Guest Speaker

I had a lot of fun yesterday giving a little talk about America to each of the 3 first grade classes at the boys' school. Nathan's teacher from last year, Juf Linda, asked me last week if I might come in and tell about some of the differences that our family has noticed between Belgium and the US. I put some notes together, had my neighbor help me edit the things I wanted to say, and printed out a few images from Google including North America, the White House, Thanksgiving turkey, and houses built with wood. The biggest challenge was speaking to them in dutch!

The kids were really cute and attentive. I started out saying that dutch was not my first language and I asked them to tell me if they knew what my language would be if I come from America. Most knew it was English. Some of the things I talked about were:

* Belgium has a king; the US has a President. Their king has a crown, our President doesn't ('cuz he's not a king).

* The US is a very big country; my state is one of 50 states and it's the size of 8 Belgiums!

* We speak English, which has many words which are similar the dutch words because both come from the same language, German.

* Many houses in America are built mostly with wood, unlike Belgian houses which are built with bricks.

* In America, if a family has their child make their first communion, they usually attend church most Sundays every year. In Belgium, families don't usually go to church, but have their child attend for the year when they prepare to make their first communion. (This relates to the fact that all the kids in the first grade classes will make their first communion in May. It's a public Catholic school)

* We celebrate holidays, too. We have an independence day on July 4, like Belgium's national  holiday July 21, and celebrate it with parties and fireworks. Many Americans celebrate Christmas as is done in Belgium. The kids in America don't know Sinter Klas (Belgian "Santa") who comes to Belgium December 6, but they know of Santa Claus who comes the night before Christmas. Both Christmas-men bring children presents.

* Some stores in the US are open 24 hours a day!

* We eat corn on the cob. (Some children in Belgium don't know what corn is because corn here is mostly for feeding the farm animals.) We don't usually have cereals with pieces of chocolate added. (In Belgium, cereals like granola and even Special K have versions with Chocolate pieces added - in the box with a "2 weeks of Special K and you'll be slimmer" program!) We probably eat more pasta than potatoes. (Belgians love potatoes!) And we eat yummy American Chocolate Chip Cookies. (The kids liked the cookies I brought for them, but thought they were unusual.)

There were a few times when I had to check a word with the teacher or have the teacher translate one of the children's questions. But, for the most part they seemed to understand more than I thought they would. For each class the last part was for them to ask questions. It was fun to hear what they were curious about. The questions ranged from whether we had a cat in America to whether there were still cowboys and indians and lots of gold. (They've watched some old westerns apparently.) I told them there were still cowboys and indians in America, but the battles between cowboys and indians that they might have seen in a film refer to things that happened in the past, when people were headed "out west". That also ties into the gold question, and about the miners. It's interesting to hear their notions about America that they hear from films or their parents. They also asked if our wood houses would be blown away if a tornado came. I told them houses in areas where tornados occur are probably built more with stone, but that there aren't tornados in all of the US.

The kids really were so cute listening and asking questions. When I asked them if they knew things (like where the President lived) a few very excitedly stuck their hands in the air. Quite a few of the kids knew answers to questions like that. It was a really fun afternoon and I'm so glad I got to do it! As an added bonus, the teachers gave me a traditional Belgium "thank you", a box of chocolates! Not a bad afternoon's "work". ;-)