Back in Albania, it was a largely Caucasian
population, and so, my daughter, even when she was three, really noticed that she looked different than everyone else because she had darker skin. She went through a period of really wanting straight hair and light skin, and she would get upset and cry sometimes. You know, that was what she saw. She didn't see anyone around who looked like her. Instead, she saw young women with beautiful blonde brown hair or whatever and white skin, and she strove for that ideal.
My mom always said, oh, kids don't see color. And I just, I disagree with that. I think when you feel like you were the outsider yeah, you absolutely do. And she really internalized that. So I'm happy to be in Canada where it's quite diverse, but I feel like I need to get connected with more, like African Canadian populations here, because whenever we do see someone, who is of that descent, my daughter gravitates towards and wants to spend time with them.
When you're living in another country, especially in the countries that I've lived in, which are, you know, developing countries, it's wonderful, but things do not go according to plan at all. And that's how life is. So it teaches us to adapt and to take things as they come and to find joy in being flexible. You have to think of it like, what happens when your plans do change and what opportunities does that open up? This makes me think of one time when I was camping in the Serengeti, with my kids and I had this really horrible car that broke down in the middle of this safari park. I was stuck there for hours with my husband and kids. And it was like, oh my goodness, what are we going to do? But then, as always, it feels like in those situations, it's a time where others that you don't know come and help you. So, someone came and picked us up and took the kids and I had to stay at this hotel. Other people helped my husband get the car fixed. And so, I find that these moments really open me up to the beauty of human connection and how, hopefully, someone will be there to carry you along. And so I try and live my life like that, where I look for opportunities to connect with someone or help someone, or just have a conversation.
When I moved to Ghana, I'd never seen such vitality and such energy in people. And like, you know, people dancing in the streets and just feeling joy. And I think here in the West, we just get so consumed. Like oftentimes, everyone gets so consumed with material wealth. And I think I was a product of that. I don't want to say that everyone living in poverty is happy. Like that's just naive. People need their basic needs met, but there's also a focus on parts of the world where it's not just about gain, but it's about how we live in a community, how we connect with each other, and how we celebrate the small things. That’s how they get their basic needs met.
I think it's just such an incredible experience to see how people live in such different ways than you and how their thoughts are. Like, I think when you live in one place, you can often get a fixed mindset about how things should be. But when you have the ability to travel or to live in different places, you will see, actually, there are millions of ways for people to live. And there's not one way that's necessarily better than another way.
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