Loving your Neighbors: ESOL Class and Inter-faith Crushes

So I have an adorable ESOL class that I adore. They are sponsoring an orphanage in India. And today, we had an in-depth discussion about inter-racial and inter-faith marriage. You see, Maria has a crush on Mohammed, a young Bangledeshi boy who grew up in Spain. Maria is a feisty mixed-race Portuguese girl, and she loves the boys. So while Maria keeps coming after poor Mohammed in Spanish, he smiles and just runs away from her.

"Miss! He's black! His skin is darker than mine!" she let peal out over the classroom.
"No Maria, he's brown - he's Asian. He's from Bangladesh."
"But Miss! He speaks Spanish, and look! Look at his hair! If we had babies, what kind of hair would they have?" (She has kinky African hair, but a lighter, caramel colored skin).

We're all laughing because all of the kids in my class are confident to talk about ourselves like this. They know they are beautiful and special, the blond hair, blue-eyed ones to the dark brown Asian ones, to the black skinned mixed-race children.

So... As the convo continued, it emerged that Mohammed was Muslim, so he eats halal.
"What?! He doesn't eat meat?! No BACON! No SAUSAGE?! No CHICKEN?! Miss, in Portugual it's like NANDOS ALL THE TIME!!" (While miming scarfing chicken with both hands).

Mohammed, this entire time is smiling at how mental she is, and I just have images of her chasing him around with slices of bacon in her hands.

I love having these intense, candid conversations about race and religion. I love the verve of the loud, crazy girls, and the silly boys and the quiet, shy boys... they're all fabulous. I hope they stay as confident and open as they are now, that they continue to learn about other cultures and religions and even have little crushes.

Luckily for Mohammed, when Maria found out his parents probably wouldn't like her, she shrugged and said it'd never work since they wouldn't let her eat sausage. The end.

**Names have been changed.