Scott Swanson
A retired teacher is making sure Sweet Home’s Josai exchange program stays alive and well.
When the previous adviser, Steve Hummer, stepped down last year, no one stepped up to replace him and the future of the program, which has been in existence since 1982, was suddenly in question.
Enter former Spanish teacher Cynde Burford, whose son Chris had been part of the 2002 Josai summer trip to Japan.
“I was so nervous that nobody else was interested,” she said. “A year or two ago, Steve said he had done all he could with Josai and somebody should step up, but nobody did. I was going to retire and thought I shouldn’t (volunteer), but nobody else did.”
Burford seized the reins and is planning this summer’s hosting of a group of students from Japan. In 2012 Sweet Home students will make a return visit. Thus far, about 10 have shown interest but Burford said there’s room for more.
“We can take 15,” she said.
The Josai program, a cooperative agreement between Josai University High School in Tokyo and Sweet Home High School, is a bi-annual exchange program that not only includes two-week summer exchange trips, but a year-round exchange in which Sweet Home hosts Josai students for the school year and local students stay in Japan.
At least that’s the way it works when everything’s clicking. The last Japanese students to attend Sweet Home did so in 2008-09.
Unfortunately, Burford said, by the time she realized that nothing was going to happen if she didn’t act, it was too late to host students for next school year.
“We’ve gone two years without long-term (visits),” she said. “They won’t send students if there isn’t an adviser on staff. I was waiting for some young teacher to step up but no one seemed interested.”
Once she got involved, things started moving forward and this summer’s visit by Japanese students, scheduled for July 14-28, looks like a go despite the problems the recent earthquakes have caused in northern Japan.
“We’ve heard from the school and they’re OK,” Burford said. “We haven’t heard from the adviser saying it’s cancelled. We haven’t heard anything. We just have to assume it’s a go. Unless the (Japanese) families are devastated with relatives in the north, if they’re planning on sending (their students), they will send them.”
Burford herself went on both the 2002 and 2008 summer trips to Japan. She said that students help with English classes, try judo and Japanese writing, and learn to make traditional green tea and origami.
The trip also includes early daily excursions to shopping, temples, shrines, museums and Tokyo Disney.
“Riding the trains and subways was completely new to most students,” Burford siad. “When the students tell you that they had to dodge bicycles and cars believe them. The streets are so narrow and the small houses seem inches from each other.”
Students also get an opportunity to try a lot of different kinds of food. The last group ate sushi, tempura, soba noodles, ramen, Korean-style barbecue “and a lot of other dishes with names unknown and sometimes with ingredients wisely left unspoken,” Burford said.
The students have also been able to build relationships with Japanese counterparts. Burford said the lapse in the school-year exhange program over the last two years has created a “hiccup” that she hopes this summer’s trip will begin to overcome. She said some of the students who have indicated interest in traveling to Japan have had older siblings go, but the relationship with Japanese students is missing.
“Because we haven’t had year-round students from Josai, our student body hasn’t been able to become friends yet with any Japanese people,” she said. “Because we’ve had this lapse in the contact, it’s kind of hard to get the excitement going. The enthusiasm has waned.”
Burford will hold an informational meeting of the Josai Club at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 31, in Room B-8 at the high school.
Burford said local residents can also benefit from the cultural exchange by hosting a student for the two weeks this July.
Visitors can learn about the trip and fund-raising efforts. For more information, contact Cynde Burford at (541) 367-8677 or by e-mail at [email protected].