Sister cities meet again
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Recently an entourage of 11 Warren County students and two chaperones spent two weeks in Japan visiting tourist sites and interacting in a home-life situation.
While in Japan the students stayed with families and participated in every-day events, such as grocery shopping, visiting a religious shrine, and having unique meals with the family.
In addition to their home visits, they toured such sites as the Meiji Shrine, Imperial Palace, Tokyo Bay Cruise, a trip to Hamanaka Beach, Yorozu plant and several schools.
Chaperone Debbie Jennings is a teacher at the Warren County Middle School, and she particularly enjoyed visiting the different schools and taking notes on their instructing procedures.
‘Actually, I found that their schools are very similar to ours, of course they were in intercession, so there were not a lot of students there,’ said Jennings. ‘Two differences that I noticed were that their children, on the whole, were very well-behaved and polite, and that we had to put on slippers before entering the school.’
The Jennings family had also hosted a student in their home, and were eager to visit her again and see her environment. Jennings had a two-fold reason for wanting to visit Japan, one that her daughter, Christina, was going; and that another daughter, Samantha, is an English teacher in Japan.
‘Even though I didn’t get to visit with Samantha because she was eight hours away, I did get to talk to her on the phone and I now have a better understanding of where she is living and about the people she is around,’ said Jennings.
WCHS sophomore Mason McGiboney had a special reason to want to participate in the exchange program, as he and his family had hosted a young man the previous year. He was fortunate enough to get be paired with his exchange student and keep the friendship going.
Mason’s mother, Keri made an observation of children in general, ‘It seems to me that video games are the international language of children no matter where they are from. When the boys play their video games, they are in the same world.’
Chaperone and mother of a student participating in the trip, Dawn Cantrell, said ‘The Japanese people were so nice to us, I found you can’t out-gift them. We had a wonderful time, an experience of a lifetime, seeing and eating things we had never thought of.’
Students and chaperones attending include: Matt Martin, Laura Beth McKinley, Mason Mc-Giboney, Shelby Cantrell, Christina Jennings, Jared Neal, Kyle Shepherd, Yaima Dominguez, Alex Bragg, Daisy Campen, Camry Perry and chaperones Dawn Cantrell and Debbie Jennings.