My Tibetan Family

I woke up not feeling well at all one morning. After spending a little extra time in the bathroom and eating nothing at breakfast, my family knew I wasn’t feeling well. They gave me blankets and told me to rest. It sounded great to me. After sleeping a little I felt somewhat better and sat up. I realized the only ones left were my Tibetan sister (in her early 30s) and her daughter, age 11. I knew that the girl loved princess stories so I thought to myself, if I can’t go out now, how about watching a princess movie with the other two girls in the house? I couldn’t think of a better way for us to bond as we were stuck inside for the day. I whipped out Enchanted, which I had brought along for just this kind of moment.

After just a few minutes, I realized this was going to be so much fun! Both the mother and daughter laughed and laughed at certain parts. The mother no doubt could not understand much of the movie, but she laughed and laughed at moments and based on her facial expressions, had no problems understanding enough to enjoy it.

I also couldn’t help but think what a unique situation I am in. Here I am, with native nomads. This family I am sitting with and watching this Disney princess movie with, under other circumstances would never be in India, never live in this house, and would have probably never been around many Americans, if any. They would not have had a tv in their home (which would be a large tent), and there’s a good chance they would never have seen a Disney movie. But circumstances being what they are, this nomad family is now at least temporarily in India. If you had asked them 10 years ago, I’m sure none of them would have imagined this would have been their life. They probably would have never guessed that they’d later have an American girl living with them, nor that they would know enough English to be able to communicate with her. Life is certainly full of surprises.

I also want to say that communicating with my family has become quite the adventure. Only one of the brothers speaks English fairly well. The other brother and his wife are just learning. They know quite a bit now, but sometimes we are totally guessing when we communicate. But we have come up with quite the system. When the brother who speaks English is not there, the three of us have become quite the communicating team. One evening, the brother who speaks English was gone and it was just the three of us, me and the two that are learning English. We were talking and the brother was trying to tell me the story of how he got the scar on his arm. His vocabularly is way too limited for this kind story so he got up and started acting it out. I then would make motions and facial expressions with a few random words to make sure I was understanding. The English speaking brother then got home and saw us and laughed and asked me if I understood the story. I could honestly say yes, I understood! We used hardly any language, but I knew we had communicated. The English brother laughed and said we had become quite the communicating team. He pointed out that the other brother, Lhamo would act things out and I would use body language and facial expressions. Tam Kho, the wife is great at reading all the cues and serves as the “middleman” and can tell when we understand and when we don’t. So between the acting, body language, facial expressions, and interpreting, we almost always find some way to communicate!

Obviously, I’ve learned that words are not the only way to communicate. And they are not the most important either. I realized the other day when I was with my family at a party that I truly adore this family. Sure, we’ve struggled to communicate, but I feel so close to them. We may have had less talking than a “normal family” would, but I still feel incredibly close to this family! I trust them completely and know that they would do anything to help me. They have been so giving, open, and welcoming. I’ve learned to read their body language and facial expressions (as they have mine) more than many people I’ve known for years. We can communicate so much without words! And we have communicated so much without words that I don’t feel like we’ve been at a loss because of the communication barrier. I don’t think I could have gotten any closer to them, had we been able to communicate with words.

The other night, while we were at a party, I sat across from Tam Kho, my Tibetan sister. We would catch each other’s eyes once in a while and make facial expressions, clearly exchanging thoughts. It was so much fun! And made me realize that they really have become my Tibetan family.