Week 7 -- Culture and Relationships -- Sarah Arriola

Hawa and I -- I wasn't brave enough to hang upside down!

This week was our last week of doing actual work with our mentees. Hawa had a little bit of homework to do, and after we finished that, we talked a little bit about how she felt about our time together these last few weeks. She said that she liked meeting with me and working on homework together. She thinks that it helped her on the test that she had to take. She just really liked getting to know me and really liked how every week we would get to talk about all sorts of things. After we were finished talking, we went outside for a few minutes because it was so nice out. We played around on the playground and she liked showing off her abilities on the monkey bars and the climbing wall.

While we were outside, she kept running up to one of her friends, ironically also named Hawa, and wanted to play on the slides and run races with her. They seemed to be enjoying running around outside together. Plus my mentee Hawa was getting help from her friend Hawa on how to climb up on top of the monkey bars. Her friend was very willing to show her exactly what the best way to flip upside down on the bars was, as well as the easiest way to climb up the bars. I was reminded of a statement from Vaughn's book while watching the two Hawa's help each other. "Friendship in  the Western world seems to serve the purposes of enhancing self-esteem and fulfilling individual psychological needs such as the development of self-identity and enhancement of feelings about self-worth whereas in other cultures, friendship is more about the socialization of cooperative and compliant behavior with others" (Vaughn p.113). I think their friendship is probably about developing self-identity, and that is because from what I can tell, both girls (or at least my mentee) seem to be fairly Westernized and so it makes sense that they would develop more Western-like friendships.

Hawa waiting at the top for her friend so they can go down the slide!

Watching Hawa run around with her friends reminded me a lot of my elementary school days. I loved being out on the playground with my friends, running from the monkey bars to the swings to the slides, always trying to make sure we had time to play on everything. Looking at both my experience and Hawa's experience I would say that a statement made it Vaughn's book is definitely true: "The relationship of friendship is found across virtually all cultures" (Vaughn p.112). Even if friendships are formed for different reasons, they are still formed.

I moved before starting my fourth grade year. I made some friends fairly quickly when I moved here to Ohio, and even though I didn't realize it at the time, there were some reasons that I formed those friendships. They are probably the same reasons Hawa made friends when she moved to the United States. As stated in Vaughn's book, "Friendship seems to serve the purpose of socialization and enculturation within society in terms of learning about culturally appropriate negotiation, reciprocity, cooperation, and interpersonal sensitivity" (Vaughn p.112). I know that by watching my friends, I learned what was and wasn't acceptable at my new school. Hawa most likely did the same thing when she first came to AMIS.

My brother, Kevin, and I dressed up for Halloween.

Having friends in a new environment is invaluable. As Vaughn says, "Friendships may also serve as a buffer that protects children during adjustment to life events" (Vaughn p.113). Although we never talked about it, I'm sure the friends that Hawa made when first moving to the U.S. made the whole experience easier for her. Something that Hawa does talk about is her twin brother. Although she says that they fight, I would almost guarantee that just like my brother and I, they lean on each other when dealing with new situations. My brother and I have always fought, but when something tough happens in our life, like moving to a new school or losing our grandfather, we are always there for each other. I bet Hawa and her brother are the same way. She once told me about a time when she and her brother flew by themselves to visit their father in Africa. She told me that it was cool to have her brother on the plane because that meant she knew someone else on the plane and wasn't by herself.

Hawa has been such an interesting girl to get to know. I am really glad I have gotten to know her over the last few weeks and hope that our paths somehow cross in the future. I hope that I have helped her in some small way, because I know she has taught me way more than I ever thought I could learn from a fourth grader.