Real Sisters

"anyway ate cacang, i planted more mangroves because it reminds me of you. I also wrote an article about it."

This is an excerpt from a message from my sister (host sister). Whoa. I can't tell you how much and how many ways this touches me. What a wonderful message to wake up to. :)

It's no secret that Kristine and I didn't always see eye to eye. I think she would agree with you on that. The time I lived with her and the rest of our family she was 13-15 and I was 24-26, we're coming from very different places in our lives. I think the cultural differences can be completely bypassed for why we always didn't see eye to eye. I remember being her age. It's awful. The hormones. The crying jags. The temper tantrums. The feeling that no one understands you. A time I would never return to even if you paid me all the money in the world.

Why do I call her my sister rather than host sister? Well host sister seems very cold and distant and to me it diminishes the relationship I have with her as well as her mom, dad, brother, and grandma....not to mention all of the extended family. I lived with them for two years in their house, eating their cooking, sharing in all kinds of family events, it was so much more than being a spectator or anthropologist looking in on another culture. Perhaps it was how they treated me, as one of their own. Perhaps it was just this weird bond that formed between us. One of those once and a lifetime kinds of bonds. They aren't my host family, they are my family.

Kristine is 16 now and will be going to college in a month to study nursing, taking after mom. She's also an amazing writer and I hope she keeps it up. Not as a vocation if that's not what she wants but something for her...that hopefully she will find some way of sharing.

You can never have too much family. There is always room for one more.