For a month or so Bubu has been watching Alice in the Wonderland (in Swedish) on a daily basis…sometimes twice a day. It can be early in the morning, when mamma and daddy are taking breakfast in a different building and Bubu is too sleepy to join the Kopparbo team; it might be later during the day, when Bubu is getting bored or tired of climbing or of watching other people climbing (because mammy and daddy are in charge with this activity); or it can be in the rainy days, when we have no energy or funny ideas to entertain our daughter. After watching it for so many times Bubu is able to sing several lines in Swedish (this movie has beautiful songs) and to speak Swedish words or phrases that are not familiar to me, but that are useful so I have to learn them, as well. Bubu watches this movie every day because she likes its songs, she is fascinated of the ‘non-sense’ of the characters’ actions, but most of all she likes Alice –‘because she is beautiful, she sings very nice and she is so brave to travel by herself in such an unusual world’.(Alice is beautiful even if she is not a princess…it’s very nice that Bubu likes a ‘regular’ girl; she is not crazy about princess anyway, but we expect that time will come).
It took me some time to realize that Alice in the Wonderland is not just a children’s movie for Bubu and for her new life. There are many things in our life here that are similar to the movie and so many changes in Bubu that makes her to be like Alice in certain ways.
It’s not hard for me to say that Kopparbo is a Wonderland for Bubu (and for Vali and me in many ways). This place is so safe, beautiful and vast that Bubu feels very confident to explore it and most of the time she does this without me. Vali and some of our volunteer colleagues are her favorite companions. Vali is the best partner for swimming in the deep waters of ‘our’ lake (of course, Bubu is using a floating ring, but when we started to bath in the lake she wouldn’t have left the shallow waters, where she could feel the ground under her feet; now she is swimming next to Vali, where the lake is very deep), for drawing, reading and singing in Bzzz’s house (a small wood house where Bzzz stayed when she had visited us) and for riding her three wheel bicycle to Leif’s house and back (half a kilometer far from the house we live in). Then, she likes to take the meals next to Malin (one of our volunteer), to roll in the grass with Ida, to play tricks on Hampus (Bubu is filling up his boots with grass or she is hiding his hat) and to lay in the grass like a lizard with Ester. I can finally say that Bubu has begun to detach from me and to become independent and brave among new people and places (just like Alice is brave in her non-sense world; the way Bubu gets along with all these new people and the way she communicates with them it’s a non-sense for me…but it’s important that she is willing to communicate and that she can understand some Swedish in a very non-rational, emotional way).
It took such a long time…perhaps we live in the proper environment now. Of course, we met these great people, the Kopparbo team, that are so patient, friendly and good to us (especially to Bubu); they make this great environment for us; they teach us the calm, patient and relaxed Swedish way of life which is so healthy for our family. This proper environment brought Bubu and Vali very close to each other; Vali helps Bubu to explore this new world and to get the physical and the moral confidence that she is safe and strong. This father-daughter relationship started only here, at Kopparbo…it happened that the theory of the father’s role of helping his child to adapt to the environment worked in the opposite direction –the environment helped the child and her father to discover themselves and to start a close relationship. I’m so happy for that and so thankful to everything that Kopparbo means.
Remember how Alice is suddenly growing up after eating from a mushroom? We have the feeling that Bubu must be eating from a miraculous food every day. She is growing physically a lot. But more than that, she does lot of things by herself, just like a big girl (she can put all the cloths on her, she can take a good shower, including hair washing, she can take the things she needs without asking for help, she can stay by herself for a while and find her own ways of keeping herself busy).
Alice’s constant searching of the way home is also present in Bubu’s Swedish experience. She talks about our turning back home almost every day; sometimes she talks about it crying, because she misses her friends and our families (we noticed that she is getting into this sad mood when it’s raining a lot so that we cannot play outside and explore the surroundings); other times she talks about it very proudly –‘what would Doinita/Georgi/Nico/Ioana/Briana…(a long list of people and pets can go on here) would say about me doing this and that all by myself?!; some other times she talks about going back home with the regret of leaving behind the Swedish experience (we don’t have a lake with such clear waters back home; we don’t have so nice playing grounds in Pucioasa or in Lupeni; streets and playing grounds are not so clean back home; we don’t have the climbing towers back home…the list of what we don’t have is also long). Anyway, her way back home is constantly ‘interrupted’ by the good moments she is having in Kopparbo or Smedjebacken and by the good people she lives or she meets with. These are making Bubu a wise and brave Alice.
No comments:
Post a Comment