At the end of the 2nd little traveller’s school concert yesterday, the Principal stood to say thank you. The room was of course packed with its usual 76 nationalities (give or take a few), we were an audience of multi-coloured faces in a mix of abayas, thobes, jeans, and suits.
It was 3.00 o’clock on Thursday. There was an excitement in the air, no school for three days.
“Enjoy the three day weekend” he said in his American accent.
The children squealed while the adults all clapped and left the room. As I waited outside the third traveller’s classroom, I noticed each child appeared with a bag of chocolate eggs. Someone had brought them in as a present. And then I noticed the third little traveller was mixing up his goodbyes.
“Happy Easter” he said to a friend.
“Have a good long weekend” he said to another.
“Happy Easter” he said to someone else.
“Have a good long weekend” a different child.
We came around the corner and ran into some Qatari friends.
“Enjoy the 3 day break” I said.
“Yes, Happy Easter” she replied.
I love the way children are so adaptable and accepting of others’ nationalities and traditions. Enjoy your Easter and long weekend 🙂
How great that they are all in together, respecting each others’ differences rather than being hived off into different religions or traditions. Our commonality is so much more important than our differences.
YOur children have a huge advantage of being exposed to a variety of cultures. Children have an uncanny ability to embrace differences. Too bad many adults don’t.
I once watched a reality show where a varied bunch of children, ages 6-13, all living in the U.S. were brought together to develop a town. It was amazing! After winning one contest they were to choose between two prizes: I think one was video games and the other was religious books. They chose the religious books! Then we saw a Jew and a Christian sitting at the same table taking turns reading aloud from their Bibles. Both books said the same thing. What a wonderful experience for these kids to have. It was also interesting to me that when the town council tried to mandate church attendance no one came. But, when one child said she would pray by the well at 8:00 and invited anyone interested to come join her, several kids from various religions showed up and all were welcomed. When did some of us lose that ability to welcome everyone?