My host brother is an English teacher in my Road Town. He is very well educated and loves his job and loves learning English. He is entertained by simple phrases and is excited to talk to me in to learn American customs. He is the father of three children that stay at my house with my brother’s two wives. These adorable little kids have a grandmother that is my host mom and my name sake. So, to reiterate I have a host mom, two sisters-in-laws, one niece, and two nephews that live in the same house as me. My host brother comes home on the weekends and is now home because the school year is over. Got it? Good!
I can see the yearning that my host brother has for his children. When he is home, every second he spends with his children. He misses them so much and I speculate that his least favourite part of his job is that he has to countdown the days until he comes home. The joy is easily reciprocated on his childs’ faces when he comes home as well.
When the school year ended, he came home with gifts for the entire family. Mangoes galore for everyone to eat and new clothes for his children. Mangoes were delicious as usual, and the clothes showed the time and effort he put into find them.
However, he gave the clothes to his children in a way that I didn’t understand. The shirts I thought that was going to my older niece went to my youngest nephew and vice versa. I didn’t want to comment on it because my brother was very excited about the experience. But my sister-in-law commented on my puzzled look. I said it was nothing and then she followed my glance and understood. She immediately started laughing which brought more attention.
My sister said perfectly in her language, broken up by gasps of air for laughter, that this shirt was too big for my nephew. My nephew only had 6 inches of his legs showing, the head hole was barely staying on his shoulders, and his fore arms poking out from the sides. He had this blank face on and was confused as to what the hell he was wearing. Everyone was laughing, and next came the pants.
My nephew went along with it but not putting in any effort to get these clothes on his body. My brother and sister-in-law were struggling to put on these misshaped clothes because of lack of help and not being able to breathe through their laughter.
This three-year-old now had an adult size small shirt on with white pants that were meant for someone not as tall as him. He was just looking blankly with his arms sticking straight out of his sides to keep the shirt on top of his shoulders. His face added to the hilarity and he was just going along being the manikin that he was as we, his family, were all laughing at this ridiculousness of the sight. His father tried to prove that these clothes were meant for his child and laughed through his explanation.
So far, I have had three times of crying laughter. Once through the nervousness and hilarity of the lack of language that my friends and I were discussing one night over beers our first night back from our visit to our culturally based training. Another time at our second training that is such an inside joke it will take three blog posts to describe. The third time was this night.
When looking back on this event I realized that I didn’t think to expect to have this funny of a night with my host family. I have had plenty of laughing fits with the fellow Americans that are here with me and my language teachers. But having this big of a laugh with my host family brought this connection that I didn’t know that I could have. It reminded me of the laughing fits with my family, and the inside jokes with my friends that are so ridiculous that the fact that only two people are laughing at something so obscure is also hilarious. I had jokes with my new family, and a new connection. I had a laughing fit that felt like home.
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