Finding My Rhythm: The Real Talk About Balancing Work and Studies as an International Student

Bridging two worlds: A typical morning at school in Belgium, where Dutch is the language of the day.

Last Tuesday evening, I was making dinner. Nothing elaborate—just dal (lentil soup), tarkari (vegetable curry), the familiar rhythm of my mother's hands moving through my own. The pressure cooker hissed on the stove, that sound I've known since before I could walk. My five-year-old son wandered into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of cumin and garlic sizzling in ghee.

He watched me for a moment, then pointed at the pressure cooker. "Papa, kijk (look)," he said. "De deksel (the lid) maakt geluid (is making sound)."

The lid is making sound.

I smiled and nodded, stirring the dal (lentil soup). But something in my chest shifted, quietly, like a photograph slipping an inch down the wall.

The sound of the pressure cooker—a familiar rhythm that carries a thousand memories.

Deksel (lid). Not dhakkan (lid). He knew exactly what the object was. He knew its function, its sound, its purpose. But the word that came to him—naturally, instinctively, without thought—was Dutch. The language of his school, his friends, his Belgian life. Not the language of his father's village, his grandmother's hands, his grandfather's stories.

I didn't correct him. I didn't say, "Beta (son), we call it dhakkan (lid)." I just said, "Yes, it's talking to us," and he nodded and ran back to his toys.

But that word stayed in the air between us, long after the dal (lentil soup) was finished.

Two Worlds, Two Tongues

My son started school here in Brugge when he was two and a half. He was born in Portugal, but we moved to Belgium just before his third birthday. So this small, medieval city with its cobblestones and canal swans is the only school he has ever known. This is where he learned to hold a pencil, to wait his turn, to sing songs about little spiders in a language that still often escapes me.

I walk him to school every morning. And every afternoon, I stand with the other parents outside the gate, waiting for the children to burst through the doors like small, colourful explosions. The other parents chat among themselves in rapid Dutch. I catch a word here, a phrase there—goed gedaan (well done), tot morgen (see you tomorrow), fijn weekend (have a nice weekend)—but most of it flows past me like water. I smile. I nod. I say "ja (yes)" at what I hope are the right moments.

My wife is also Nepalese. At home, we speak to each other in Nepali, the language of our courtship, our arguments, our quiet evenings when our son is finally asleep. But when our son speaks to us in Dutch, we answer him in Nepali or English—a strange, improvised symphony of tongues that somehow works for our family.

We are both still learning Dutch. Slowly. Imperfectly. Sometimes comically. Learning a new language as an adult requires a different strategy. I’ve found that applying the Feynman Technique helps me simplify Dutch grammar just like I do with complex science.

Last week, I tried to tell the baker I wanted a loaf of bread, and somehow ended up asking for a dozen eggs. He smiled kindly and handed me the bread anyway.

But our son—our son speaks Dutch like he was born to it. His accent is flawless. His vocabulary expands every day. Sometimes he corrects my pronunciation, and I feel a strange mixture of pride and something that might be grief. Not because he's surpassing me—that is the natural order of things, the dream of every immigrant parent. But because his fluency, beautiful as it is, marks the growing distance between his world and the one I carried across oceans and continents.

His Classroom, His Music

I visited his school once for a parent observation morning. The classroom was everything my village school was not—warm, bright, filled with colour and kindness. His teacher, Mevrouw Evy, has the kind of voice that makes children want to listen. Soft but clear, patient but never condescending.

She gathered the children on the carpet and began a lesson about animals. "Wat zegt de koe? (What does the cow say?)"

"Boe!" the children chorused, delighted.

My son's hand shot up. "En in Nepal (And in Nepal)," he said, "de koe zegt 'ham-ba' (the cow says 'ham-ba')."

And in Nepal, the cow says "ham-ba."

The other children looked at him with curiosity. A few tried to imitate the sound, giggling. Mevrouw Evy smiled warmly and said, "Wat interessant! (How interesting!) We hebben twee talen in de klas vandaag (We have two languages in the classroom today)."

I sat in the back, behind the parents, and I wanted to cry. Not from sadness—or not only from sadness. From the overwhelming weight of watching your child carry two worlds inside his small body, and do it with such natural grace. He wasn't confused about which language belonged where. He wasn't embarrassed to bring his father's tongue into his teacher's classroom. He simply offered it, like a gift, and moved on.

I understood maybe half of what Mevrouw Evy said that morning. I smiled when the other parents smiled, laughed when they laughed, a beat too late, always catching up. But I understood my son perfectly. Not his Dutch words—those still sometimes escape me—but his heart. His generous, unselfconscious pride in his father's language, in a country most of his classmates have never heard of.

That afternoon, walking home, I held his hand tightly and said nothing. He chattered about the cow and the spider and the boy who forgot his snack. I listened to his voice, that perfect Dutch accent, and thought: This is why we came. This is what we built.

The Silent Translation

Being an expat parent is a constant act of translation. Not just of words—of entire worlds.

