(Photo by Andrea_44)
Last month, I posted about the experiences of Clifford Levy, a journalist for the New York Times, who moved his family all the way to Moscow, Russia from Brooklyn, NYC to continue his work as a foreign correspondent…and the Levy’s subsequent experiment in which they sent their 3 young kids (aged 4-9 years)….to a progressive Russian school. If I were a 9 year old who had spent their entire life in Brookly….I’d be a little petrified. But they weren’t! These kids totally rocked it!
And tonight, I stumbled upon a short video from the NYTimes which gets the words their kids, themselves! It’s a really sweet short doco about what they went through when the Levys made the big move. I never had to make such a big transition, at all, when I was a kid; but I did have countless friends in elementary school who made the big move from countries like Iran, Russia and Sri Lanka, and when I was older, I started meeting the grown-up kids of diplomats and other interational workers who had moved to all these cool places like Timbuktu and Guinea! I never could really know how challenging it was for them, but now I’m definitely more aware of how resilient children can be, especially when adapting to new situations, and how these experiences build character in them. As an adult, relocation’s a bit of a different experience since you have the responsibilities of work, the annoyances of international administration, and in my experience, a very supportive expatriate network and some social lubricants to help smooth it all out.
So check out this really sweet and endearing video! The kids are so incredibly smart, endearing and insightful! It gives me more verve to find this perfect international job I’m looking for, and a little more confidence in starting a whole new life in uncharted lands!
infinitiff 