“Clean-up Campaign in Asuka, Nara, Japan”
This morning our director, Mr. Ogawa suggested that we should clean up our hometown, Asuka. So we began to clean around our activity base. Because this is one of the few chances to stay in Japan for a long time, Mr. Ogawa came up with an idea that we could spare time for cleaning around us during our stay in Japan. We all agreed with his idea and began to cut down bamboo grass and dry branches in the mountain behind our dormitory.

However it turned out to be far tougher work than we had thought. Bamboo grass all over the steep slope, weed, rough trees, numerous unburnable litter and a swarm of bees …..

Perhaps this campaign will go on and on. Please expect the next report on the Internet.

I’ll tell you how the clean-up campaign is going.

We keep cleaning around our place. We do it every day and will keep on doing it.

A week has already passed since we began the campaign and we cannot see when it will end. Anyway I’m going to tell you how it is going?

We really have a lot of work to do every day but we are glad that more and more neighbors and tourists give us thank-you words, “It became clean around here,” or “Thank you for cleaning!”　These words encourage us to work harder. We’ve bought a lot of tools such as saws, power saws and chain saws and we look like professional. We are cleaning not only roads but a river and even the thicket in the mountain.

Today Ms. Ninomiya, our manager saw us working and said, “Why don’t you quit drumming and become handypeople?”
“Oh! No, no, no!!!”
We are drummers of the taiko! Of course, we practice drumming the taiko!
We should work hard to finish the cleaning soon for the practice of the taiko..