Soba Surprise

I really should get a job writing for a newspaper where the editor creates the headlines because I can only seem to come up with strange, uninspired titles. Anyways, the title of today's post says it all. Got to schools today only to be told I didn't have class. At first I thought that I had mistakenly come to the wrong school. My Japanese lacking all nuance, what was actually meant was that while I was expected at school today, all my classes were cancelled and no one told me. There was some discussion between students as to whether we should call the event a "Soba festival" or a "grand Soba meeting." I settled in this post on "making soba".

The Soba we used for the noodles was previously grown and harvested by the students themselves in a plot at the back of the school. I have made soba before so it wasn't earth shattering. It was fun to participate with children that are so alive. They react to everything like it's new and exciting. I got to re-live how I might have reacted to making soba in grade three.

Many community member helped. Generally it was obasans (grandmothers) who arrived. They take soba making - not quite as an art - but very seriously. You can easily tell they are not teachers. For one, they were leaving kids out and they will get bored; you have to keep them engaged by constantly given them new tasks. Secondly, when the did give them tasks, they just left them to it - a recipe for disaster - they will need guidance. Leave a grade two to mix something and you don't know what you will come back to. Lastly, safety, this was left to the teachers in the room to tell the kids not to hold the knife that way, tie up those laces, etc. You have to think of everything or else someone will lose an eye.

The Obasan's - I can't really think of them as grandmas and "obasan" is an honourific - were really great. They generally fall into three groups: those that want nothing to do with foreigners; those that have seen everything and could careless who I am, thus treating me like I am two, in an enduring way though; and lastly, those who are keenly interested in learning about where I am from and what I am doing. They are very funny ladies who are very nice if you take an interest in what they are doing. I had an interesting conversation about what makes a good soba broth with two of my students' grandmas. I'm not sure if half of what I wanted to got across did, but I learned many good tips on making a soba broth (special soy sauce, o-sake, dashi, etc).

There would have been pictures but again, I woke up thinking this would be a normal day; I didn't think to check if my camera had it' battery. And yes, the soba was delicious.