On Tuesday, December 18th at the Nanae Culture Center, we held our final debriefing session for the 2013 autumn delegation trip to Concord. Family, friends, school principals and teachers all came to listen to this year’s delegation members talk about their experience in Concord.
(PHOTO BY EMI KIMURA)
This year’s delegation trip (including travel time) spanned from October 1st – 11th. The group was composed of 3 high school students, 5 middle school students and 6 adults. We spent our first 6 days in Concord, where each member stayed with a host family. After a day of sightseeing in Boston, and a night in a hotel, we boarded our return flight from Boston to Tokyo.
Below I’d like to share a recap, as well as some of my own thoughts on this year’s delegation:
When the day came to depart on this year’s delegation trip to Concord, I was feeling a little nervous. Unlike past delegations, our group had very few members who spoke English or had ever traveled to America, so I had been told I would be relied on as both a guide and translator. However, passing through security at Hakodate airport, I began to notice something that put me at ease; our group already seemed to be moving smoothly, and functioning as a single unit. Counter to my fears, the students were not straggling or drifting away from the adults, but rather, everyone seemed of a single mind and purpose, as if a natural buddy-system had enacted itself.
“2013秋 七飯訪問団がコンコードへ” の続きを読む