Friday, February 21, 2014

So much to be thankful for

I am currently on home soil, this Sunday before Thanksgiving.  The day finds me blending home country traditions with new country discoveries.  I'm making my list of grocery items that I need for the big feast on Thanksgiving Day while I watch the final Formula 1 Grand Prix race on TV.  It's an excellent blend of old and new.

This will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmas at home in 4 years.  My sweetie pie will be celebrating Thanksgiving in Jakarta while I have the good fortune to share the day with sweetie pie #2 and friends here in America.  I wish he could be here too, but there is only so much vacation time to go around.

The good news is, he will be here soon and we will all celebrate a Masters Degree earned, another birthday, and Christmas.  It is hard to stuff too many more things to be thankful for in to just a few weeks time.

As the title of my posts says, there is so much to be thankful for.  The last 4 years have taught us many things.  We've learned about a new culture.  One that is strikingly different from our own.  We've learned a new language.  It is, on the surface, simple but it can get complicated very quickly with various prefixes and such.  Since it isn't based on a romance language, except for the sprinkling of  Portuguese words that occur occasionally,  it takes a while to train your ear to understand what's being said to you.  I still really only posses basic skills, but I get by.

We've learned about sports that we've never really followed before.  Formula 1 racing and Moto GP were never on our TV screen at home before now.  We are learning golf.  While yes, we have knocked the ball around many, many years ago; we actually get out and play now.  This will be a game that we will spend a lifetime to learn.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to grow as a person in a way I didn't know I could.  I remember back in high school we had exchange students at our school.  I feel like I have been on a very long exchange program.  While I haven't been in a formal school setting, I have been in the school of life.  They both have equal value.

But I feel that we are having very a similar experience to each other; those exchange students and I.  The staff we employ at our house are a bit like a host family.  Even though we are their employers, they are the most constant contact I have on the most personal basis with our temporary country of residence.  I have seen pictures of their children who we are helping to educate, the houses that we are loaning money to them to help have built or repaired, through illnesses, weddings and just day-to-day life we interact with each other.  The minute I walk out the door, there is always at least one smiling, familiar face to say hello to and ask how they are.   I will miss them, and I think they will miss us.

But, I am thankful to be home in my own space with a bit more privacy in my day-to-day living.  That is one of the major differences I think.  As Americans, we live life much more privately.  Their lives are more out in the open.  Some of this is out of necessity for each culture.  Our worlds are very different in this way.  I am thankful that I have gotten to see this contrast.

So many, many things that I have seen and experience in this time.  Too many to list.  But I hope they will last me a lifetime.

I am happily giving thanks.  May it be the same with you.


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