I would never had met Edwin if i hadn’t met Itgen Hansen on the ship from Russia. It was the 30th of August a hot sunny day at Kumamoto train station and Itgen and i had just driven 2 and a half days down from Toyama to the island Kyushiu which is where Itgen’s friend Edwin lives. Edwin pulled into the station car park with his girlfriend Chieko in his 750 cc Mitsubishi 4×4 which looked like a shopping trolley next to the Landcruiser Itgen had made it all the way over land and sea via the trans Siberian railway to visit his friend and i had just put the final link into his journey.

Edwin is an english teacher in the Kumamoto prefecture of Japan, he has been in Japan for 2 years and is from Nijmegen in the Nederlands. Edwin came to Japan by being only 1 out of over 200 applicants from the netherlands to be accepted onto the Jet ALT program which stands for The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) the program has been running since 1987 and was established to promote internationalization and mutual understanding through foreign language education and international exchange activities, now in 2008 their is 5100 participants. For more information into the program visit www.jetprogramme.org and www.clair.or.jp

Edwin has let me use his house as a base, it is in the most stunning location in the Mt Aso national park really in the countryside which is what i really love, he has showed myself and Itgen around so i have a better understanding of the local area and i now know allot more about japanese culture than i did before, i owe it to Edwin that he has given me the contacts to be able to teach in local schools about www.streekids.org and give me direct contact with Japanese people that i never would have had chance to do.

Their is no doubt that he is a very talented, devoted and i have to say a perfectionist, it is no surprise he was picked to do this job, he not only speaks fluent Japanese he can also read and write too which i find amazing as it all looks like squiggles to me. These are not his only talents he is artistic too, music has to be his most precious passion where he uses his small amount of free time to give him a release from his Job as teacher, he is in a band called Bashculture www.bashculture.com where all the band members are from different countries so its kind of clashculture i suppose in a creative way, he is full of forward and innovative ideas to promote the band and he produces all the music which is what he used to do in the Netherlands when he worked for a recording studio. I am delighted that the band has hinted that they may write and Record a RamblingRat benefiting streetKids theme tune and possibly find a way in the future to raise funds too for street kids too.

So i would like to say thank you to Edwin Huits for letting me stay at your home and all the positive work you have done giving me the chance and the confidence to teach.