The smile was printed across Leela's face while she sat next to me and tried to explain how the Nepali flag looks like. Her black straight hair was falling across her face while she opened a book to show me the flag of the country she was born and the country she actually considered herself from (Bhutan). I used my scarf to tie her hair back which made her look at me and ask where I was from. "Brazil" I said. Her eyes sparkled as she realized I was like her: foreign, different, but striving to fit in. She decided to open her heart.
Leela, who used to be shy when talking to me certainly now fell a bond as strong as the knot I made with the scarf on her hair. Her speech turned bubbly as she told me about the houses in Nepal, where she was born. "My parents made my house out of bamboo" she said. As she described what it took her parents to make the house I could not stop but think about this book I read one day that said "to know the history of humans it is important to look at their houses." She explained the houses were not stable, the wind would often blow the bamboos away and it would leave her and her brothers in a 24-hour watch for missing bamboos on the roof and the house's structure in general.
To me this story summarizes what I have seen this past month while talking to my new group of friends: the Bhutanese-Nepali. Each and every generation has suffered with subjugation from misunderstanding cultures throughout their lives. The parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents I have talked to, all had to move away from the land they lived on because of cultural persecution. Therefore I conclude the only thing that has kept them sane was their culture: which is what all have in common and all strive to protect.
Their culture is like the house Leela just described. The basic foundations were thought of centuries ago but each family has built and tailored the culture and made it unique to them. The older folks treat these foundation almost like a sanctuary, but the children are the ones now in charge to be on the watch for things that will move the "bamboos" of their heritage. They are the ones who will decide, from now on, whether or not to fix it when in contact with American "winds." I have observed the children for three weeks and I believe that has left me with the opportunity and fondness to say this "tornado" might as well do the same thing it did for me and my culture: draw a very stable blueprint for the "house" they will one day build for their families or themselves.
Leela, who used to be shy when talking to me certainly now fell a bond as strong as the knot I made with the scarf on her hair. Her speech turned bubbly as she told me about the houses in Nepal, where she was born. "My parents made my house out of bamboo" she said. As she described what it took her parents to make the house I could not stop but think about this book I read one day that said "to know the history of humans it is important to look at their houses." She explained the houses were not stable, the wind would often blow the bamboos away and it would leave her and her brothers in a 24-hour watch for missing bamboos on the roof and the house's structure in general.
To me this story summarizes what I have seen this past month while talking to my new group of friends: the Bhutanese-Nepali. Each and every generation has suffered with subjugation from misunderstanding cultures throughout their lives. The parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents I have talked to, all had to move away from the land they lived on because of cultural persecution. Therefore I conclude the only thing that has kept them sane was their culture: which is what all have in common and all strive to protect.
Their culture is like the house Leela just described. The basic foundations were thought of centuries ago but each family has built and tailored the culture and made it unique to them. The older folks treat these foundation almost like a sanctuary, but the children are the ones now in charge to be on the watch for things that will move the "bamboos" of their heritage. They are the ones who will decide, from now on, whether or not to fix it when in contact with American "winds." I have observed the children for three weeks and I believe that has left me with the opportunity and fondness to say this "tornado" might as well do the same thing it did for me and my culture: draw a very stable blueprint for the "house" they will one day build for their families or themselves.
