Unity day

Today was “Unity Day” at Sarah’s school. The kids were learning about different cultures, particularly the different cultures represented in thhe families of their classmates. I talked about Kenya, and also read the book When Africa Was Home to them. They were very good listeners, and very respectful, and asked great questions. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

Later in the day, they had visitors from Japan, who taught them about origami, and some visitors from England, who gave them 10p coins.

As always, I was very impressed by Sarah’s school principal. When I arrived at school, I stopped in the office to announce that I was breaking school rules by bringing a deadly weapon onto school grounds – namely, a 6-foot long Maasai spear. They went off to get Ms. Simms so that she could tell me whether this would be permitted. She took one look at it and said, “Well, of course, we *have* to. The kids *have* to learn about other cultures. It would be wrong to deprive them of the opportunity.”

It is very very *very* refreshing to encounter someone to whom education is so important, and kids are so important, and someone who is smart enough to distinguish between when rules help the kids, and when rules need to be ever-so-slightly circumvented for the benefit of the kids. She’s awesome, and Sarah is very lucky to be in this school.