#hostbrother

Life lessons from mi hermanito

When I first saw that I would be living with a (then) 4 year old I felt my eyes roll. I thought to myself “he will be in my business all of the time and I won’t be able to concentrate”. I had never lived with a child before. How would it be possible to get all of my work done? The last time I lived with a child was when I was a child, which hardly counts. Now you might think, she doesn’t like children! This wasn’t true at all. I always loved playing with the children in my family and before the Peace Corps I was even volunteering in a preschool. I always thought children were fun to play with and I always knew they were full of knowledge, but I just didn’t know if I could live with one. That was until, of course, I met Jorvin. He teaches me something everyday and here are some of the important life lessons I have learned from him. Adults truly can learn a lot from a child.                      

1. Play often My host brother always wants to play. There have been a lot of baseball games on tv lately, so of course he wants to get his ball and bat out at every chance he can get. Just like any other child you will meet, he wants to play. The other day I had an extremely busy day. I taught in the morning, had lunch, quickly ran over to my counterpart’s house to ask her a question, taught an English class, and worked on homework, among other things. My host brother kept asking me “quiere hacer ejercicios?” (do you want to exercise). He knows if he frames it as exercise I am more likely to play with him (which is incredibly adorable). I had to tell him no. I felt bad for saying it, but I had no time! Couldn’t he see that I was running around like a crazy lady? Couldn’t he understand? After doing all of the work I came back home and saw him in the backyard playing by himself. He said “quiere hacer ejercicios?”. My host mom let me know that he had been waiting all day to play with me. At that moment I felt like such an idiot. How did I not have time to play with my adorable host brother? He had been waiting all day to play with me, I can make time, I told myself. I went outside and played soccer with him. We kicked the ball back in forth as he said “goooooaaaallll!”. A lot of the times I let him make a goal. And sometimes he let me make a goal too. Even though I was so occupied it was amazing to just stop and play with him. After we played I felt so much better. It did take time out of my day, but it also greatly improved my day.

2. Laugh at every chance you get Jorvin literally has the most adorable face. His little cheeks are like dough balls and he has this infectious smile that brightens everyone’s spirt. When he laughs you can’t help but laugh too. There are days when I am in such a bad mood and I just feel like storming directly to my room and sitting in my hammock, but then I will hear Jorvin’s irresistible laughter and have to leave my room to see what he is laughing about. I’ve read a study that children laugh so much more than adults, and Jorvin continually reminds me that there is always something to laugh about. Even if it is something as simple as my cat jumping toward his foot. That, once you think about it, can be absolutely hilarious! One of my favorite things in the world is breaking out into a huge laugh and not being able to stop. Jorvin helps me to remember that this is important in life.

3. See beauty I don’t know what it is about kids, but they seem to see everything. I think as we get older we start focusing on certain things while becoming increasingly blind to others. It is so easy to get stuck on thinking about work and worries, but just as important to open your eyes. Jorvin always sees beauty. This is something that I am working on because beauty is literally all around us. I mean, I live in this absolutely beautiful country. There are lengthy palm trees, colorful and tropical birds, grand animals ambling through the streets, and mountains that change colors depending on what part of the day it is. This is such a gorgeous place and I am always forgetting that. Jorvin is a great hombrecito (little man, as I like to call him) and he always points out the beauty to me. “Mire Traci, hay un gran pájaro!” (Look Traci, there is a big bird). Everyday he tells me about the beautiful things he comes into contact with and it never fails to make me smile.

4. Ask questions “Porque Khaleesi quire jugar? Como se dice tigre en ingles? Porque los bolos le gusta beber? A donde va? Y porque tiene que ir? Que va a hacer? Vamos a aprender ingles hoy? (Why does Khaleesi want to play? How do you say tiger in English? Why do the drunks like to drink? Where are you going? And why do you have to go? What are you going to do? Are we going to learn English today?) Sometimes I feel like Jorvin’s full time job is asking questions. He asks questions every chance he gets. Some days I want to rip my hair out. “No mas preguntas! Yo no puedo aguantar mas! (No more questions! I can’t handle anymore). Questions on questions on questions. Even though it can get really old, this is how you learn. If you never asked any questions how would you learn new information? Of course you can observe others or read the information from a book, but the most direct way to learn something new is to ask questions. It is especially important when you are in a different country with a different language. Jorvin has taught me that this is super essential and now I ask him questions all of the time too. He is truly teaching me everything he knows!

5. Learn everyday Jorvin is at an age where learning is important. Everyday he asks “puede enseñar ingles hoy?” (Can you teach English today?) He has been on a quest for knowledge. When I teach him new words he will practice them with me and then later when I am in my room I can hear him, for example: “no more monkeys jumping on the bed” or “I don’t like!”. He takes new information and plays with it, practices it, and uses it at every opportunity he gets. He is learning everything so fast, and part of it is because he is at a prime age for learning new things, but it’s also due to the fact that he wants to learn. There are days when I think I can’t learn anything else today and that is when I step back and push myself a little harder. My brain is constantly taking new information in. I remember when I was in training and my brain would literally stop working at 5 pm. In training we were learning so much Spanish and cultural information that my brain would just turn off and I wouldn’t be able to process anything else. Now I obviously am not learning at such a high rate as I was in training, but everyday I am definitely learning something new. I think to myself, if my host brother can push himself to learn so much, I can too!

6. Be yourself Jorvin is silly, caring, insistent, hilarious, wise, cranky-when-hungry, and last but not least, loco (or as he likes to say “crazyyyy”). He laughs at every chance he gets and talks when the adults are talking. He smiles when he feels like smiling, he tells people he is upset when he’s angry, he goes to my host parent’s room when he’s had too much, and he tells grown men when that they are being bad (usually when they are upsetting our dog). He doesn’t care what people think about him and he is always nothing more than himself. In this way he inspires me to be completely myself.

7. Stay calm. In order to explain this the best I am going to tell a story. Jorvin likes to play with knives when my host mom isn’t looking. He likes to use them to hit the wood surface where we wash our dishes. He likes to make lines in the wet wood and hear the clank it makes when the knife touches the surface. Now the knives are not super sharp, so he really isn’t in much danger, but my host mom and I are always telling him how dangerous it is. He, of course, doesn’t really pay attention. One day he was chopping away and instead of hitting the wood he hit his finger. It made a little cut and his finger started bleeding. It wasn’t too bad, but bad enough that a normal 5 year old would have had a fit. He didn’t. My host mom found out what had happened and started yelling at him. “What were you thinking? I told you that you could cut yourself! Now what are you going to do?” After a few minutes of that he walked over to where we keep the toilet paper and carefully wrapped it around his finger. He then went to sit on the edge of the kitchen where the door opens to the outside of the house. He looked at his little wrapped finger and sat with his legs crossed. After a few minutes he looked at his angry mom and said “I think I need a bandaid, can you give me a peso?”. I was so shocked! Did he just calmly ask for a bandaid? Maybe I misunderstood him. My host mom gave him a coin and he ran off next door to the pulperia (small corner store) to buy a bandaid. It was such a simple and easy solution to his problem. His finger had been bleeding, he was in pain, and my host mom was yelling at him, but instead of freaking out, he stayed calm and handled the problem. He did it with such grace. I love to remember this story when I am in a high stress situation. There is always a solution to your problem and if you just stay calm you can usually handle it, although maybe not as gracefully as my host brother.