Translated by Inge Arnold
On the 6th day, students went from their host families to school to experience classes. It was difficult to understand the lessons in German: maths, science, social studies, Spanish.
A quick lunch, and the Fukushima students gave their speeches.
Firstly there was a 60 minute presentation about support work conducted in Iwate. Then Fukumotosan presented for 60 minutes about the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor disaster.
Then it was time for the Earthwalkers presentation. My contribution was cut to just 5 minutes as we were now short of time, but then we moved on to the students’ speeches.
It was really great.
Their pronunciation is still progressing, but it is really possible to see how much their have matured.
Especially Ryoma. In Dusseldorf he had forgotten his notes, so could have read his speech from my laptop, but chose to challenge himself with giving the speech without notes at all.
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With that experience under his belt, today he gave his speech without looking at his notes, and his expression and delivery was great.
Wasn’t it a blessing to forget your notes in Dusseldorf. We really can grow from our mistakes.
Miyu forgot her notes too once, I wonder if she will be next to memorise her speech?
After school, we visited the World Heritage Site of the Berlin Wall. On this day we were joined by Sascha Klinger, the Principal of a kindergarten in Miyazaki, who was visiting his hometown.
In 2011, Sascha and I did support work together in Ishinomaki, and have been friends ever since. He is a great supporter of Earthwalkers.
He was born and raised in Germany, in a time when the sweets in the West were colourful, and there were only black and white ones in the East. There were no “things”, and bananas were considered a real treat.
The days when you couldn’t go to the West, and the people who attempted to go to the West were shot while still on the East side.
The weight of his words really hit that day.
We also met up with Tony, who is now a student at the Berlin Free University, and was a host family for the first Fukushima Germany Project.
Finally, the students returned to school and their host families.
And I enjoyed dinner with old friends & Earthwalkers supporters.
We also featured in a news article on jiji.com.