I was reminded today how our children’s lives and worldview will be forever impacted by our travels, in South America and other places. Outside of our museum in Raleigh, there is a giant globe showing the southern hemisphere. We’ve driven past this globe a thousand times, to the point that it’s an ignorable feature in the city. But today, a picture was shared of the children standing in front of the globe, and realized how much more meaningful that view of the world must be to them.
Here’s the picture of the globe, and here’s a screenshot of a map of our travels, including a roadtrip through northern and southern Patagonia to el fin del mundo (the end of the world), our continental landings, and our sailing across the Drake Passage.
The kids have now completed their first full year in school following our South American adventure. As we had hoped, our travels have made their academic studies and experiences more impactful. In school this year, they learned about biomes such as the Amazon rainforest or the arctics, explorers such as Magellan, and geological or natural features such as volcanoes or glaciers. In these cases, their real world experiences gave them deeper understanding the lessons in books and on slides.
Rapa Nui came up in a lesson. Our daughter was struck by the different perspectives she’s heard on Rapa Nui history, one from the Rapa Nui natives and the other from the Catholic westerners. From the Rapa Nui people, she learned first hand how the arrival of Europeans impacted the island, culture, and people. The struggles brought by disease, depletion of resources, and clashing ways of life. Now back in class in Catholic school, she learned of the triumphs of missionaries to land on a remote island and labor to convert uncivilized natives to Catholicism.
To my delight and amazement, they have also started mentioning ideas for the next year of adventure.
YES! This article brought me to tears. For real. Don”t judge okay, I have strong emotions.