We have borrowed a hall for dancing every morning which we are very grateful for, due to the heavy raining all the time. Thursday the 7th of August started with practise, after lunch in the university restaurant we finished the signs for the lorry. They are saying in Swedish: Tillsammans dansar de alla i virvlande nysnö. One sign for the left side and one for the right side. We had an interesting discussion, because on the lorrys in a yosakoi parade you are meant to read the words from the front of the car which means that on the left side you have the word backwards. We saw the text, but it looked so weird reading it backwards. It took some time convincing the Japanese we are working with to have it possible to read from left to right. Even if very few can read it here.
There are a lot of work putting everything together. It is a complicated construction with to pictures on each side, one to see when you are in the front of the car and one when you are behind. We could help a little with sawing, but building is work for men in Japan. Girls and women are not allowed to participate. On the other hand while the guys worked until two o’clock in the morning we had a quite early evening with time for games and chat.
And the rain and the weather …
All the time we are wondering about the weather, waiting for a typhoon to come. The festival was supposed to start at Saturday evening with an opening ceremony, but it is cancelled. The festival though had been held 60 times and never been cancelled, so we hope.
-マネージャーさん
Manager-san