For four weeks, 11-year-olds from a dozen countries lived together in a Children's International Summer Village created at Jefferson Middle School in Mt. Lebanon, learning about each other's cultures and creating friendships that organizers hope could some day lead to world peace.

That's the big picture.

But to the 48 children who participated, the immediate focus was on having fun and making new friends.

The village, which started June 20, ended last Friday. One of the final activities of the group was a trip to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning.

Afterward, they were treated to cookies from around the world, baked by the heads of the various nationality room committees.

At the Jefferson village, English was the common language spoken among children and organizers. But an even more effective communication seemed to come through the international language of 11-year-olds: Laughter.

That was evident when one student started to roll down a grassy hillside on the lawn of the Cathedral of Learning and a group of others followed suit, laughing and squealing as they rolled.

It was also apparent when one boy picked up an empty water bottle left over from a picnic lunch on the Cathedral lawn and pretended to use it as a baseball bat. Another boy who understood the motion, picked up a small stones that he pitched to batter.

The program was created in 1951 by Cincinnati child psychologist Doris Allen, who believed that the solution to world peace was through children. She identified the age of 11 as one in which the children would be mature enough to handle the program, yet young enough to have an open mind about other cultures and religions.

"It's a great time for them to absorb living with kids from other countries," said Jonathan Fantazier, a secondary math and English teacher with the Pittsburgh Public Schools who was the village director at Jefferson.

The first village was held in 1951 in Cincinnati with children from eight countries. Since then, more than 50 countries have been involved in hosting villages.

The Jefferson village was one of eight being held this summer in the United States and among 60 held around the world, Mr. Fantazier said.

The educational component of the program is similar to the International Baccalaureate program offered at some schools, Mr. Fantazier said.

The village at Jefferson was sponsored by the Pittsburgh CISV chapter, which organizes a village every three years. The Mt. Lebanon area was chosen for this year's village because a number of members of the Pittsburgh chapter live in the community or nearby and school officials were extremely cooperative in offering a facility, Mr. Fantazier said.

At Jefferson, the students slept on air mattresses provided by local families who are involved with the program. They ate food prepared in Jefferson's kitchen by a school district cafeteria employee and they attended programs operated in the school's classrooms and some outside of the facility, such as the museum and nationality room visits on Thursday.

Countries represented

The village at Jefferson hosted children from Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, India, Jordan, Norway, Philippines and the United States. Each country sent a delegation of four students who were accompanied by a young adult group leader.

On two weekends during the village, the children were divided into groups of either two or four and sent to live with host families in the area.

Geralyn Austin, of Upper St. Clair, hosted some of the children in her home. Her son, Kyle, 12, participated in an international village last year in Ohio. This year, he participated in the Village's interchange program, through which he spent two weeks with a family in Lisbon, Portugal.

Soon, his partner from Portugal will visit the Austin family for two weeks in Upper St. Clair.

"Kyle still keeps in touch with kids from his village. His best friend is from the Philippines and he keeps asking when we are going to there ," she said.

International friendships are what the program is all about and those bonds are built as the students learn about each other's cultures during the weeks of the village.

One of the activities at the Jefferson village was for students to talk about their impressions of other countries and cultures and then for the children from those countries to either verify or dispel the beliefs.

Jaida Elshimi, of Egypt, said some children at the village believe that "Egypt is all desert, but it is not."

Adham Gala, also of Egypt, said he learned that "the people from Indonesia are really, really good dancers."

Zeina Morad, 21, the adult leader for the Egyptian delegation, said that the food served during the village was mainly American food, the type served in a school cafeteria. But her delegation and several others, whose homeland diet includes a lot of rice, asked the kitchen staff to please include more rice with the meals. "We just weren't getting enough rice," she said.

Some of the other Egyptian students said they were surprised at the large sizes of buildings, houses and cars in the United States. "Everything here is big," said Sabrina Ghobrial.

The American students from Miami County, Ohio, got a shock when they heard what the students from other countries thought about Americans.

On politics

"They said they thought Americans like war," said Katelyn Snee. "We were surprised. But we explained that most Americans don't like war. We explained that what people see on TV is not necessarily what we think."

The other international students were also interested in American politics and said they thought George Bush "was a bad president" and that they would like to see Barack Obama become the next president," Katelyn said.

The delegation from Indonesia faced a 30-hour trip to get to the Mt. Lebanon village. It spanned from Jakarta to Singapore to Frankfurt to New York to Pittsburgh.

They were disappointed to find that other children at the camp associated Indonesia with bad weather -- specifically the 2004 tsunami -- and with poverty. "We told them that not all people are poor," Andrew Wirjomartani said.

Adrian Widodo said the Indonesian delegation also pointed out that there are many beautiful beaches and resorts in their country, one of the most famous is the island of Bali.

For Rafael Esguerra, it was difficult to hear some say their impression of his Philippines homeland is that it is a poor country. "We are poor, but that is very hard to accept," he said.

Of the international village at Jefferson, Rafael said: It's been great, I love it. I hate to go. I am going to miss all of the friends I made.''

A number of students expressed the same sentiment. But they all plan to use the internet to keep in touch.

Sabrina of Eqypt said: "I will miss a lot of our friends. But I have all of their e-mail addresses."