Photo By Yoshie Makiyama | Col. Matthew W. Tracy expresses his joy as he receives a gift of "muuchii", an...... read more read more
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The eyes of Col. Matthew W. Tracy, widened in excitement and a big smile appeared on his face when the principal from a nursery school in Nago City visited him March 1.
The reason for his smile was due to receiving a gift of muuchii made by the children of the nursery school. Muuchii is an Okinawan traditional rice snack wrapped in shell ginger leaf and usually eaten on the lunar calendar observance Muuchii Day.
The nursery school principal thanked Tracy, camp commander for Camp Schwab and commanding officer of 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, for playing with the nursery school children. He brought homemade muuchii kneaded by the older children mixed with pumpkins and purple sweet potatoes, also baked red sweet potatoes and several other items along with a letter of appreciation.
One of the items the principal brought had a design printed with the nursery school’s logo and 4th Marine Regiment's logo. Tracy carefully observed the item and showed his interest in Okinawan culture when he found a little animal on it. As the camp commander for Camp Schwab, Tracy has learned about Okinawan culture and important animals.
"Is this a dugong?" Tracy asked.
Tracy paid attention to the details of the design and gave everyone a story about dugong. He, as a president of his son's lacrosse league, had made names of all the teams with important Okinawan animals and the name of his son's lacrosse team is Dugong. He even made a team jersey with a big dugong design on it.
"I told my son that dugong is the most important marine mammal in Okinawa." He was aware how important dugong is to Okinawa. His son didn’t know the animal and he looked it up.
“No kids knew any animals,” Tracy said. There are four elementary, three middle school and two high school teams. On top of dugong, he gave each team a name after endangered animals or culturally important creatures, such as Fighting Rail for "Okinawa Rail or Yanbaru-Kuina," Redbelly Newt for "Shiriken Imori," Lionfish for "Mino-Kasago," Shrieking Shrew for "Senkaku Mogura,” Shisa for "Okinawan Guardian Lion Dog, or Shishi Dog," Inoshishi for "Ryukyu Wild Boar," High Flying Fox for "Okinawa Oo-Komori," and Habu for "Hubu - poisonous Okinawan snake."
His intention on changing the names of the teams was to focus on the community, conservation, Okinawan ecology, as well as culture. Tracy later explained that he wanted people to be more interested and excited about being in Okinawa and to cross the cultural line.”
Tracy, his wife and a few Marines visited the nursery school as part of Camp Schwab's "Let's play with English" program last year and gave Christmas gifts supported by the Camp Schwab USO—a nonprofit organization that provides various support services to members in the U.S. Armed Forces—to the children. They were excited and the principal wanted to show Tracy and his Marines his profound gratitude for the goodwill and generosity towards the children.
The principal explained that Tracy not only made the children smile and impress them, but he also cheered them up by spending time together with them. "We appreciate their help in developing children's strength in life through personal interaction," said the principal.
When the principal asked about more close interaction in the future with Camp Schwab, Tracy responded saying he would like to have many more years of interaction and build a strong relationship.
| Date Taken: | 05.09.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 05.26.2022 23:23 |
| Story ID: | 421549 |
| Location: | OKINAWA, JP |
| Web Views: | 43 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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