NO.171 NO.171 | The 18th Bazaar of Meguro UNESCO Association ended successfully this year
thanks to many members of the Association. Every year the bazaar takes
place on either the 2nd or 3rd Thursday of October. This date is chosen
for the convenience of the participants in Japanese classes. It is also
our wish that many of our overseas Association members taking classes can
come to the Bazaar turning the site into one of international exchange
as well. Having read our English Short News, the Dominican Embassy donated coffee to us and Ms. Elizabeth Weiz of the Austrian Embassy daily goods. We were all glad to know that people read our English Short News and responded to it. Despite our worry that we might not be able to collect many donation items this year, the number of donated items reached the same level as previous years. As 100 Yen stores have cropped up in the neighborhood recently, we decided to keep the prices low at this year's bazaar. We worked together in the hope that there would be people who would appreciate what little we are trying to achieve. Notably, at the bazaar we had brand new bedclothes and a cradle that was used by a member's grandchild. The member's family must have had lots of memories attached to it, but they decided to donate it. At the beginning we were wondering if it could be sold at all but our worry proved to be ungrounded. Instead, our problem was that it was too large for the buyer to carry. So one of our members delivered it to the buyer's house wishing their baby all the happiness. There were two special additions to the bazaar this year. One was that Mr. Maeda Hirotoshi of the Italian class offered his service of sketching people's portraits. We are sure that some of the visitors who sat in front of him were wishing that he would draw the beauty out of them. Anyway, they seemed to be quite happy with his drawings and expressed their appreciation in donations in a small box. The other addition was the donation of cookies made by Ms. Rawheia Abdel Hakim of Egypt. They were made by baking cracked peanuts, sandwiching them by pie crusts, and covering them with syrup. Their aroma was wonderful and I enjoyed the tasty pies for the first time together with my family. We closed the bazaar at 3 o'clock as usual and started, besides cleaning, selecting efficiently those items to be used for the mini-bazaar scheduled in November at the arts exhibition site. We continue our efforts to improve our efficiency every year. We still have one big problem though: Managing to carry the donation items to the 2nd floor with only a few of us. Some joked that we should count the total number of steps each one made by a pedometer. A few helping hands would be highly appreciated. The bazaar is our own bazaar and we would welcome any positive comments, suggestions, or even criticisms from you. May we kindly solicit your helping us at coming mini-bazaar? next page |