Le Temp des Cerises

   Putting Down Roots and Buying Real Estate as an Expat

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

By Mary Hackett

Image courtesy: flickr - Tim Green aka atoach

For an expat family (or for this expat family, anyway) putting down roots somewhere can be difficult. The possibility of moving on is always present. The culture and language are not our own, we don’t have much family nearby and the current world economic situation means that jobs are more likely to change than not.

So how do you settle down? Put down roots? Feel connected?

In our case, the beginning of an answer to that question lies in buying real estate. We’ve finally become homeowners (ok, apartment owners).

It was a step we had intended to take for a long time. As soon as we knew we were coming back to France, the plan was to purchase. We landed in our little town without knowing anything about it and fell in love. Quiet, green, full of parks and trees, yet near enough to Paris to make it feasible to go on a regular basis. We were hooked. The downside was the price: we quickly realized that our dream of owning a little house with a small garden was pretty unrealistic if we wanted to stay in our new home. So we started looking elsewhere. Farther and farther from Paris and from the new friends we had made.

How silly this was really hit me when we were visiting yet another little house in yet another little town. The real estate agent, with that capacity, unique to real estate agents, to make the saddest, dumpiest dump sound like a palace, had led us to the last house of a row of houses. The roof dipped suspiciously in the middle. There was a garden, cut into oddly- shaped chunks around the oddly-shaped house. A large, busy street right out the front door ushered traffic past the house at heart-stopping speeds. Matthew, out in the garden, told me, “I like it, mom. But how will we get to the sandbox?” Ah, the sandbox.

In front of our rental apartment was a large, lovely garden. A lawn, rosebushes, benches, and a spacious sandbox, where all the neighborhood children gathered to play every day after school. It was a ritual that lasted all spring; meeting after school with bikes, scooters, balls, sand toys, snacks, from the time school ended until dusk. Matthew could not imagine life without his friends at the sandbox. When he said that to me, my heart clenched. I thought to myself, “We have so few connections here, why on earth would we cut off the few we’ve forged?”

As it turned out, a month or two later we visited the apartment that would become our new home. It’s about 500 meters from our rental. Matthew goes to the same school, and Ramzi goes to the creche he got a part-time spot in. The apartment doesn’t have the two things I had told myself and my husband I most wanted, a fireplace and a garden. But it does have plenty of space, lots and lots of light and enough bedrooms to be comfortable. And it’s in our adoptive hometown. We don’t have to start over yet again, make all new friends, find new doctors, pharmacists, shops and stores. What I sacrificed, a hypothetical garden and fireplace, are small beans in comparison to staying in a familiar, comfortable and friendly place.

I didn’t anticipate how this common transaction would change the way I looked at our town and how it would deepen my attachment to our neighborhood, friends and neighbors, but I can already sense new little roots digging in. All of a sudden, we are no longer tenants. We have a stake in something, a vested interest in our building and our community. I can allow myself to relax, to allow acquaintances to develop into friendships. I didn’t even realize how much I have been holding back until suddenly I ‘m not anymore. This is no longer a weigh station to somewhere else but has become our real life—a place our family will collectively remember and love.

While my logical brain still reminds me that moving is always a possibility, it now seems much further away. We’ve crossed a threshold after all these years of living here. It’s a similar sensation to the one I had after getting married to the man I’d already been living with for three years—utterly familiar and thrillingly different at the same time.

Has your expat family put down roots? How did you begin to feel attached to the place you live?

   How My Kids Made Me Like Valentine’s Day

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

By Stephanie Meade

I never cared much about Valentine’s Day until my oldest daughter was two. That year at preschool, she received her first Valentine’s Day cards. The box that they crafted to hold the Valentine’s and all of the cards within it became one of her favorite things to play with for many months. Each day, she took out the box and sorted through all the Valentine’s, sometimes ordering them and sometimes forgetting them in different places around the house. Not yet able to read, she knew who gave her each of the cards, without having to ask me the name. Witnessing how special the day was for my daughter, the simple act of giving and receiving cards from her friends, accorded me a new appreciation of the day.

