Meeting New People

“His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over from each other.”

- Herman Melville

    It doesn’t matter if you look different, sound different or come from different upbringings, it is possible to find similarities. In finding common ground with new people you often learn something. Not everything that we learn is from a book or in the classroom. Some of the greatest of life’s lessons are learned in the process of making new friends. Last summer I went to The Island School for a week long camp. There were only twelve kids in the group so we got to know each other well. There were three other boys in my room who I was the closest to on the trip. One boy, Arthur, was from a nearby island in the Bahamas called Nassau. The two other kids were from the United States. We all enjoyed sharing stories about our culture and other crazy stuff. Arthur even told us one story about a school wide fight between his school and another school during a basketball game. He said that people pulled knives out and some kids got seriously hurt. I learned that I am grateful to be to be able to learn in a safe and nurturing environment. He also taught me a card game called Peanut Butter. It is a small thing but something like that is a good way to connect with new friends. I have taught other friends the card game and told them about Arthur. I learned a lot of lessons from him some big and some small. However, I realized that it is not necessary to always have similarities with people to connect with them. You can also create bonds with people by sharing experiences.