Intercultural Awareness

As blogged before, Quinn's kindergarten has a year long program, taking the kids on a virtual trip around the world.  One country each month.

Since our neighborhood is very culturally diverse, this is not only a perfect fit, but it allows many parents to participate in introducing their countries.  First was Germany, then the US, China, France, Italy...and this month is Turkey.

As part of the program, the kids went to a mosque.  Since Emily is an 'old' preschooler, she got to go as well.  After the visit to the mosque, the kids went to get Döner Kebap (a type of seasoned chicken or lamb in pita bread) for lunch.  While I'm a huge fan of Döner, I would guess that most Turks would get upset if you would call it 'good, turkish cuisine' (and 'real' turkish cuisine is VERY good).

Since the kiddoes went to McDonalds for their field trip during USA month (which I wasn't really happy about), I was at least happy that they did the same for the Turks.  Definitely fair.  But, I digress.

When Emily came home, Eva asked Emily how her day was, and how the mosque was.  Her answer:  she ate fries for lunch.

Quinn was a bit more talkative, but didn't say too much about the trip.  After Eva talked to the teachers, the feedback was more interesting.  Apparently, Quinn asked a lot of questions, and was very interested...seemingly comparing the mosque to what he knows at church.

One question really made us chuckle and smile:  he asked the muslim priest where the cross was.