Alone in Switzerland

I am alone in Switzerland. I don’t remember the last time I was alone. I am sitting in front of a bay window with a view of the Swiss Alps that looks as if it were painted for a movie set. I can see the snow gently falling, each day the level drops a little further down the mountains. I imagine that when the snow reaches the village I will be back in Lagos sweating. The paradox makes me smile. I am wearing a turtleneck and jeans that make me think that fall is coming back home. It has been raining here until today and the sun is out. The fog has rolled into the valley and drifts over the town below creating holes to look through that frame sections of the village into perfect circles. The effect is like looking through a periscope. I of course, wish Harper and Andrew were here because it is just so amazing. Being here has also highlighted how different living in Lagos is compared to a western city.
Lagos is indeed a third world country and it does wear on you. I hadn’t really noticed until I came here. It is interesting to watch the kids from Nigeria feel as uncomfortable here in Switzerland as I feel there. There is an appreciation but still a longing for something familiar. Nigeria is their home. My perspective is of a foreigner, obviously, and will always be. It is an interesting juxtaposition; I am teaching from and American point of view (which they sort of understand) without any understanding of their scope of where they are from. I am used to teaching kids with my sense of the world. It is neat to think about.
Some of our students have been all over the world and they don’t have the perspective of the country they are from at all. They are being called “third culture kids.” They may have been born say, in Lebanon or the US but have only spent a few years there so they don’t have any real ties to that country, yet they have traveled all over the world. Maybe they are the new citizens of the world. It is a very different idea of place and belonging. I just ask people who are in the international circuit or who move a lot, where do they consider their hometown to be. Most say it is where their friends are. I wonder what the “third culture” kid will say.