Day 12 - Diar´s first day at school - November 25th

It was an exciting morning for all of us. I woke up around 6:30am and got ready. On my way out, I grabbed the school cone I had made for Diar the night before. Diar arrived in Vienna nearly two weeks ago and I was so proud to be able to send him to school already. It was only possible because Eva and Stephan offered them a room in their home which then allowed me to have the family registered at the residence and with the residence registration I was able to register Diar and Mohamad at school. 

I picked up Shamse, the mother, Abdelaziz, the father and Diar at 07:45am. I handed Diar the school cone and used Google translate to explain that it this was custom in Austria. I also explained that he was gifted with a school cone because it was his first day at an Austrian school. Diar´s mother offered him to carry the cone for him as it was an icy cold morning and Diar forgot his gloves in the apartment. But Diar didn´t let her carry the cone, he held on to it and it made my heart jump. 

School was a rough 10 minutes walk away. I had printed out the map from their apartment to school for all of them so that they could learn how to get there by themselves. I had also printed out a map of nearby supermarkets and pharmacies including their opening hours. Upon arrival at school, I had to take a picture of Diar with his school cone. Some day, he will be fluent in German and hopefully in English too and he will be reminded of all our memories through this blog.

We walked upstairs to the principal´s office who introduced us to the headmaster of his class. Everybody was so friendly and open minded - it was a joy to see him at such a good place. We entered class and the headmaster introduced Diar also to some children who spoke Arabic and German and who could help him along the way. She assigned him a seat and I asked him to open up the cone as I had bought a brand new pencil case for him with everything he would need for his first day at school. 

Shamse and Abdelaziz were very happy too. We said goodbye and left. I dropped them off at their place via the same route we had taken earlier and headed back to work - joyfully.