デービス滞在記第5回

TheRoad to UC Davis ～学生たちのデービス滞在記第5回～

　 In a car on my way to my host-family house, I've completely made it a habit to try to catch English from the radio. One month earlier, I thought I hoped I would understand what they were talking about within a month. Now I just realized that it is too short for me to learn English in just one month. However, I've learned a lot of things from this experience. Since I came here to the U.S., I've felt that American values are definitely different from Japanese ones and it gave me a chance to rethink what Japanese are or Japan is. It isn't sometimes easy to　understand new values. It reminds me of the story of Thanksgiving, it is known as the biggest event here in the U.S. In the class, one of the professors told us about what it happened, what the origin was.
Heroes in this story are people called "Pilgrims" ,the founder of America. The Pilgrim left Plymouth, England in 1620 because of religious persecution. They wanted to start a new life in the New World (America) and practiced their religion in freedom. Their sea voyage was very difficult and many of the Pilgrims died. Finally they arrived on the north east coast in North America. At the time, that area was wilderness. It was almost winter and they had no homes and little food. The winter was very cold and harsh. Almost half of pilgrims died from starvation and sickness.
However, soon they became friends with the local Native American Indians who showed the pilgrims how to grow food, namely corn, pumpkins and beans. The pilgrims worked hard and the summer harvest of 1621 was excellent. The pilgrims declared a three-day festival to thank God and to celebrate the wonderful harvest with their friends, the Native American Indians, who had helped them so much. This is the origin of Thanksgiving.
So Thanksgiving is a symbol of their strong bond between the Pilgrims and the Indians, many people don't know about that today though. Now, it is not so hard for me to imagine what the pilgrims felt when they met people who were incredibly different from themselves. And also their burden to try to know each other goes beyond my imagination. I'm on that way now. I should keep on trying to take new culture and values. From next month, I am going to start a new life in Mexico and stay there for 3 months. I’m ready to give a try to anything. I hope the day would come when I could thank God for all I would have and all people who I’ve already met and I would meet from now in 3 months, like Thanksgiving.

Pictures from Graduation Ceremon

One of my friends who I met in Davis

（H22.9.6 農学部　T.T）

コラム

とにかくホームシックならぬデービスシックにかかってしまい、さみしくて仕方ないのですが、今回のデービス滞在記では、私の一日の生活を書いていこうと思います。

まず朝8時に起床します。農場に行く人たちはもっと早く起きて行っていたようですが、僕は興味がなかったので朝はゆっくりしました。授業は午後からなので、結構暇な時間があります。しかも朝はホストマザーが子供たちを学校に送っていたので、家に誰もいない時間がありました。その時間を利用して自習や宿題をしていました。

そんなこんなで学校へ行く準備が終わるのが午前１０時ごろです。午前１１時前になって途中までホストマザーに送ってもらいバスに乗り換え学校へ向かいます。学校での生活は皆も書いているのでスキップして放課後の話をします。

放課後はご飯にいったり、飲みに行ったり、遊んだり、人によって様々です。私も一度こっちでできたイタリア人の友達の家に行ってご飯をごちそうしてもらいました。そのお返しに日本料理を作ると言っていたけど時間がなくて、結局インスタントみそ汁しか渡せなかったのが心残りです・・・。

ホームステイ先に帰ったら、テレビを見て家族の会話に参加して、日常会話を学んでいました。この日常会話にはスラングや聞いたことのない熟語がふんだん飛び交って、ついていくのに必死でした。ていうか置いていかれました。この経験から思ったのは、こっちに来る前に単語や熟語の勉強をもっとしっかりやっておくべきだったということです。そして皆が寝てから私もベッドに入るというような生活でした。

こんな感じの生活を毎日していましたが、一日が過ぎるのが本当に早かったです。本当に楽しくてもう１カ月たっちゃったのか？？と疑問に感じるほどです。この１カ月の間で出会った人たちのおかげで世界が広がりました。英語はもちろんのこと価値観も変わったように思います。