More summer madness. I come down from where I work last Monday to make a cup of tea, and there is a Kazak sitting at my table.
Zhamal Ordabayeva is as embarrassed as I am astonished. But it seems her home-stay "mother," Rika Wakame (sister more like, since there are only four years between them), has brought Zhamal along to experience yet another Japanese house while she runs around with a duster.
I am even more astonished to hear Rika replying to Zhamal's near-perfect English. Rika had never let on that she could speak English, forcing me to use my lousy Japanese for months on end. Now who is embarrassed?