Every year on Facebook, I am reminded by all of my friends in Latin America that Valentine’s Day is not just about love. It’s also about friendship: “Feliz Dia del Amor y Amistad” (Happy Love and Friendship Day). My kids’ excitement reinforces the essence of the day that we’ve somehow lost through greater commercialization. It’s not really about flowers, chocolates, expensive dinners and manufactured displays of love that often turn into unmet expectations. The essence is a celebration of all types of love and the spontaneity of the little tokens of affection–like the simple pleasure of receiving cards from all your school friends.

Here are the cards my five-year-old made this year, almost entirely by herself. She had a very strong vision of what she wanted. And we decided to add the finishing touch of writing all the kids’ names in both Arabic and English, thanks to my husband’s help.
Can you tell which one is her best friend? She glued two hearts on her card.

And here are my three-year-old’s cards. She liked the elephant theme, so I cut everything and she colored in all the hearts.

Happy Love and Friendship Day!

Speaking Four Languages at Home

   The Power of Culture in Raising Multilingual Kids

Friday, February 10th, 2012

By Jan Petersen

Image courtesy: flickr – Kodomut

TV and Other Cultural References

Through use of technology it is fairly easy for us to expose our children to all kinds of languages and cultures. Need proof? My daughters recognise the title song of a TV show called “Wickie und die starken Männer” even though we live in the UK where it will never air.

I used to watch “Wickie” (“Vicky the Viking”) when I was a kid. It is one of the few shows I remember, along with “Biene Maja” (“Maya the Honey Bee”) and of course “Sesamstraße” (“Sesame Street”). I watched these shows because when I grew up, they were the only ones around. No worries, I’m not going to go on about the good old times or anything. My point is that had my parents been expats, it would have been very hard for them to get access to any non-German TV shows or even films.

I don’t think TV is the most important cultural achievement of humankind, far from it. But nobody can deny that it is influential. For at least two generations, it has been part of our socialisation. I can easily pick out people in my age group by finding out who the resident humans in “Sesamstraße” were when they were watching (Lilo & Henning, in case you’re asking me).

There are also books, of course. I can easily buy English, French or American books on Amazon these days. Twenty years ago, I went to bookstores and they ordered them for me, which worked ok, but I was relying on some other sources to even find out what I wanted to order.

It’s clearly easier these days to get materials in about any language, so the question is: chicken or egg? Is it now easier to be an expat? Or do we have more resources because there are more expats?

Creativity with Language

A lot of people would call it “mixing languages” and they might even worry about it, but I love it when my three-year-old takes English words and modifies them so they fit into a German, French or Arabic sentence grammatically.

I am German and we like making words by stringing shorter words together. My feeling is that with the level of creativity my daughters show even now, they will be great at coming up with German words! The most important part is of course their ability to read in four languages and two totally different alphabets, something I envy them for. I might eventually be able to decipher Arabic, but don’t hold your breath.

When my daughters meet their cousin in Germany, they have the most hilarious conversations. Often, their cousin will smile or laugh about the way they say things. And then she borrows some of their expressions, creating something special between them.

Music

Music is the art form (or entertainment) that has the most impact on my feelings. It can make me happier, give me energy, cool me down or sustain sadness. I can not fully explain what it does to me, to be honest. Different music fits different situations, of course.

Music has always been fairly international. I used to listen to English music on the radio a lot when I was young, later I listened to music from France and these days I’m having trouble knowing where something comes from. All kinds of styles have crossed over and created a lot of different, interesting blends.

Those of us who are non-native English speakers might remember how as teenagers we were singing along with English music not having the faintest idea what we were singing. Sometimes this can be hilarious (there are videos on YouTube about the phenomenon), sometimes even slightly inappropriate.

When I started to understand French songs I was surprised: knowing what they were about added a new dimension to my listening pleasure. Same for English music. Now my kids will be able to listen to music in Arabic, English, French and German and understand it! Isn’t that great?

