With the children

So, the main part of the Salesian life is to work with children and youth, but as I am working in one of the placements that is in an office and not with children, I do not get to spend so much time with them. I am essentially working for the children, but not directly with the children...that will come in my next placement. But last week the girls in the office and our boss, Sr. MariaGrazia, was given the opportunity to speak with the children at the school. We gave a powerpoint presentation for 5 or 6 different groups (i forget exactly, i just know it was a lot) of children from 6-12 years old. The presentation was about all the children in Salesian schools around the world, and how we are all one community even if our culture and traditions are different.

Of course, I could not do much talking because they all speak French as the main language at the school, but as I have found out, Geneva is very international and many children can speak several languages. So, the only part I talked was when the slide for the United States came up. I put up some pictures of me in Texas with the other VIDES volunteers and children in Asherton and spoke a few sentences about my experience. I had to speak very slowly, but when the other girls asked the children, "vous comprendre?" (do you understand?) some "oui" (yes), and all the others, "NO!" So Chiara, the other volunteer, had to translate what I had said.

In some of the other classes, we asked the children to translate what I had said in English to French so that their classmates could understand. Of course, this absolutely amazes me that these 7 year old children can translate so perfectly. One of the boys, who was about 10, I found out knows 5 different languages!! We Americans need to be taught a thing or two about learning other languages.

One other cute story: one of the children was a British boy who, once he found out I speak English constantly turned around during the presentation to speak to me in his cute accent. Actually half the time I didn't know what he was talking about, but he was adorable. So a couple days later I was coming back from the UN, and I passed through the school playground and I saw him walking towards me and I waved and said hello. Here was our conversation:

British boy: "hi"
Other boy: "hello"
Me: "Oh, you speak English too?"
Other boy: "yes"
Me: "are you from the States?"
Other boy: "no"
British boy: "both of us are from England!"
Other boy: "No I'm not! I'm from Wales!"
Me: "hahaha"

It made my day. I was happy I got to meet with some of the children. I also got to see many of the children from my Italian class. It was fun to see how excited they are to talk about where they come from and their family's heritage.