Dreams and Nightmares

Calvin is a pretty self-reflective kid (well, usually).  He’s been thinking a lot in the past day, and he helped crystallize for me some of what I’ve been thinking about the meaning of this year.

Yesterday at school, his teacher asked him to help out with teaching other kids how to use PowerPoint, and then later asked him to referee a soccer game.  These both are pretty big jobs, and Calvin took to his new responsibilities thoughtfully (or at least he did in his retelling).  He said to me, “It was hard to get my work done and to help other people do theirs!” and “It was hard to be fair at the soccer game, when I really wanted my team to win!” (the kids’ school is divided into two “houses”: Mamba and Simba, and anytime the kids play a game, those are the two teams).  But even though it was hard, Calvin really enjoyed it, and as the boys were getting ready for bed, Calvin was full of questions for me about what you have to do to become a teacher and whether there are jobs for people that combine his different interests (wildlife science teacher? aquatic biology teacher?).  He’s really thinking about how his experiences here might lead him to his life’s work.

This morning when I asked Calvin how he’d slept, he said he’d had some terrible dreams—not like the monster nightmares he sometimes has, but bad dreams about real things.  He’d dreamed that when we got back to America, all of our friends and relatives (including our dogsitter and our dog) had thought it was such a good idea to live abroad that they’d moved abroad for a year or more!  Oh no!  And then he’d fallen back asleep and had another dream, that when we got back to America, there was no electricity!  Oh no!

Those are Calvin’s dreams and nightmares, but he’s clearly working through some of the same things as we all are.  Thanks to all of you for reading the blog and keeping us connected with home.  We hope to make good use of this year—and that the elements of home that we’re missing most will be there when we return!