burnt hips and fun at the beach...the other

Blog Jan 25, 2008

Today we had a lovely day. We spent a long morning at the beach. Johari had woken up very early for some unknown reason, so she fell asleep on the way to the beach. I waited while she snoozed for a while. When she got up we donned our beach gear. Johari has decided topless is definitely the way to go for her. Smothered ourselves in sunscreen. Dumby me left my own legs unprotected because my experience is that they always seem to stay lily white, sun or no sun. But my hips are now burned. You live and learn or at least we hope that we learn from these things. First we went to play in the surf. We kneeled in the water and then we even went in a bit deeper. After some playtime in the water, we went to sit under a tree. She played in the sand for a while. Scooping sand and pouring it between her shovel and her sieve. She seemed content doing this for quite some time. Then we went back to the water. She had a blast with the water this time and gathered more courage. She was running in and out of it. She had abandoned the need to be holding on to my hands with each splash of water. She is even fell down into the water and I scooped her out immediately. It didn’t phase her. She danced and ran in and out of the water. Good times!!! She didn’t really ever want to go away from the water.
When we got back we had lunch at Lol Che restaurant and there were some tour bus loads of Finnish people having lunch as well. A girl who was 3 months older than Johari was in the mix. Johari took to her right away. They immediately started interacting. And when they were both done eating they had a grand time playing with each other. Holding hands and running back and forth together. Hugging each other. It was wonderful. And it was interesting as well. Because if I watch her with Mary Carmen it doesn’t go like this. It is much more serious interaction with a much longer time for them to warm up to each other. Why? Well, my dad says there is this theory in anthropology of the Other. And that children recognize the “other”. So he would say that Mary Carmen is from a very different background compared to the little Finnish girl. Since the Finnish girl and Johari probably come from similar cultures they connect rapidly and interact easily. I don’t know what I think of this all. I mean I don’t necessarily want to believe this is true. I think that it may have to do with Mary Carmen is not put down on the ground. She is not walking yet so she is always held on someone’s lap. And then the interactions with adults are different than she may be used to at home. More serious. More quiet between people. Just my own interpretation of course. Because with some of the older kids she has warmed up to them, maybe not as rapidly as with this little girl from the tour bus. She likes Mary Carmen and wants to go see her often. But they definitely need more coaching to hit it off. My dad told me of a time when they were in Albania with my brother when he was little and how he would take a while to warm to the Albanian children and then they were eating in a hotel one day and there was a little German boy that my brother immediately ran off to play with. What does this mean? Kids are sensitive to the subtle differences in how people act and interact with one another. And if there are cultural differences that dictate how to interact, it would probably have some effect on how easily the child comes out and dives into play.

Johari is definitely scared of shadows right now. Hopefully this will dissipate with time and with better communication about it in the future. A dog shadow made with hands has scared her twice. And in the evening she was scared of a large dragonfly on the wall. More fears keep coming out. It is good that she can communicate her fears with her signs. I really am grateful for that.

In the afternoon I couldn’t get her to take a nap. She just wouldn’t rest even though she was crabby tired. I had to walk her to sleep. Then she took a good nap on my back.