How we got here

It seems a good way to start this blog, which will be about me & Eri and our additions as they come, is to answer the question, "How did it become Eri and Evan?"

When I was living in Tokushima doing the JET Programme, some Canadian musicians wanted to come to Japan to help make a Jam Camp, which is a ìGet back to Natureî camp for young musicians.  Somehow one of the other ALTs in Tokushima knew these musicians, and organized a location for the camp in a small mountain town and invited them over.

The Canadians were all great musicians, but they didn’t speak much Japanese, so the call went out among the Tokushima JETs for volunteers to help with the camp.  I decided to be one of those brave few and volunteered.  At first I was going to have some comrades from the JET community, but the others disappeared at the last moment, so the night I drove to the town to learn what we were doing - the night before the camp started - it was me, the Canadians, and the JET organizer who I had never met.

Somehow we survived the night, and organized enough of a plan to let us survive the morning when all the kids came.  Most of them were only in Elementary school or younger, with a few Junior-high girls thrown in.  There were also about 6 boys who were probably signed up and driven to the camp without their knowledge, and it became my duty to make sure they didn’t run too far away. 

Also, to my surprise, there was Eri and her sister at the camp as well.  Eri was just about to take her plunge in to college entrance exams and her sister was one year younger.  As they were so much older than everyone else, we sort of deputized them as counselors.  So that’s how we met and became friends.

It also happened, on the second or third day of the camp, another good friend of mine, Mattias, came to the camp to assist, and he became friends with everyone there as well.
So we finished off the camp in fine style, and said our goodbyes, and while Eri and I were friends, I didn’t think we we would meet again, unless there was another Jam Camp the next year.

So nearly a year passed, and I didn’t see Eri, but I did volunteer for a Peter Pan musical put on by the Tokushima JETs.  I was an Indian and half a Mukade, which is a giant centipede that chased Hook instead of the Crocodile.  It may sound strange from afar, but those Mukade are real life monsters in Tokushima, so it was a good way to add local spice to a bunch of foreign teachers in tights.

So I volunteered, and rehersed, and prepared, and then we had our shows.  We kept on having them all the way to the final show in Wakimachi, which was the closest venue to my town. 
As the play was starting, I saw some of my good friends come in, they had just driven back 4 hours from climbing a waterfall to see the grand finale of Peter Pan.  And so the play started, and it came time for the Giant Mukade’s grand entrace.  So me and my partner dressed up in black suits and strung big black paper-mache balls between us, and with a few extra accessories, we looked as close to a mukade as anyone could on a budget.  We were making our entrance from the rear of the audience, which meant we were waiting in the lobby of the theater, as it was very small.  And so just before we rushed in to try and eat Hook, Mattias walks through th door with Eri.

"You’re here!" I said, pointing at her, and she was so surprised, she didn’t say anything at all.  And so we went in, failed to get Hook, and the play went on and then finished.  Afterwards, I found out that Mattias had met Eri at the Tokushima airport, as they were both returning from Tokyo, and invited her to the final showing of Peter Pan, as I, the mutual friend, was playing a giant centepede and indian in it.  So that’s how she arrived at the play, just after getting into the Tokyo Art school.

And so all of us had a celebration dinner after the play, and the rest can be told another day.