New Foods

Tonight, Russ, Fiona and I tried new foods. A whole genre of foods in fact. We were invited to the home of one of my students. He's the a pretty multi-cultural kid- Pakistani mother (who lived in NYC for much of her life and is US citizen) Pakistani father (who's been living in Germany since 1986 and speaks perfect German) and the child himself was born in NYC and considers himself American.  I wish we had more international kids here- most of them consider this child to be foreign. We're studying immigration right now and he and I are the immigrants in the class. Seriously. My students get a huge kick of of my "when we arrived with nothing but the clothes on our backs and 13 suitcases and a car seat and a stroller and no German and had no ride to pick us up" story. It sure hits home for them more than Ellis Island. 

Anyway... off to Student's house for dinner. It was delicious- and I am not one to eat "spicy" (Russ says that means anything with flavor, or salt and pepper) food. But she cooked a lovely Pakistani meal that I can't pronounce but ate a lot of, served no alcohol (they're Muslim) and apologised for it (like I'd be pounding back the wine on a Thursday night with my third grader sitting right next to me!) and gorgeous fruits for dessert. We had tea, visited, and admired their new house with its big American kitchen (she kept pointing that out to me, and I kept saying I was jealous, which she probably thought was being polite, but in fact, I truly am- she has countertops, stainless steel, and a table in her kitchen where people do not hit their heads while eating). 

As we stood up to go, Russ (being polite, a Director, and taking to the German handshake-obsessed way) went to shake hands.  The father was fine, but when Russ got to the mother, they got... not really offended but sort of embarrassed for Russ, that he didn't know she couldn't/wouldn't shake his hand. Apparently (learn something new every day!) in the Muslim culture, women do not shake men's hands. Which I did NOT know. Russ did not feel bad, just did a sort of awkward head-bobbing-bow-thing. I must Google this tradition. I LOVE learning new things like this- it makes me realize that in many international schools, this sort of thing happens every day- you meet all kinds of nationalities- and from what I hear, get invited to their homes. Germans don't really do that, at least my Germans don't,  and besides, their evening meal is sandwiches. Which is actually a great meal to invite Russ and Fiona to, seeing as they love sandwiches. Fiona is eating like a German these days. She eats sausages and deli meat. And tonight, she ate seasoned chicken kebabs. Kindergarten has been so good for diet expansion. I should enroll myself.