By Rima Rabie Adib (12-D)
The Senior School of Thamer International Schools hosted its annual International Day, with a beautiful kaleidoscope of colours, music and cultures, last Thursday. The purpose of the event is to broaden students’ horizons and afford opportunities for them to learn more about their contemporaries’ cultures, food, and languages, while forming a greater understanding of their own place in the wider community. The auditorium was transformed into an airport, our hosts turned into flight attendants, and the SLC turned into cabin staff, all led by our pilot mentors into a smooth flight across the globe.
Our trip commenced at the King Abdulaziz International airport with a wonderful segment showcasing the traditional and modernised Saudi Arabian culture that we all know and love, starting off with a heartwarming poem and ending it with a jolly dance in traditional wear.
Lebanon and Egypt went above and beyond presenting an array of performances that truly captured the essence of both countries. Egypt’s lavish culture excellently presented on the stage with a charming tableau, a heartfelt poem, and videos of our very own students and staff wandering across Egypt; Egypt also implemented an eccentric new concept, that will hopefully live on for future events, with their sign language performance that spoke to us all. Lebanon stole the show with their skits of the legendary Fayrouz, Sabah, Wadi El Saffi, Sameera Tawfii, and Toni Hanna characterised by our immensely talented seniors. The Dabke brought teachers and students to their feet cheering and swinging along.
Palestine warmed our hearts with their gracefully incorporated performance of the ongoing crisis and how the hope of Palestine still persists against all odds.
Syria’s profound emulation of an ancient traditional wedding was exactly what was needed to teach us about the beauty of Syria and its rehabilitation after all the destruction.
Other captivating countries presented were Jordan, Portugal, South Korea, India, Pakistan, and Brazil. The colourful fiesta brought to us by Brazil featured beautiful costumes all handmade by the students themselves. The sweat and tears of all the students and teachers into their dances and their costumes truly paid off as a memorable celebration came about.
A cloud of funny gas settled upon us in the auditorium as the Philosophy and Literature Department’s play went on adding a unique experience about the stereotypes of different countries.
The Mental Health and Psychology Department’s meaningful slam poetry educated us about the importance of unity and love with an affair to remember and a message, ‘when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace’, it is a message to live by.
Health and fitness gave us the greatest gift of all, food. They presented us with different delicious foods we were missing out on; from Ethiopia to South Korea, the buffet featured it all with a palette that ignited everyone’s taste buds.
Sadly, the event had to come to an end, but fortunately for everyone it ended with a grand traditional costumes’ show of students’ diverse backgrounds. They flew us across the globe in warp speed moving from one country to another. The beautiful Eritrean culture ended the show with a round of applause at the richness of its costumes and the beauty of the models.
Let’s not forget the memorable surprise that the teachers laid upon us, a performance about uniting under the name of love; it will stay with us for the years to come.
All the performances together birthed an eloquent event, but we can all agree that the best part was our mothers being there to join our celebration, a first-time occurrence in the history of International Day in the Senior School.
Source Link: January Newsletter (2018-2019)