Do you know what an octopus is?

On Thursday, Amy (my project partner) and I visited with our family for two hours.We are teaching the mother how to read and she has one son. During the visit, I thought about the boy's father. Was he still alive? Were they married? Was he okay?  I brought several children's books with me to help her learn some simple English words. I have never tried to teach someone English so I really had no idea how to get started. I know that TV is really suppose to help non-English speakers learn, however they don't have one. Whenever we would point to an object, she would take a few long seconds and think about the word in Nepalese. After she would tell us the word in Nepalese, we would give her the English counterpart.

She remembered a few words from what Amy taught her last week. This week, we were focusing on colors. She had a very hard time remember the word white. We could tell her "white" and then five minutes later, we would ask her again and she wouldn't know the word. After we finished with the books, she took us on a tour of the apartment and we taught her words along the way. I also noticed that for some objects in the books, she wouldn't know what they were. The one that stood out to me the most was an octopus. She knew what kites, cars, carrots, and cakes were, but she didn't know what an octopus was. I kept thinking over and over again about this. Why did I know what an octopus was? Why didn't she know? I remembered a story my dad told me once. Around the age of five, my mom had asked me to do several chores like clean up my toys, brush my teeth, change my clothes, etc. After she gave me the list of stuff to do, I turned to my dad and asked "how many arms does an octopus have?" He answered me by saying eight to which I replied, "wow, I wish I was an octopus too." This woman was around the age  of late 30s-early forties and yet I knew what an octopus was at age 5. This isn't a sad thought now that I am thinking about it. It just means she hasn't any type of experience with octopuses and I probably saw one in a children's book similar to the one I showed her. This woman has dozens of more experiences than I do because a) she's older b) her life is completely different and c) even her culture played a large part. 

For future interactions, I am going to look up a few words in Nepalese in order to overcome the language barrier. I am fortunate enough to have the resources to do so whereas she doesn't. I worry about my family's future. Amy and I only come for an hour or two hours a week and help her with her English. By next week, she might have forgotten a lot of words and we will have to start from scratch again.