Amy’s end-of-school party; Dilara’s languages

[pne]

It was Amy’s (and her class’s) end-of-school party yesterday; their elementary school years will be over in two and a half weeks and then it’ll be off to secondary school for the children.

The class performed a few acrobatics and a couple of songs, including a surprise one for their teacher which they had secretly practised with a couple of the parents. The teacher showed a slideshow of the class’s highlights over the last four years, using photos she had received from parents. (Ms Schamne had only been their teacher for a year and a half, after their first teacher had to take a longer break for medical reasons.) There was also a “then and now” bit with photographs of the children in 1st and 4th grade, which got a fair number of laughs out of the children :) ("Look how you looked back then!")

Afterwards, there was food, and then general “free time”. At 10, the parents got kicked out (though I didn’t stay that long) and the children stayed behind to spend the night at school. This morning, they’ll come home at around 10.)

While I was playing “keep the balloon in the air” with Amy, Dilara from her class came up to me and asked me whether I was Amy’s father and whether I speak English with her.

I said yes, and added, “Ve sen, Türkçe konuşabilir misin?” (And you, can you speak Turkish?). She was surprised and asked me where I knew that from :) (I’m learning Turkish now; started about five weeks ago.) She said that she’s a Turkish Kurd and knows five languages: German, Turkish, Kurdish, English, and Arabic. Not bad.

Arabic she says she only knows a bit in, just some sentences, and I’m guessing that English also refers to 4th grade school English rather than a fluent command. But still; I was impressed.