It's a Small, Small World

[Photos and Videos to Come!]

April 26--
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One of my students texted me while I was sitting at a cafe a stone's throw from the famous Blue Gate in Fès.  Our host teacher was off to his Friday prayer and dropped us at the amazing Blue Gate Cafe.

As we enjoyed freshly squeezed lemonade with a view, I received a text from a student back home.  She was sitting in my 1st hour class, just after 8am EST, and wondering which assignment she should prioritize since she had missed some school that week.

As I began to type my reply, I remembered that she had lived in Indonesia.   I also remembered that my colleague Whitney, who was also sipping freshly squeezed lemonade across the table from me,  had shared some stories about teaching in Indonesia.

Before I share the rest of this 'small world' story, a quick flashback is in order…

Yesterday, as we were judging a public speaking competition at one of the private schools,  Whitney commented that the school design reminded him of Indonesia.
Then this morning, our host Hicham took us to a beautiful park in Fès and Whitney pointed out an interesting bamboo structure.

I commented that the building was very cool and that there seemed to be bamboo everywhere. Hicham told us that bamboo is good because it’s so strong, and  Whitney said, "Have you ever heard of the Green School in Indonesia?  It’s the coolest place ever.  It’s completely made of bamboo." 

Okay, back to the Blue Gate Cafe and my text exchange with my student.  I decided to share that my colleague Whitney taught for two years in Indonesia, since I knew she enjoyed her time there.  

Here’s what happened next [photo coming!]

Then we decided to make her a video. [coming soon!]

In the end, it was a moment to remember. Somehow, I found myself drinking lemonade in a rooftop cafe just feet away from the UNESCO world heritage Blue Gate, talking to Whitney from Oregon and Lisa-Erika from NYC (whose parents live in my hometown Ann Arbor) and whose mom and aunt, as you saw in the video, went to the high school where I teach.). And because we had a moment alone while our endlessly energetic host teacher Hicham completed his Friday prayer, I had a moment to read my texts as they came in.  And because I decided to mention to my student that I was sitting at that moment with a teacher who used to teach in Indonesia, we discovered an incredibly serendipitous connection.  The exchange far far away took me closer to home, actually, and I learned even more about my student in a five minute span than I had I had in months back home.  It was, as my student Maggie said in her text “wild.”  In fact, I had a profoundly multimedia communication moment when we made yet one more connection between Maggie and Whitney’s experience - just as I read her texts aloud to Whitney and he said “this is wild,” her text came through a fraction of a second later.

To realize that small world moments like this can happen at the most unexpected times and in the most surprising places was breathtaking and grounding at the same time.  And sometimes I guess I knew that traveling around the world connects you to other people’s stories, but what I didn't quite realize that travel can perhaps even help you learn more about the people you  see every day back home.