Hello everyone,

It has been a while since I have written, but a lot has been happening. Last Monday I was shocked to hear Sr. Morita tell us that the school would be closed on Tuesday because of the typhoon. We have had many typhoons, but this was the first time I remember the school closing the day before.

Then the typhoon came and caused a lot of damage. We have students from as far south as Tanabe, and as far north as Sakai. So, people had different situations to deal with. Some people lost water, some people lost power, and some people lost both.

In Canada, especially during the winter, my house would lose power a few times a year. Usually it was because a car hit a power pole. The truck from the electric company would come out quickly and fix it, and power would be back on soon.

After the typhoon though, the power in my neighborhood was off for days. With no electricity, our “way of life” changed a lot. My family cooked with a gas stove, and used candles on the table. We took very short (and cold!) showers. We went to sleep early because there were no lights at night.

All of this was difficult, but we also had some good experiences. The day after the typhoon, everyone in my neighborhood worked together to clean up the street. People found items from their neighbors’ houses than had blown away. I even helped repair a tamanegi koya that had fallen down.

And, because our fridge wasn’t working, we had to cook the meat before it spoiled. We had a BBQ after the typhoon and cooked all the meat! We enjoyed sitting outside at night with only the BBQ for light, talking and eating together.

Now life is getting back to normal. The power is on and the water is running. However, we should remember this experience. We should prepare ourselves for the next typhoon. For me, I want to make sure that I have more bottles of water, and I want to clean up my balcony better.

In English we say that “every cloud has a silver lining”. The cloud is a problem, but the silver lining is something good. I was not happy to have the typhoon of course, but the experience and lessons I got from it were good.

Stay dry this week. You have some special holidays soon, so study hard at school and play hard on your days off.

Allen.