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Interview with two boys in the bus

Monday, November 1, 2021 (07:30)

Today I went to the morning Mass in the Cathedral. I went by bus as usual. In the bus were again these two boys, obviously classmates going to school, maybe 10 years old. I had seen them several times before in this bus. They captured my attention because of how they are together with each other during the travel. Unlike many other children they are not staring at their smartphones. They dialogue directly with each other, alternating with short moments of silence, in a calm rhythm. Sometimes I had captured fragments of what they talk about: everyday topics of ten-year-old boys, nothing special. What’s interesting, is the way they are living this daily routine lapse of 10 minutes together in the bus.

Today I disturbed their being together. I entered into their private room. I stepped in front of them started the following interview.

Me: Boys, may I ask you a question? I ask because I see you now for the third time and I have the impression that you are smart guys. It’s a big question. Do you also have the feeling that the world is currently in a big kind of mess, with all those crises? Or would you rather say that everything is okay and there’s no reason to worry?

Boys: Rather that answer with the crises.

Me: And do you actually worry?

Boy: Yes, a bit. Not very much because I just got through it (põdenesin läbi).

Me: And then there’s that climate crisis as well. Have you heard about it? I sometimes hear older people say that climate is more important for the youngest generations because they will have to live on this planet when we, the older generation, have already passed away.

Me: If you were the president of Estonia, or more precisely the king of the whole world –yes that doesn’t exist, but just imagine–, what would you tell us to do?

Boy: I think that something needs to get invented against this.

Me: Against what?

Boy 1: Against this pandemic. Or for example a maailmakoristuspäev.

Boy 2: For example I heard about a project where they clean the air in big cities.

Me: A beautiful answer. Thank you!

What I learned from this experience

• I am obviously “disabled” for doing this job directly: I have acoustic difficulties to understand what people, especially young people, say.

• I lack experience and time for getting children to speak about “big questions”. There are many good teachers in Estonia who would do this job much better than I.

• Despite these issues I believe that we should make the effort of getting children to speak up at the Synod.

Let us pray that some experienced teacher feels the call of acting after reading this story.