Nice is nice

I had the opportunity to travel to Nice, France last weekend. I attended a conference for educators with some colleagues from school. We were there to attend workshops and shop for math and language resources for our school.

We arrived late Thursday night without our luggage as the airline could not manage to get both passengers and bags to the same place on the same plane at the same time. The luggage is a story in itself, but that is not the story I want to tell here.

I was wndering around the exhibition part of the conference where there were publishing companies, software companies, travel companies and then this booth with John Farrell, Peace. I looked at some literature on his table and saw that he had some organization that was interested in promoting peace. He is a musician and had a guitar on his lap and a bunch of CD's with his name on the laying on the table. My interest here is related to my work as a teacher as I will be teaching a unit on peace this year. The unit is an exhibition unit in which the children must take some kind of action. I wondered if John's project Bridges of Peace could be something to introduce to the kids. John tells me he is form upstate New York but also has a home in PEI. Knowing as all Canadians do that everyone knows everyone in PEI, and that a good friend from the Soo is a PEI musician, I asked John if he knew Bradley. He relpied that Bradley is a very good friend and played on his latest CD. I was stunned. I mean, I am standing in a conference centre in the middle of a city on the French Riviera and in front of me is a man who knows well one of my childhood friends who grew up across the street. What are the chances? Pretty good, it looks.

Anyway, John and I had a good talk, he played me some of his songs and we are definitely going to connect on this project because it fits so well with the IBO's educational approach and philosphy. I hope too to get him to the school to do some music workshops with the kids. The guy who took our picture was an officer in the British army. He served in Bosnia in the 90's. He now runs an organization that has shut down state run 'orphanages' in Romania. You may remember that after Ceausescu was overthrown and killed the first images the west received were of the thousands of children kept in bondage and prison like conditions. He has managed to work with local agencies in Romania and close the last of these institutions. He has worked with the current government to set up alternative residences for the most severely affected children and adults, and reunited those who still had family alive with their relatives. Brave work.

It was a great weekend in all. Nice is nice. Splendid actually. 20 degrees in late November. Nice.

That's the news from here this week.