High Alert

Last week the 3rd year students went on their trip to Okinawa. On the second day of their trip a number of kids started to complain of stomach cramps and the like. Incidentally, I also started to feel terrible around then, and was sidelined for the weekend. A couple of them threw up during the trip, and diarrhea was running wild. After they came back they had 2 days off school, but during that time a bunch of their younger brothers and sisters ended up getting sick as well, the culmination of which was 2 kids throwing up yesterday within an hour of each other.

One of the kids actually ended up throwing up during English class. It was pretty weird for me cause one of the other students just pointed it out, and here was the kid with some vomit on his desk and the floor, but cupping the majority of it in his hands. I went and got a bucket for him to put it in while the other teacher went to get cleaning supplies. All the while the kid just sat there like a trooper, cupping this vomit. By the way, it was also one of the rankest smelling vomits I've ever had this displeasure of smelling.

Today, we found out that the cause of the illnesses is Norovirus. So now the whole school is on high alert trying to stop the spread of this before too many kids get sick and they have to close the school down for a couple days. Despite the fact that it is an incredibly easy to transmit illness from what I've read this morning, I'm not too worried about getting it again so quickly since I've already had my share of it. What I've been wondering more about is just where we got it all since I didn't have any contact with the 3rd year students last week, I can only assume that the mutual source of our illnesses was on of the places in the area I visited during last week's Golden Week holidays, namely the local onsen, or the soba shop.

In any case, as much as I'd love a couple of free days off, I hope the spread does die down as I wouldn't wish to put anymore of my students through what I went through last weekend.