Source: United States Army
CAMP ZAMA, Japan – Staff Sgt. Alanis Lopez learned so much about a nearby aquarium from conversing with some Japanese students Feb. 22 that she immediately made the attraction her next must-see destination.
Lopez and a dozen other Camp Zama volunteers were at Zama City Hall Sunday for a language exchange in which they listened to and spoke with the group of students, all of them junior high- and high school-aged teens from Camp Zama’s neighboring city of Zama.
The students are all ambassadors in a program in which they regularly engage with students from Zama’s sister city of Smyrna, Tennessee. During the exchange, they recited to the Camp Zama volunteers the English-language scripts they had written for a video they will produce on an aquarium in Enoshima to share with their friends in Smyrna.
“I thought each one of their presentations was great,” Lopez, assigned to the 78th Signal Battalion, said. “In every exhibit that they explained, they also pointed out things that were interesting to them, so their personalities shone through in terms of the different animals and things that they identified throughout the aquarium.”
Students in Zama can be part of the ambassador program for three years. Their participation has in the past allowed them to host Smyrna students in Japan and likewise visit their friends in Tennessee.
The group all went to an aquarium in Enoshima the last time the Smyrna students came to Japan, but inclement weather on the day of their visit forced them to cut their trip short. The Zama students devised the video project to introduce to the Smyrna students the attraction they unfortunately couldn’t experience.
Hina Yamagishi, 17, a student at St. Cecilia High School, is in her last year in the ambassador program and got to visit Smyrna in 2024. After writing their scripts, the students wanted to recite them for an English-speaking audience who could give them constructive feedback on their pronunciation and grammar.
“It was my first time meeting the Americans, and when I spoke to them, I only knew their names and faces, so I was kind of nervous to speak in English,” Yamagishi said. “But as I was reading my script, I saw them nodding and smiling at me, so I was relieved that they created such a warm atmosphere. It helped me to be confident.”
Lopez heard about the volunteer opportunity through Camp Zama’s Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program, or BOSS. Though she only arrived in Japan three months ago, she said this was the fifth or sixth volunteer event in which she’s taken part.
“Volunteering is an opportunity to get engulfed here in the culture, to learn new things, and I feel like it accelerates those opportunities to interact, because you’re here to meet people and to have conversations with them,” Lopez said. “So the benefit for me is the exposure to the culture, as well as giving back to the community and giving support as much as you can.”
Lopez further encouraged those in overseas military environments to look for volunteer opportunities, saying it helps them to better get to know the community outside their installation.
“If you go to one volunteer event, you usually learn about everything else that’s ongoing, so it gives you things to look forward to,” she said. “Another incentive in volunteering is building friendships, building rapports and relationships, and making the most of your time here.”
The Zama students will visit an aquarium in Enoshima next month to film footage and take photos of the exhibit that they will use to produce their video.