240/365 Emerging Awareness

Terri and Joey stood in the hall looking worried. I let my kids out the door and down to English, welcoming in the 7th graders who were my homeroom the year before.

"The rules are long on that family," I caught Terri saying. I glanced over and she nodded for me to join them. "You have one of the Avdos in your class?" she asked.

"Yeah, Drina."

"I've got Aisha. Did Sr. Fern talk to you?"

"No--she said to come down on my break."

"Yeah...they're Muslim."

"They're Bosnian. We should have seen that one coming."

And then Terri gave me the rules. She was not to attend mass or music practice in the church, even though all the non-Catholic Christians and all the Buddhists did. She was not to go to religion class and instead would spend that time with Sr. Agneta in the ESL classroom.

"You're kidding me," I blurted out.

"Nope," they shake their heads. "And Ben, downstairs? He passed me in the hall and told me they're not even Bosnian."

"What?"

"They're Gypsies."