An ALT-less Ubuyama

The bright lights, fast pace of life, and massive crowds of people make visiting Osaka like visiting a foreign country for anyone who has lived a year or two in rural Kyushu.
My successor on the JET Program left for her home in Canada yesterday, ending a chapter of my stay in Japan. This was a special moment for us because I was the first one to introduce her to life in Japan, and one of the last to see her off.
It was interesting finding out how my former students are all doing, and hearing about her experiences. I think that all of us who go to Ubuyama as ALTs come away with very similar perspectives and memories. It was strange to be able to talk to someone who understood exactly what I was talking about, and vice versa. Ubuyama can be a very testing, lonely place to live, but it is undoubtedly a great place because of the people, especially the children.
So in a few days, the new ALT will move into the apartment that has sheltered 4 previous JETs and start his tenure without someone to be there to show him the ropes, though he has been thoroughly briefed by Jane. The old Civic, still running like a champ, is patiently waiting to be driven by its 5th foreign owner, surely a new Kumamoto record. I miss that car and driving those mountain roads even more than I thought I was going to!
I hear the new guy is from California, and that he requested a small community. Sounds like he’s going to fit in well. I hope he takes good care of the kids.
I think that the JET Program is working especially well for Ubuyama, because the JETs have a visible effect on the attitudes of the students towards foreign cultures and learning English, as well as interacting with the community. From what I have seen, the children in this mountain village have purer minds and better values ingrained in them than the children in the city. As a result, their high levels of motivation and curiosity make teaching there a lot easier than the students in the city who exhibit classical signs of over-stimulation and inadequate parenting in general.