The last time I was at my family’s home, we helped the girl with her homework. Alyssa had to leave a bit early, so I stayed and talked to the mother while she worked on knitting a hat for the girl. She told me it was going to be her birthday present, and I could see the satisfaction and pride she had on being able to give something to her daughter.  She opened up to me about how difficult it was to leave her friends and family behind in Nepal and Bhutan, and how sad she feels about not having blood relatives nearby. The father has many relatives that live around the area.

As I was leaving, the little boy, like the time before, sat himself on the floor and spread wide his legs and arms in order to block me from reaching the door. I didn’t want to step over him, so the mother and I just stood laughing for a couple minutes. She reached down and scooped him up, and as I said my goodbyes, he started crying. The closer I walked to the door, the louder his wailing became, so I came back and tickled him and made him give me high fives until he quieted down. Finally, I told him goodbye in as cheerful a manner as I could in the hopes that he wouldn’t start crying again. The mother followed me to the door, and as I bid them goodbye for the last time, the little boy responded, half-teasing, “no bye, no bye,” over and over again, and refused to wave his hand. The mother and I laughed at this, but as I walked out of the apartment and down the hallway, the little boy’s wails followed me.

It’s kind of surreal, thinking back on our first visit, which was only two months ago. So much has changed since then, and I definitely feel that I have changed as well. Another thing I’m grateful for is the opportunity this class has given me in order to do something like this. Being able to have these kinds of experiences was what drove me to sign up for this class in the first place, and I’m so glad I did. Rachel and I have already decided that we want to keep visiting next semester as well, and I’m grateful too that I’ve had such an amazing partner to experience this all with (and who wants to keep coming back for more too!) So this definitely isn’t the end. Rachel, P., and I made plans to build snowmen and make some awesome chalk illustrations, after all.

I think we were both a little overwhelmed and shocked by their lack of awareness. They didn’t seem to comprehend how critical the actual experiment process was until we explained it. The fact that they had to carefully manage their time for the project and that this was a process, not just something you could do it a day, probably went over their heads. When we asked if they had received any specific instructions from their teachers or had asked their teachers for help, they both responded in the negative. Naturally, Rachel and I started to get a little stressed for them. Whereas D. had at least began putting together her project, P. had done no experiment and had not started a poster, and she only had two days to put everything together. We decided we’d come back the next day to help her with a simple project and to help her complete her poster. It was honestly the first day where Rachel and I really encountered an issue, and we were the only ones who could really fix it in such a short amount of time.

We lucked out with our family of a mom, dad and four year old daughter. The father, Prasad, was an english teacher in the refugees camps so he spoke fluent english. His wife, Tulasi, didn’t speak english as well as he but she can still communicate. Through out the semester we worked with her to improve her english. She’s is much better now but is still very nervous to speak english in front of us. Their daughter, Apshana, is the cutest little thing. She was my favorite part of our visits. She always showed me and Erica all her toys and she did our hair. We brought child books for her, so she can start learning english. All she could say was “My name is Apshana”. She always made me laugh. One time during dinner, she walked in wearing my boots that covered up her whole legs. It was very funny. We tried teaching her english but she had a short attention span and it isn’t working out so well. We just play instead. She isn’t in school right now because she is afraid to go.

Sadly on her first day a little black boy made fun of her and beat her up. She never wanted to go back. The whole family is very afraid of their neighborhood. They live by Howard and Sheridan. Tulasi doesn’t even want to go outside without Prashad because she is afraid. Also their rent is very expensive and they want to move to a new apartment. I don’t think they understand how a lease works, but somehow they were able to move out of their apartment to a cheaper one. We haven’t had a chance to go visit them yet, but hopefully soon. I feel like they don’t really need our help and are becoming more and more assimilated every day. I would love to keep in touch with them for as long as possible.

Although we are losing touch, we still try to teach them things about America. Recently we brought them a pizza because they have never tried it. I think they enjoyed the pizza, but they also made dinner after we ate it. I don’t think they got the concept of us bringing them dinner because they made us dinner so much. I am going to miss spending time with them.