African Tradition

(Pretend the date is Tuesday, October 7th, 2008)

My class is the best! At the end of the day on Tuesday's and Thursday's my class goes to music. Today, the music teacher pulled me aside (before class) and asked that I come pick my class up 10 minutes before I was supposed to.

When I got there, the class was working on an African song. Mrs. Hatch, the music teacher, had me sit at the front of the room on the "golden chair". In front of the chair was a cup of water, a bowl of dry rice on one side and a bowl of dry beans on the other side. The tradition was called something like, "The Wishing Well".

The class started singing and, one at a time, they came up to me and picked a piece of rice or a bean and dropped it into the cup of water. Then, they whispered in my ear, a wish or a nice thought. It was so thoughtful and sweet! Some examples of the thoughts / wishes were things like, "I hope you have a girl" or "I hope you have a boy" or "I hope your birthday is good" or "May you have lots of joy in your life". One of my favorites was "I wish you lots of happiness and success...oh wait! You've had some already! I hope it continues!"

I truly have one of the best classes in the world!