I realized that it has been awhile since I've written anything here! After a pretty chaotic stretch (thus my previous post), we had some travel, and then things have been fairly uneventful for a couple of weeks, which has kind of felt odd.
Anyway, we're still here.
I feel like I constantly have little questions or lessons about life here, but every once in awhile, I have these moments of realizing something or learning something that catches me off guard a bit.
Today, we were out for a walk. I was letting Isaiah lead the way on our walk. We started going a way that we have been many times, and then he wanted to take a different turn than we had taken before. Lately, he has been uncharacteristically eager to explore new paths and places he hasn't seen before. After we turned a different direction on a road, he wanted to turn onto a path that looked like it led down beside a small field into the middle of people's homes. It didn't seem like a dead end, though, so I followed him, and we went exploring. It was definitely a spot that we got asked right away about a dozen times where we were going. A group of kids came around my boys and started to try to talk with us some and mostly watch us and talk about us. I'm kind of used to it, but it really frustrates Isaiah, especially when he feels like they are laughing at him.
A man nearby at what appeared to perhaps be a tiny shop started to chat with me. I frequently get asked about the boys going to school, so I was expecting that question, and it is hard to explain sometimes that I teach them at home for now. But, a question that I wasn't expecting came up, "Don't they have any friends?" It kind of caught me off-guard, and I said, "Well, yes, they have friends." I didn't really understand the reason for the question. He said something about here being better for friends or something. As I started thinking about it, I hardly ever see a Nepali kid older than a toddler playing by themselves. Most of the time, kids are playing in a group or at least with another friend, and I very rarely see an adult around, so I realized that it must have been quite odd for the two boys to be on a walk with their mom and no other kids.
I mean, most people also think my kids are notably older than they are because they are a little bit big for their age by American standards, which means they are REALLY big compared to Nepali kids their age. The other boys that came around them, for instance, were roughly the same size as Isaiah, maybe an inch or two taller. I assumed that they were probably a bit older than him, but it turned out they were 9 and 10 years old! (Isaiah's 4 1/2.)
It was just one of those moments that I realized that "normal" is so different here, and we are constantly learning how odd we must seem to people here! American culture is so much more individualistic, and the culture here, which I realized is even quite evident in kids and their common experiences, is much more communal. It is new territory to us to find a mix of being ok with being odd at times, preserving our home culture, but also learning from and adapting to another culture and figuring out how to experience life here fully in a culture that we often are unaware of what is "normal." Forging ahead...
Anyway, we're still here.
I feel like I constantly have little questions or lessons about life here, but every once in awhile, I have these moments of realizing something or learning something that catches me off guard a bit.
Today, we were out for a walk. I was letting Isaiah lead the way on our walk. We started going a way that we have been many times, and then he wanted to take a different turn than we had taken before. Lately, he has been uncharacteristically eager to explore new paths and places he hasn't seen before. After we turned a different direction on a road, he wanted to turn onto a path that looked like it led down beside a small field into the middle of people's homes. It didn't seem like a dead end, though, so I followed him, and we went exploring. It was definitely a spot that we got asked right away about a dozen times where we were going. A group of kids came around my boys and started to try to talk with us some and mostly watch us and talk about us. I'm kind of used to it, but it really frustrates Isaiah, especially when he feels like they are laughing at him.
A man nearby at what appeared to perhaps be a tiny shop started to chat with me. I frequently get asked about the boys going to school, so I was expecting that question, and it is hard to explain sometimes that I teach them at home for now. But, a question that I wasn't expecting came up, "Don't they have any friends?" It kind of caught me off-guard, and I said, "Well, yes, they have friends." I didn't really understand the reason for the question. He said something about here being better for friends or something. As I started thinking about it, I hardly ever see a Nepali kid older than a toddler playing by themselves. Most of the time, kids are playing in a group or at least with another friend, and I very rarely see an adult around, so I realized that it must have been quite odd for the two boys to be on a walk with their mom and no other kids.
I mean, most people also think my kids are notably older than they are because they are a little bit big for their age by American standards, which means they are REALLY big compared to Nepali kids their age. The other boys that came around them, for instance, were roughly the same size as Isaiah, maybe an inch or two taller. I assumed that they were probably a bit older than him, but it turned out they were 9 and 10 years old! (Isaiah's 4 1/2.)
It was just one of those moments that I realized that "normal" is so different here, and we are constantly learning how odd we must seem to people here! American culture is so much more individualistic, and the culture here, which I realized is even quite evident in kids and their common experiences, is much more communal. It is new territory to us to find a mix of being ok with being odd at times, preserving our home culture, but also learning from and adapting to another culture and figuring out how to experience life here fully in a culture that we often are unaware of what is "normal." Forging ahead...
1 comment:
So very much to think about and take in.
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