Heartfelt time
By Shinobu Yamamoto, Yuki Satoh
As we heard about the information that a workshop for making a "dustpan" will be held on June 11th, Fathers' Visiting Day at a Kindergarten in Tago, we joined it. As we arrived earlier, first we went to greet teachers.
"Good morning"
"Welcome to our Kindergarten! It is a bit earlier, why don't you look around the inside?"
As it was the first place to visit, we had been nervous. But with the teacher's warm words, we felt relaxed. When we got into the inside, we found that it was made with woods and white walls, and we felt a new woody smell. When we stepped into a room, we heard a boy shouting and running.
"Stay, Mil, Mil, Mil!"
A very tiny white kitten was dashing in front of us. And the boy who looked naughty was chasing after the cat without looking at me.
He came back with the cat holding in his hands.
"Are you taking care of the cat in this house?"
"Yes, we are."
"What's its name?"
"Well....Mil"
The boy left away by just saying that. The incident reminded us of our childhood.
In the meantime, kids' fathers were coming one after one. Kids, fathers, teachers and we got together in a square garden. We listened to the how-to-make a "dustpan" by Suzuki-san who is a representative of Kusaichigo.
We got started to the work. It was carried out on a straw mat under the trees in a part of the play ground. As we were slow, we couldn't find any space on the mat. But, one teacher got another mat for us.
So we quickly started with making. It looked simple first, however, when we did it by ourselves, we couldn't do well even for cutting wood plates. So we were afraid of the next work.
Suzuki-san came to us for help as he worried about our slow working. Whereas we cut the plate only by 5 cm for 4 minutes, Suzuki-san finished cutting all immediately. As we were impressed by his quick work, we clapped our hands.
Kids were finishing making a dustpan with their fathers. We felt very heartwarming to see fathers teaching their kids how to make a dustpan.
After that, there was a play dance by kids. When they were dancing, their fathers' eyes looked happy and warm. Kids were cheerful and innocent under the sun.
Nowadays, we can get a dustpan easily in a shop. But, in the past, parents taught their kids how to make it like today's workshop. By making a dustpan, we could revisit our mind for treating things tenderly.
What we learned from this visit was how to make a family contact, as well as how to make a dustpan.
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