International festival

So the school is having an international festival because 55 of its students speak a language other than English. (We're at the one smack next to the university, which means that a lot of international students and/or professors send their kids there.) They sent home fliers asking for help, then we got personal letters addressed to us in the mail, then someone finally called to ask if we'd help. (We had volunteered to talk in the classroom, but apparently our schedule and theirs didn't mesh well.) So we figured we should cough up and do something. We are running a small table decorated with German stuff. When kids come by we stamp their "passports" to show they were here. The thing is, despite all the times we've been there, we don't have a lot of exotic-looking souvenirs. So far this is what I've gathered:

a board with photos of various things like castles, churches, animals you find in Germany (giant slugs, hedgehogs, wild pigs)
my daughter's Schultuete (cone that you fill with candy for the first day of first grade--it's to sweeten the kid's education)
a crib-sized Federdecke (fluffy blanket that everyone sleeps under)
a kid-sized German hat like you'd wear with Lederhosen
baby-sized Lederhosen (copied from pictures of Tracht, but made by me, so it isn't quite authentic)
a Nutella cookbook (I forgot to buy Nutella)
an Aldi ad
a package of Stollen we bought at Aldi. Yes, you eat it at Christmas. Yes, the sell-by date is March 31. Yes, I'm too scared to eat something that has been preserved that long, so I'm cutting it up for samples for other people.
4th-grade math and spelling books
a Fueller, or fountain pen, that all German kids have to write with in school
my copy of Tintenblut (Inkblood)--Cornelia Funke is German, and the movie Inkheart is playing right now
a Wieso, Weshalb, Warum? book about household appliances for kids to understand--German washers, dryers (ha ha), heaters, windows, etc. are all different than American ones
a Blockfloete (recorder)
a massive (meter-wide?) German flag

I have no idea what size table we're supposed to decorate. Hopefully I'll have enough. The list looks long, but they are all ordinary life sorts of things, not Gartenzwerge or nutcrackers or Biersteine anything.

international festival

The international festival was cool. I love the school my kids go to, not only because it's full of friendly kids, but also because there are so many international and intercultural kids. I felt really, really at home tonight. The family running the table next to us were Romanian, and there were people running around with head scarves, and it was that perfect mix, not of us vs. the foreigners, but all of us different together. It was fun to take my four-year-old around and say, they're from Japan, like your uncle, look, that table is China, like where our friend Sarah lives, oh look, they're from Saudi Arabia like Achmed from your sister's kindergarten, they're from Romania; don't they seem like Slavic people we might meet in Germany and/or be related to? Here is the Taiwan table; your grandpa lived there once...  I have tried very hard to get my kids to feel at home with a wide variety of people because I want them to value everyone, not just people just like them. I want them to realize how many useful ways there are for doing things, not just the way we do them in our town, in our social group, or whatever. Last month when my daughter was learning about MLK and reading a ton of books about him in school, she came home and asked me, "Mom, what color am I?" I was really glad to hear that, because it meant that she didn't sense that barrier.

Also, it was cool tonight because my oldest son had to participate in a Japanese dance. He hates dancing, and it was very entertaining to watch. It actually looked fun (they were not dancing with each other; it looked more like a form of exercise, really--graceful excercise, yes, but very energetic.) He had a look of utmost pain on his face, though. We still have a couple years before he might end up at a real dance (or ten, if it's up to him). Hopefully he changes his mind!



 

Arg! Why aren't driving laws simple any more?

Yes, I'm happy that the state of Michigan has a graded system for new drives so that kids really do have to learn how to drive before they are turned loose on the road. And yes, I am happy that the minimum driving age seems to be rising in so many places. I feel much safer. But new driving laws are destroying my character's freedom!

Surely there are states where you can still get a plain old license at 16? I might need to move my character...