Living abroad shows how interconnected our world has become. The first week of March, a friend of mine, Rebecca, and I went to a small town about forty minutes away from Tokmok called Kemin to meet an English teacher. An acquaintance of Rebecca’s, Midori is a Japanese English teacher who came to Kyrgyzstan two years ago as part of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). A government body that assists development efforts (much like the US Peace Corps), JICA was founded in 1974 and after merging with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation in 2008, now has 97 overseas offices and projects in 150 countries.
An English as a Second Language teacher in Hiroshima, Midori also taught English in Kyrgyzstan (she left soon after I visited). She asked me to give a presentation on my family and life in the United States. Since Midori is not a native speaker, she tried to invite as many native speakers as possible to inspire her students to work harder. Among the many things I talked about, I showed a few videos of my hometown, Tallmadge, Ohio, Akron, Ohio, and The Ohio State University Marching band (all videos are included in this post).