Homeless in Hokkaido Part 1

Homeless in Hokkaido... Now that's something I thought I wouldn't be on my trip, but here I am at 7:30 in the morning at a Mister Donut with a coffee and donut trying to figure out where I'll live for the next few days. I'll go back a little bit...

I am doing this program called  WOOFing where you work 6 hours a day and receive free food and accommodations. I was working in a daycare for 2-5 year old children that focuses on teaching them English. I started to hate the job because my boss would tell me to do something, but her plans would never actually work out the way she wanted. Here are some examples:

Expectation #1: Give children bottle caps and teach them about numbers and colors.

Reality #1: Children eat and fight over bottle caps. They do not learn English.

Expectation #2: Give children sheets of newspaper and teach them about the different shapes and animals they can rip paper into it.

Reality #2: Children rip newspaper. They do not learn English.

Expectation #3: Take one child aside and have a one-on-one lesson with them.

Reality #3: The other seven children get bored, start fighting, and one child gets bitten... Twice. They do not learn English.

On top of that there were rules that weren't easy to enforce with 2 year olds...

I got a day off and I went on a 4 hour bike ride...

and things became clearer...

                                                           and clearer...

until I finally reached the ocean.

I found a ramen shop owned by a family on the beach. The mother asked me where I am from and whether I'm a good skiier (because I'm from Canada), the father offered me his binoculars to look out at the ocean while I waited for my ramen, and one of the daughters let me hold her 6 month old baby. At this moment, I realized I was so frustrated and upset with my job because I was missing family. I came to this English school because I thought I would feel the warmth of a Japanese family and learn about the culture, but instead I was treated like a cold disposable worker that had to execute ridiculous orders.

So I told my boss that I wanted to shorten my stay to a week.  I know I was being selfish, but sometimes it's more important to take care of yourself, even if that means hurting others. I ended up paying the price for cancelling, but I'll tell you about that later.

For now, I leave you with a comment left by another person who had a terrible time with my boss.

I wish I read this earlier because it would have saved me a lot of pain and suffering.