Every morning, I walk him to school. Past the canal, over the bridge, through the gate where parents gather and chat in a language I am still chasing. I kiss his forehead, adjust his backpack, watch him disappear into the building. And every afternoon, I stand in that same spot, waiting for him to emerge, scanning the flood of blonde and brown heads for his familiar face.

When he runs to me, calling "Papa!" in his Dutch-accented voice, I kneel down and ask, in Nepali, "Kasto cha din? (How was your day?)"

And he tells me. In Dutch, mostly. With Nepali words sprinkled like spices—aama (mother) for my wife, khana (food) for food, maya (love) for love. He is creating his own language, his own bridge between my grandfather's world and his own. I am the one who struggles to keep up.

I am the bridge between his grandfather's "rough bark" voice—that voice that told me stories of princes and demons under mountain stars—and Mevrouw Van den Berg's kind, melodic Dutch, which I strain to understand. I am the one who carries the weight of both languages, both worlds, and tries to lay them side by side so my son can walk between them without stumbling.

It is exhausting. Not physically—emotionally. Mentally. Spiritually.

When my son asks me the Dutch word for something, I often don't know. "Papa, hoe zeg je dhakkan in het Nederlands? (Papa, how do you say dhakkan in Dutch?)" I pull out my phone, open the translator, show him the screen. Deksel (lid). He nods, satisfied. He has added another word to his collection.

Bridging the gap: A daily moment of translation as we learn Dutch together.

When he asks me the Nepali word for something, I always know. But sometimes I hesitate. Not because I've forgotten—I will never forget—but because the Nepali word carries so much more than meaning. It carries my mother's voice, my grandfather's laughter, the smell of wood smoke and wet earth after the first rain. It carries a thousand memories I don't know how to translate into a language I am still learning to understand.

What We Carry, What We Pass On

Yesterday, my son found an old photograph on my phone. Me as a boy, maybe eight years old, standing in front of our village house in Nepal. No shoes. Faded shirt. A smile so wide it crinkled my entire face.

Flashback to my school days in Nepal. This was the foundation of my journey before the 'Belgian boots' took over.

"Papa," he said, "waar is dit? (Where is this?)"

Where is this?

I opened my mouth to explain. About the house my grandfather built with his own hands. About the path where I learned to walk, to run, to fall and get up again. About the country he has never seen, except in photographs and the stories his mother and I tell him.

But the words wouldn't come. Not in Dutch—I don't have enough of them yet. Not in English—it feels too distant, too clinical. Only in Nepali, and he wouldn't fully understand.

So I just said, in the simple Nepali he knows, "Yo mero ghar ho (This is my home)."

He looked at the photograph for a long time. Then he looked at me. "Mero ghar (My home)," he repeated carefully, the syllables foreign in his Belgian mouth. My home.

"Ja (Yes)," I said. "Jaha (There)."

Yes. There.

He smiled and handed the phone back. Then he ran to his room to find his favourite toy car.

I sat there, holding the photograph, the word ghar (home) still warm in the air between us. He may never live in that house. He may never walk that path or feel that mud between his toes. But he repeated the word. He tried it on, like a coat that doesn't quite fit yet but will, someday, with time and wearing.

Maybe that's enough. Maybe language is not just about fluency and vocabulary. Maybe it's about the invisible thread that connects us to those who came before, even when we don't speak their words aloud. Maybe my son is still learning Nepali—not as a system of grammar and syntax, but as a way of being in the world. A way of listening. A way of knowing that some things cannot be said, only felt.

The invisible thread: Three generations of roots, memories, and the evolving meaning of home.

Tonight

Tonight, I will tuck him into bed. I will kiss his forehead and whisper, "Ma timilai maya garchhu (I love you)," the way my mother whispered to me before she knew how to read or write, before she ever held a book, before she became a grandmother living in a country her grandson has never seen.

He will smile, sleepy and content. He will whisper back, "Slaap lekker (Sleep well), Papa."

Two languages. Two worlds. One small boy who carries them both.

And I will lie awake, listening to the bells of Brugge chime the hours, thinking of my grandfather's voice under the mountain stars. Thinking of the prince who crossed seven oceans and thirteen rivers. Thinking of my son, my beautiful, bilingual, bridge-building son, who is learning to cross worlds before he has even learned to tie his shoes.

Nani (little one), my grandfather's voice still says, from somewhere beyond time and distance. Words are not things you remember. They are things you are.

And my son, who was born in Portugal, who started school in Belgium, who speaks Dutch better than his father ever will, who carries Nepal in the shape of his eyes and the sound of his grandmother's lullabies—my son is both the words he speaks and the words he carries in silence.

He is the language of home.

And home, I am learning, is not a place you return to.

It is a person you become.

Dear Reader

If you have experiences of raising children between languages, between cultures, or carrying your own heritage into a new world, I would love to hear your story. Please share your feelings, memories, or reflections in the comments. Your words, like mine, are part of this conversation between worlds.

If you enjoyed this, check out my recent guide on focus:

Is Your Smartphone Giving You "Digital Dementia"? How to Reclaim Your Focus