Books

Books have a similar impact as music on me, only it takes longer to immerse myself in the experience. One might almost say books are a four-course menu for the soul and music is the candy bar. What I wrote about TV, films and music applies here as well, especially because often the more obscure and specific nuances and references of written language get lost in translation.

It is very dear to me that my daughters will be able to read books like Onkel Florians Fliegender Flohmarkt by German author Paul Maar. You might have gathered that mastery of language is something I value very highly–I am only really comfortable writing in German, which makes German a special language for me. Onkel Florians Fliegender Flohmarkt is a book that plays with and bends German around and is great for kids from ages seven or eight up. I absolutely loved it when I was small. I recommend the book for anyone who can read German.

A is for Manzana

   When Relocation Adds a New Language to the Mix

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

By Cordelia Newlin de Rojas

Image source: flickr- CarbonNYC

I am now faced with another move 18 months into our Asian adventure, having not yet finished arguing with myself over how much to encourage (hyper-parent) my kids to learn Mandarin on top of our three family languages.

We are relocating to Bangkok. This opens up a whole world of new possibilities. First and foremost, it means I will be able to afford daily massages, as we will no longer be living hand to mouth. I can honestly say I have dreamt about that for the better part of 10 years. Much of Asia may be deemed cheap but Singapore is definitely not. If anything, it’s rapidly rising through the ranks of the most expensive cities in the world and has recently surpassed Hong Kong in this domain. Singapore is often called “Asia for Starters,” a totally apt description. While there are lots of things that make it so, one often overlooked fact is that English is the language of government, business and education.

Nothing screams “I’m not in Kansas anymore” than wave upon wave of unintelligible words knocking you over in confusion. I am not talking about the summer holiday in Tuscany where remnants of long-lost Latin and high school Spanish help you pick out the odd intention. I’m referring to sounds you’ve likely never heard before. And yes, many expats in Singapore will complain of the odd taxi driver who rattled off some Singlish they didn’t understand but seriously, that is not foreign language immersion; many of us live out of Tanglin Mall & Cold Storage; it is barely cultural immersion.

An old friend, who has been living in Shanghai for the last three years, congratulated me on our upcoming move to “real” Asia. With this move comes the introduction of a new language—Thai, which will topple our already unstable Franco-Spanglish trinity. To a certain extent, I can predict the impact of this. For my husband and me, this means putting French and Spanish respectively on the backburner while we try to acquire a working knowledge of Thai as quickly as possible. I am sure it will be hard. For my husband it will inevitably be frustrating since he has the added pressure of needing it for work in his 98% local Thai office. I don’t doubt it will be hilarious for many around us. Hopefully, we can remember to laugh at ourselves.

The real concern that keeps me up at night is how the language change will impact our children. At 16+ months, Baby C should be ok. She has mostly heard English, French and Tagalog, with some Spanish on the weekends from Papa. She will start attending a bilingual French-English nursery and any frustration she experiences will probably be manifested as screams and tantrums; I can write it off as age-related and teething, ridding myself of any guilt from inducing language confusion.

Not so with Miss P, who is nearing four. She’s a highly sensitive child who doesn’t like trying new things and is very easily frustrated when she can’t get it perfect right off the bat. Her English is growing stronger everyday. Following an 18-month hiatus, she’s finally re-sowing French words and expressions into our conversations. She also makes a good Spanish effort even though it seems clear to me she is struggling to understand quite a bit of it. After months of exposure and lessons at school, she has a newfound affection for her Mandarin teacher and hence the language. Now she will be switched from her English-Mandarin school and put into the French lycée. She will have lost her English-speaking amah (nanny), whom she loves and will likely be replaced with someone who only speaks Thai. Thai will be spoken everywhere. And Spanish will still struggle to keep its foothold in our lives.

I want my mother’s intuition to be wrong. I want my kids to be way more resilient than I imagine. I want P to remain unphased by these linguistic upheavals. I want to suffer and struggle on their behalf. And perhaps most importantly, I am gaining a better understanding of why some people chose not to give this “gift” of multilingualism.

