God's Sufficient Grace

International Night

[I started this post last Saturday and am just now getting a chance to finish it!! My days and evenings have been so full...]

Tonight was ICS's annual "International Night." SO much fun! The evening consisted of a talent show type of program, with the students from all different nationalities performing traditional dances and songs from their home countries while decked out in traditional garb. Then afterwards there was a HUGE potluck (like a real-life Kids' Praise 6!!!) in the Secondary cafeteria which spilled outside to all the surrounding halls and recreational areas. Each country represented at our school had their own table (or tables) and parents brought all kinds of delicious international foods. It was all incredibly yummy! And parents went all out on the costumes! They had their kids (especially/mainly the ones performing) in such elaborate dresses and outfits. They all looked very beautiful!

The performances were really amazing too. There was a very neat Tawainese Drum/Martial Arts Dance thing that was quite loud but so cool! One high-schooler put together a slideshow of Bangladesh with incredibly beautiful photographs. The Thai dances were very neat too and it was just so neat to see so many of my students up there with "their own." My favorite of everything (dances, food and dress) was - not surprisingly - those from India. They are such a beautiful people. It makes me want to visit there all the more and I've since started to look up online and ask around about a spring break trip to India/Bangladesh.

I'm not sure which country was most patriotic - I was expecting it to be Thailand, but there was a huge Indian presence (in the food and performances) and the Candian teachers had a whole corner of the middle school recreation floor decorated with Candian flags and photographs from Canada. The U.S. fared rather poorly in the whole thing, I'm afraid. All we American teachers did for clothes (mostly) was wear something red, white and blue and our food tables didn't have a whole lot on them. Oh, and the one American act - an "American Football Half-Time Show" (which was actually very cute) - was performed by all Asians! Small scale though it was (the "trumpet players" held 2-dimensional cardboard trumpets; all the rest of the performers were cheerleaders), it made me miss home and wish that I could see football games and marching bands every Friday night like many of my band-director friends do!

One of the best parts of the night for me, though, was that several of the kids gave me hugs! They typically just don't do that here, but all the students were so excited about the evening and their costumes and performances that several of the younger ones rushed up to show me their clothes and give me a big hug! I have been missing kid hugs (any hugs) a lot since being here and I sometimes have to sit and imagine Lindsey and Melissa crawling up on my lap or Jenny and Laura snuggling up close to me to make me feel better! : )

It was a good night overall and very exciting to see one of ICS's main visions "Unity in Diversity" become a reality.

posted by Catherine Rogers @ 5:08 AM