He was beaming. I don’t
remember ever seeing him this happy. He
is a beautiful sensitive nine year old boy from Iraq who has been struggling
with making friends since he arrived six weeks earlier, more than two weeks
after the new school year has started. Because of his almost non-existent
English, he was too shy to attempt making friends with students from other
nationalities. And for one reason or another he also struggled getting along
with the few boys who speak his language all of whom are at least 12 years old
or older. He was in tears most
days.
After several attempts at trying to make peace, I made a suggestion
that maybe he would be better off not hanging out the older boys and that he
should give his non-Arabic speaking classmates a chance. He followed only half of my advice and for
the next few days, I would often find him having lunch by himself. Sometimes, I would sit with him and we would
make small talk. At other times, I would
invite a couple of other kids to join us.
Not knowing how long this solitary behavior would last, I started to seriously
question the validity of the piece of advice I gave and worried even more about
him.
To my relief, as I walked into the cafeteria the following week I
saw him with a beautiful girl, about his age, sitting at his table eating her
lunch quietly. The conversation that
ensued kind of put my worries to rest. I
could see that he was feeling happier.
He could barely contain his excitement. His beaming smile lighting up the whole
cafeteria, he introduced me to his new friend.
“She is my friend. We play
together.” He told me. “She is in my class,” he added. “I help her because she is new and I know
more English. And she helps me with math
because she is good at math,” he continued cheerfully. “She is my friend, my neighbor and my
classmate.”
“So everything is OK now?” I
asked. “Everything is great. We are friends,” still smiling, he repeated
the three beautiful words, “we are friends.”
October 2012
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