Speaking Four Languages at Home

   The Holidays in Multicultural Families

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

By Jan Petersen

Nearly one year ago, for the first time in my life, I was responsible for Christmas.

Well, I didn’t suddenly turn into Father Christmas, of course, but it felt like I was anyway.

Expat Holidays

Like a lot of expats, we spend most of our travel budget on visiting family. The two yearly trips to my mum around Christmas and my in-laws in summer are usually all we do.

I have also lived at least 800 km (ok, 500 miles) away from my parents since 1990 and so I usually went home in late December. Even when I met my wife, I still went home, mostly because she doesn’t really do Christmas and so we naturally went to Germany every year.

Our third daughter was born in November 2010 and we felt it was too much for us to travel with her so early in her life. (I guess we didn’t want to repeat the early years of our oldest daughter, who on her second birthday, had over 30 flights under her belt.)

So we had our first ever family Christmas at home in 2010, and because it falls under my share of our cultural melting pot, I was obviously responsible for the lot. Oh boy.

Candles

I will not bore you with details of how hard it is to find candle holders in the U.K. so you can put proper candles onto your Christmas tree, something we Germans stubbornly do in spite of the alleged fire hazard. (Whatever, a Christmas tree looks so much better with real candles! We like to do things properly, you know.)

When the few candles we had (we got them secondhand via the Internet, from an elderly lady who had put them away ages ago) had burned down, my wife convinced me to put electrical candles up instead. I have to admit, it wasn’t that bad. Times are a-changing, I guess.

I wanted Christmas to feel like I was used to, but the main thing was that I wanted the girls to enjoy it. I wanted to provide a festive atmosphere, which meant of course creating it.

Grown-up Christmas

Interestingly enough, I discovered in the process that creating that festive atmosphere makes it harder for you to feel it yourself! Like the host of a party, I was thinking about the details while the girls were able to just go with it, almost as if it was some miraculous happening.

All of a sudden, I could understand all those things people say: “It’s hard to get into the spirit” and “I’m busy preparing, I don’t have time to feel Christmasy” to name the most common. I am 42 years old and you might wonder how on earth I didn’t notice before. As I said: it was my first ever Christmas away from my parents.

So the main focus for me last year wasn’t actually to have a Christmas as I remember it but to provide it. Totally different.

“How is all of this relevant on this blog?” You ask. Well…

All parents do things with their kids based on what they have known and learned throughout their lives. Their own parents gave them some of it, but a lot came from the culture in which they were immersed.

More often than not couples are from similar backgrounds and master the main events together easily. Not so in mixed-culture couples: my wife had never celebrated Christmas before she met me! Because we are a multicultural family, I am responsible for big parts of our children’s cultural background. That’s almost frightening, isn’t it?!

Mixing Cultures

In our little family, we are celebrating a bunch of different events: my wife brought Ramadan, Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. I brought Christmas (the German way, which includes a couple of things I am currently not doing, like Advent and Nikolaus), New Year and Easter. The U.K., our home, contributes bank holidays and events we both didn’t know about, like Guy Fawkes Day and of course the Queen’s birthday.

We each try to make events feel as authentic as possible. School, preschool and the environment provide the U.K. bits. This is one aspect of being a multicultural couple that I have not read a lot about so far (apart from Americans all over the world writing about how hard it is to get a good turkey for Thanksgiving).

I don’t know whether we are still a very rare exception or whether other couples like us do not write about it. I am sure there are couples who decide to blend in with their environment and forget about their individual cultural background. It is a lot easier that way.

For me, culture is part of who I am and just like I never wondered what language to speak with my daughters (German, in case you were wondering) I don’t have to think about whether I want my girls to experience Christmas, because of course I do!

With so many different things to celebrate, am I afraid mine might not get enough attention?

Actually, I am.

