A 10-year-old girl who doesn't speak Spanish befriends new classmate who doesn't speak English.
It’s seldom easy being the new kid in school — and it’s downright awful when you’re the new kid and you don’t speak the language of your classmates.
Amanda Moore felt badly for Rafael Anaya, the new boy at Paloma Elementary School in Temecula, California, who, like her, was 10 years old and in the fifth grade.
But unlike her, he didn’t speak English. And she didn’t speak Spanish.
Her compassion, however, spoke volumes when she saw him sitting alone at lunch and decided she was going to find a way to talk to him.
Hola, Google Translate. With the internet tool’s help, she wrote a letter to Rafael, asking whether he’d like to sit with her at lunch. “We could be coloring or telling scary stories,” she printed in Spanish. “Thank you for your time.”
Her mom, Kimber Kinard, told InsideEdition.com she was not surprised her daughter exhibited such kindness toward someone she didn’t know.
“I always tell her to look for the new kid at school,” she said.
After Moore crafted her missive, she proudly showed it to her mother, along with the English version. “I just started crying, and honestly, I haven’t stopped since,” Kinard said.
After dinner that night, the mom told her daughter, “Just give it to him, he’ll appreciate it. And did he ever!” Kinard said.
The two students began eating lunch together every day. A week later, Rafael and Amanda went trick-or-treating with her family. They taught him the “trick-or-treat, smell my feet” jingle.
"All Amanda’s other friends are welcoming him into their group," Kinard said. "They all try to help him out and use a kid version of sign language."
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Amanda’s family also hopes Rafael will join Amanda at a horse rescue farm where she volunteers on the weekends.
Like her, Rafael loves animals.
Kinard predicts the two kids will be fast friends, and says they both have something to offer the other.
“He will be excellent at English and she will learn to speak Spanish,” the mother said.
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