today is tanabata, a 'holiday' here in japan. i'm not sure why it's celebrated, it seems kind of sad to me (only see your lover once a year for a few hours...) at japanese class yesterday, we got a little cultural information about it. first we read the story (in japanese, but there was english translation on the hand out they gave us), then we made origami stars, then we cut origami paper into triangles and glued them together, then we got a puff ball thingy (ha! whatever, mine was a pineapple) and then we wrote our wishes on some paper (in japanese). after that, we hung all our decorations on a bamboo branch that the director brought for us. we got to take our tanabata trees home, so maybe i'll let the kids add on to mine.
yesterday when tommy got off the bus, the teacher told me he had butsu-butsu. i have NO IDEA what that means, but i think it's raised bumps, or a rash. she asked me to please take him to the doctor. since it was raining i had to go to the elementary school to get hiro. this is a PITA because sasha and tommy are SOOOOO HUUUUUNGRYYYYYYY but eventually i get them in and we go to the school. the teacher kind of told me off, telling me that school ended at 3:15 (it was nearly 3:40) which i understand, but i just told her i have two very hungry preschoolers who get off the bus at three and who are not very cooperative. anyway.
off to the clinic and only just got there on time (remember, they close early on wednesday, if they're open on wednesday afternoon at all) and got put in a quarantine room because of the butsu-butsu. turns out tommy has hand foot and mouth disease. oh joy. no school for him. OH JOY. sasha has lots of bug bites and a weird patch of skin on her scalp but doesn't have HFM disease at this time. well. i wonder if she should go to school, though. she could be coming down with it and contagious. but let's think, where did tommy get this? oh yeah, the school.
HFM disease isn't dangerous, just uncomfortable, so we should be ok. i'll keep tommy home for the next couple of days. i might have to miss japanese class tomorrow, though. oh joy.
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7 out of 11 kids were off with HFM at M's kindy yesterday! On Monday, one baa-chan was dropping off her grand-daughter, who was crying. Baa-chan told me that it was because she had a fever and a sore throat - arghhh! Yeah, force her to go to kindy (poor kid) and pass it on to everyone else!
butsubutsu - exactly. Raised bumps, spotty rash. Ryu is literally covered in them, unlike when Shou got HFM and really only did actually get them on his hands, feet and in his mouth. It is doing the rounds in Oita and I guess at least it's wet and not heinously hot as sweating just irritates it. Ryu has them on his head too and when I woke up this morning I found him flat out asleep at the other end of our bed with his head practically in the fan. Must feel nice.
Here's to no more spots soon aye. Ganbare.
Gosh, you guys too? That just made me worried about Lena's new bumps... I hope we are all cleared up by the time of all our parties.
oh lordy. what a tanabata! I can't believe the teacher was tetchy about you getting to the school late. Don't the kids play in the playground after school? There're kids out there till 6:00 around here!
Hope the evening went heaps better!
it was raining like hell on wednesday, so the kids were all inside. ah well, sorry teacher!
butsu butsu = rashes. Can mean anything in Japanese.
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