Day 19: France v. Switzerland

Phew what a day! It took a whole day of mulling it over and recovering just to begin to touch on it! Yesterday (Friday) was a whirlwind of school activity, and not just for us newbies. It was International Day, the day that 15 countries all crowded the small, four story preschool building with displays, presentations, fabrics, foods and native crafts/activities. The countries involved included the United States, Kazakhstan, Poland, Lithuania, Pakistan, Iran, India, South Korea, Japan, Belguim, France, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, and Canada. It was chaos, and as much as I adore Tim it didn't have nearly half as much planning into it as it should have. It was chaos, but not the kind of comfortable chaos that you expect in those kinds of big events. It was general confusion chaos... it was totally fine, I'm not saying that it cheapened the experience and I'm not putting down anything or anyone, but I think the teachers and staff have so much on their plates that two weeks wasn't enough time to logistically plan it. Anyway, I had a group of six of my 7 year olds and they were awesome; exhausting, but awesome! One of my boyos wasn't excited to start in Pakistan and started booing (we had to start where our schedules dictated because we each circulated in order to the rooms, going up floors each time), so naturally I pinched his cheeks together and made some joke. He stopped though, and wasn't miffed with me so that was good! I have never seen so many diplomats or country informational pamphlets or hand foods or video cameras in my life!

At the beginning of the event, we had the "opening ceremonies" in what is called The Garage at the school; it's basically the building next to their gym that, at times, holds the school company car but also can hold school-wide assemblies. Gotta love a school with 120 something enrolled :) we started with an awesome dance from the India Cultural Center and then did a parade of each country with the students from that place and whoever in the community came to represent it. All the countries of the students were there, regardless of whether they had a booth at International Day, and the flags were made by my ELL class the week before. It was one of those moving moments where you see people from all over the world, people who normally might HATE each other because of politics or conflict, walking side by side in their traditional dress and sharing their heritage with each other. I just saw everyone walk by me in the parade and swelled with emotion. If only the world were an international school, I feel like there would be so much less fighting. These places allow students to comfortably be out of their element and look to their classmates, saying "they're out of their element too, I understand where they're coming from". There's just this deep sense of understanding and empathy as well as curiosity towards other cultures. Yes, if the world were an international school the world would be a better place.

The day before was fairly uneventful, although it was a good lesson in how to teach on the fly. All the kids knew it was a big school event later and were the squirreliest I have ever seen them. In the mornings, we usually read to them, do language arts and writing, work with them in reading groups, do some math and finish up with a good chunk of cultural studies. This day, we read to them, had them do some writing and hardly touched reading... in the entire morning! My teacher was getting frustrated, I could tell, but she wouldn't let the kids onto it and was patient with them as always. She's a great role model for teachers hoping to influence the younger ones :) but after international day, the kids all went home and so did we. We got home and basically got ready to leave for dinner at one of the teacher couples' house (attended by half of the QSI teaching staff) and left from there to go (late) to a local hockey game (attended by the other half of the QSI teaching staff). Both were awesome and we're glad we did it.

I can't believe we leave in just a little over three days from now... we honestly do and don't want to go! We finally feel welcome and comfortable here, its hard to leave new relationships and cultures behind when they've become so comfortable and exhilirating. But I know we're also ready to come back to our loved ones. Anyway, we'll be back soon and have a lot to do between now and then! There's a list of things we want to make sure we do/see before we go and we're afraid we're going to run out of time or them... if so, I guess we'll just have to come back :) in the spring though, I wanna feel my face the next time I'm here.

Chels