Kai and His Bags of Trash
 Kai spends a lot of time in his Japanese kindergarten making things from recycling materials
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On Thursdays when I pick up Kai from school, we always have to walk home instead of taking the bus. This is because we’re too loaded down with his bags of trash for me to carry them and manage Eidan and his stroller all at the same time on the bus.
Perhaps “trash” is too strong a word.
On a regular basis, the parents are expected to bring in all their paper recyclables to the school, as well as plastic bottle caps, cups, etc. Every day the teachers let the kids have at it – along with some tape, glue, and ribbons – to create whatever they want. Kai has made jet packs, guitars, cash registers, rockets, and myriad other items – too many for me to remember. Then every Thursday, they bring all their creations home.
As we take the 30 minute walk home, Kai gives me a very animated presentation on each of his creations. When we get home, we throw out everything from the prior week to make room for the new stuff, because 1. his creations aren’t built to last, so most of them are destroyed after a week, and 2. in our tiny apartment, we don’t have any space for accumulating Kai’s trash creations.
Kindergarten is over now, and Kai clearly misses working on these projects. We’ve been finding him furtively digging through our meager cans of recycling, and voicing frustration at not having nearly enough material to work with for whatever fantastic creation he has in mind.
