Island life, here I come!

On June 22, 2016 I was emailed by the Kagoshima Board of Education with my contract and welcome materials!

On the very bottom of the Notice of Employment, after the signature, was written a small P.S. that contained the name of my school and its address:

I'll be working at Koniya Senior High School, located on the south end of Amami Oshima island, a whopping 220-ish miles (11 hours by ferry or a 1 hour flight) off the cost of the prefecture mainland!



Amami Oshima has the largest population of all the Kagoshima islands. It is roughly divided into two regions, North and South, each with its own dialect. The major city in the north (and the only large urban center on the island) is Amami city. In the south, the town of Setouchi, which is where I'll be living and working.

Not going to lie - I didn't want to be on an island when I first learned I was going to Kagoshima back in May. A mainland placement, especially near the prefecture capital Kagoshima City, would allow me to be close enough to rent a cello from the string shop and join the (quite good) Kagoshima Symphony Orchestra, which rehearses in the city. The mainland airport also connects to more places within Japan than the Amami airport does, making travelling to see other parts of Japan more difficult.

But after hearing from my predecessor (who lived on Amami for her full five years of JET) and meeting some of the other islanders through facebook, I think I'm really going to enjoy myself in my new home. My reasons for wanting a placement on the mainland are all a bit selfish anyway, so perhaps it's better that I didn't get my preference. The weather is great, winters rarely drop below 5 degrees C, and summers hover around 32 degrees C. There is a lot more rain than I am accustomed to in San Diego, and typhoons are common. At least I don't need to worry about snow gear. Amami is also a 13 hour ferry or 1 hour flight away from Okinawa, where the rich people of Japan vacation (the less fortunate folks go to Hawaii, you see).

Islanders are supposedly very, very chill, and my predecessor loves her students. Koniya Senior High is a very small, non-academic school with three grade levels and two classes per grade level so I will get to know them all very well. In addition to mainly teaching at Koniya, she travels to nearby Kikai island (2 hours by bus to the airport, then a 10 minute flight) once a month for two days to teach at the high school there. Kikai island does have an ALT, but he is responsible only for the elementary and junior high schools. It is expected that I will continue the monthly excursions to Kikai once I arrive.

Amami does have an orchestra, which I briefly talked about in my last post about Kagoshima and classical music. However, they rehearse about 50 minutes by car north of where I'm living, though the city can be reached by bus in a little over an hour. I think there a few orchestra members living in the south, so maybe I can tag along with them.

The Kagoshima islands have a unique culture that is different from the mainland, and I am greatly looking forward to my new life on Amami Oshima!