Manayo

Hello!  I’m Manayo Yamada.  About four months have passed since I came to New Zealand.  Term 2 has started and I’ve made some goals for this term.  Term 1 was long enough for me to get used to my school life in New Zealand, but I couldn’t challenge myself.  I think Term 1 was the time for getting used to life and Term 2 is the time for trying something new, so I’ve started to compose music in music classes and joined the rock climbing club.  These are my new challenges.

 

In New Zealand, students have a two-week holiday between terms.  Of course I enjoyed my holiday, so I will write about it.  I travelled in Rotorua with my host family and my host sister’s friend. It is hard for me to write about all the things we did on the trip, so I’ll write about some of the most memorable things.  On this trip, the time that I was in a hotel was longer than the time that I went out for activities.  I soaked in spas at the hotel every day.  They were like Japanese baths, so I felt nostalgic.  One day, a Philippine family joined me and I talked with them in the spa.  They were from Auckland and they have lived in New Zealand for more than ten years.  They were so entertaining and very nice to me.  I found that English is fantastic because we could get through to each other with English even though I don’t know Filipino and they don’t understand Japanese.  To be honest, talking with Asian people is easier than talking with people who look European.  Before I came here, I didn’t like Asian people except Japanese because I knew only bad news of China, Korea and so on.  However, I found that each person is so nice and lovely through my contact with them.

 

On the fifth day of the trip, I tried rafting.  Rafting is going down a river on a boat.  Actually, I didn’t want to do it because it looked scary, but I decided to do it because I thought that it would be a good experience.  Fortunately, my group’s instructor was a Japanese man.  He said that he did rafting in Canada, Africa and somewhere else.  He seemed to enjoy doing something dangerous.  Before we rode a raft, he explained how to do rafting in English.  His English sounded perfect.  Going down the river, he also explained to me in Japanese.  I couldn’t help respecting him.  When we went over the biggest waterfall, our raft flipped upside down.  I couldn’t understand the situation and I thought that only I was thrown out of the raft.  I was helped by people who were riding on another raft and helped back to my group.  The Japanese instructor encouraged me.  Until the morning of that day, I had many small worries, but they were dispelled by meeting him.  

 

The day after I came back to my town, Waiuku, I went to Auckland for April camp.  I was looking forward to seeing my old classmates.  When I arrived at the building for the camp, almost all of my classmates had already arrived and were chatting.  The room had an atmosphere like my old classroom back in Japan, so I felt at ease.  No one slept until 3:30 a.m. and we talked all night with our friends.   I didn’t stay in touch with my classmates after coming to NZ, so I didn’t know how their life was going before I heard their stories.  Everyone had worries, some of which were the same as mine.  The three days of the camp went by quickly, but it has given me energy for Term 2.

 

Now, I’m making an effort to make a best friend and I’ve found a girl whom I want to be best friends with.  Sometimes I miss Japan, but I’ll do my best to enjoy my life in New Zealand.  I want to go back to Japan with a lot of confidence!

 

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