rooms, lecture halls, a gymnasium, toilets, media room, biology room, studios, music halls, Headmaster’s room, staff room etc etc.  It was really wonderful, particularly to see everyone back inside and using as it was meant to be used.

It was our first event in Kamibun since moving in here and we were a little nervous.  Everyone else seemed to feel the same way.  The people in Kamibun are a lot more shy than some other places in Kamiyama.  It’s going to take some time for us all to feel relaxed with one another.
This project is clearly big event and the amount of shoes and slippers indicated just how busy the next two days would be.  Meet and greet.  Upstairs to the gym at the top of the school.  Everything laid out neatly; very well organised.  Laptops and chairs, tables and chalkboard decorations.  I’m not sure for how many years this event has been held, but it seemed very professional.  The gym was a little sweaty.

Introductions. Ice breaking.

All the clocks in the school had stopped.
Even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day, right.

The project this year was about animation, specifically stop-motion animation.  I wasn’t privy to the details but I imagine the digital cameras had a stop motion-film setting.  So, dividing all the kids into separate groups and filming little scenes and funny stuff in stop-motion then finally editing on the laptops.  Each separate film was then compiled into one and the following day we all watched it in a lime-green carpeted room.

I used to do stop-motions animation as a child and it was a lot of fun.  It makes the impossible possible.  The final film was very nice.  Playful and funny, creative and slightly sinister.  It’s a hard thing to do work with that many children and produce something meaningful at the end, but they did it.
Later, I had a walk around the school on my own.

I found a dessicated and split mukade.

In the evening there was a huge BBQ.

This is how to light a BBQ.

Later, Kamiyama’s Awa Odori ren arrived and began teaching everyone how to dance like a fool.  They had little LED’s in their lanterns.  I learned that the dance is linked with the way samurai used to walk (if you’ve seen any films with Mifune you’ll be able to imagine the style).  There’s lots of hip movement.  Anyway, I think I got the basics.

I did a little bit of tidying and clearing away.  In the afternoon a somen waterchute appeared and I ate too many somen.Musashino sensei tried to attact a dragonfly to his finger.

The Musashino students enjoyed frolicking in the river.

I hope next year we can be a bit more involved.  We felt a little leech-like.