04 October 2010

With family

After the week long retreat and silence, I arrived at my relative's place. It's nice to see my cousin after almost three months, to see how they have settled and adjusted to life in Canada.

Just spent the last two hours or so helping my cousin with homework. A compulsory course he has in social studies, the text book is thick with texts and difficult terms and words that even can be challenging for a native speaker of English... and he's only been in Canada a little over a year... I could see he feels deflated and discouraged. He's the silent type, shy and not so confident in his own abilities to speak and say things... he reminds me a lot like me when I was his age, so I can imagine what is going through his mind, especially when he encounters setbacks and is thrown into a new environment where he does not know anyone and has difficult making friends, let alone understanding what the teacher is saying.

I'm here one more day... but when I'm gone, I'm gone, and he's on his own.

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