Shizuoka 2

We Support Russia!
by Chinami Sato and Risa Iwaki,
Fukuroi Minami Elementary School

	Kids line up to make a human "100."

At the moment we are involved in One School, One Country activities for the FIFA World Cup. Through this program, elementary schools in Fukuroi City are supporting the four teams that will play matches at Shizuoka Stadium Ecopa, which is in Fukuroi. The four teams are Russia, Germany, Belgium, and Cameroon.

We at Fukuroi Minami Elementary School, together with Konan Elementary School and Fukuroi Minami Middle School, are supporting Russia. On February 20, students from the three schools that are supporting Russia lined up to make a human number "100" to mark 100 days before the World Cup. Some people from the K. League in Korea, the co-host of the World Cup, came to help us out at this event. There were lots of different performances, and the mayor of Fukuroi made a speech.

Then it was time to make the number "100." We were each given a sheet of white, blue, or red colored paper. Then we moved into position. Our school was in charge of the middle number "0." We lined up from the bottom of the "0" in the order red, blue, white, the same as the design of the Russian flag. There were a lot of helicopters flying in the air above us. We were really excited. When we were given the signal, we all raised our pieces of paper together to make the giant "100."

For three minutes we stood as TV crews, newspaper photographers, and lots of other people took pictures of us. Our arms were aching but we did our best to keep our paper in the air. Once the photos had been taken, everybody danced some Russian folk dances together. We danced the tatarochka and the troika with the middle schoolers. It was great fun! Through this event we were able to experience a little bit of Russia.