Algeria!

Today during sports class while the teacher took attendance she asked the kids to say their favourite thing to do and gave examples (playing on the playground, watching a cartoon, playing sports, etc.) to get them started.  She called Noella's name who smiled and said she loves chocolates as her mom watched on.  Then it was Alex's turn who raised his hands to indicate he was in class - his answer, watching Thomas the Tank Engine.  Before my son's name was called out, I asked him what his favourite thing to do was and he looked at me sheepishly and whispered "countries."  I immediately knew he was talking about looking at countries on the map hanging on our dining room wall.  And then it was his turn and I wasn't really sure he was actually going to answer and even more, if he was going to say what he told me (I was hoping he would because I just loved his answer and was so happy he came up with it).  He paused for a few seconds and then blurted out "Algeria!" in a high pitched tone.  I smiled and explained his answer - "he likes to look at countries on the map." 

Some months ago, I went to a work event about international development and got a free world map developed by the Canadian Development Agency (CIDA).  I remembered an Ellen Degeneres episode a while back where a little girl, not more than 4 years old, was on the show.  Her talent - ask her where any country was on the world map and she could tell you.  She was amazing.  It all started when she was about a year old and her dad showed her where Thailand was and said "this is where your uncle is right now."  He showed her the map the next day and she pointed to Thailand.  And then the next day he asked her where Thailand is and she pointed to it on the map.  He figured she was really enjoying the map and he spent everyday teaching a new country till she learned them all.  My son is a mixture of his two parents from different parts of the world (his dad from Tajikistan and me from Canada but whose parents and grandparents are from East Africa and great-grandparents from India) and one of the things I would like to instill in my son is an appreciation of different cultures around the world.  So I put the CIDA map on a wall in our dining room (where we spend a lot of time eating meals and pretend cooking and playing in my son's toy kitchen).  The first two countries we taught our son were Canada and Tajikistan - where his family lives.  And then we moved onto Nepal where Zack the Yak, a character in a book we sometimes read before going to sleep, lives.  And when we found out that a friend was going to Egypt, we showed it to him on the map and said “Salima is going there.”  So far, at 2.5 years old, my son knows the following countries: Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco (when I showed it to my son, he said “it’s behind Algeria”), Kenya (where a friend was born), Papua New Guinea (my son just loves the name), Australia, China, Russia, Mongolia (next to China and Russia), Tajikistan, Belarus (where Rosie’s mom in the book, How Mama Brought the Spring, lived), Tajikistan, Canada (where we live), India, Brazil, Nepal, Argentina, United States (where his cousin lives), El Salvador (where my son’s daycare teachers are from) and New Zealand (where an earthquake happened; my son has learned and continues to practice going under a table for an earthquake drill he learned in daycare one day).

Since spending time looking at countries on the map, my son has asked me where certain things are on the map.  When we were about to go to a friend’s birthday party one day, he asked me where it was.  I told him it was in Port Coquitlam and he asked “mommy, where is Port Coquitlam on the map?”  And then one day he was playing with an empty roll of toiled paper and said “it looks like a spaceship” (we had been reading a book about astronauts and space the previous few nights) and he asked me “mommy, were is space on the map?”  I have even shown him where his sports class and his daycare are on the world map.

I want my son to travel the world and I think he’s on his way.