I am worried that on my own, I will not be able to create the same kind of atmosphere that I remember fondly. I feel that I could or should do more for my girls or they will miss out on an important part of my cultural heritage.

Then again maybe they won’t. It is my heritage–they cannot exactly relive that. My heritage is sort of irrelevant in our situation because with our mix of cultures, they will have something totally unique. Maybe that is more interesting and more important?

I just hope they will have fond memories of all parts of their culture when they’re grown up.
And I am quite glad that for 2011, we resumed normal operations and flew to Germany to have Christmas with my family.

   Why African Time is Best for Children

Monday, January 9th, 2012

By J. Claire K. Niala

istockphoto

“Haraka, Haraka Haina Baraka.” (Rushing, rushing gives no blessings) –Kenyan Proverb

There are many jokes about African timekeeping. On one level it is true—the continent is full of buses that run behind and meetings that start late. Certainly African time is much softer than European or North American time. Part of this is historical; there is a unique African concept of ‘no time.’ With nearly all African cultures being communal—‘I exist because you do’—time also takes on a communal aspect. If you are on your own, then time does not exist. Or to put it another way, time starts at an event that involves more than one person. For example, if two people arrange to meet, time doesn’t actually begin until the meeting takes place, so in effect it is impossible to be late as long as the meeting actually happens! The emphasis is placed on the interaction between people rather than the abstract concept.

Even that abstract concept is opposite that of the rest of the world. As Kenya is equatorial, most of the year, the sun rises around six and sets around six. So 7 a.m. is actually referred to in Kiswahili as 1 o’clock. 8 a.m. is 2 o’clock and so on. It makes perfect sense. Most people get up around or shortly before sunrise, use the daylight hours and go to bed not long after dark. The first hour of the day is therefore marked by the first hour that something communal or useful could be done and is also in tune with nature. There are even specific words that do not exist in English for ‘the time just before dawn,’ ‘late afternoon/early evening’ and others.

So what does this all have to do with children?

Any harried parent can tell you that so much of the conflict that arises during the day is when children are being rushed from pillar to post, forced to follow a schedule that does not allow for their natural rhythm. African timing is so much more respectful of this natural rhythm. By taking the meaning away from the abstract concept of time and shifting it to the people and communal interactions, stress is greatly reduced. At my daughter’s kindergarten, for example, an hour is allowed for children to arrive at school in the morning. Children who get there early can play and those who need more sleep can come closer to the time the more structured day starts.

The days that run the smoothest in our home are definitely those when I am not rushed and when I actively build time into our daily schedule that allows my daughter to take her time. They are also the days that give space for the unexpected joys and pleasures that cannot be scheduled. The excitement of finding a ladybird on a leaf as we gently go about weeding the garden, the spontaneous tea and cake with friends whom we bump into at the local shopping centre. Having the time to sit and eat the watermelon that the green grocer generously gives my daughter as we pick up some fruit and veg. These are the moments that warm the heart and make the day special when we reflect on it at bedtime. They are certainly the moments I would rather my daughter remember than, “Hurry up, I’m running late!”

   Progress Report: Mission Arabic-Speaking Babysitter

Friday, January 6th, 2012

By Stephanie Meade

This past week, we have had our new Arabic-speaking babysitter everyday for a total of 12 hours all week. From day one, she told me the girls understand her 100%, which we know already, it is just their speaking Arabic that has been problematic. In case you missed it, I talked all about that in “All I Want For Christmas is Perfectly Bilingual Children.”

I have been totally unsure of my kids’ reaction to having another person in their day-to-day life that speaks Arabic. While my hope is that it spurs their own Arabic-language development, I really don’t know what will transpire. Initially, I couldn’t get much of a feel for their progress or interest. I guess I was also secretly hoping that all they needed was some added Arabic stimuli in the environment to unlock the abyss of Arabic words waiting to roll off their tongues. The babysitter told me from day one that they said words to her in Arabic, a lot of words, but it didn’t sound like she meant full sentences.

Then today, something changed. When I walked in, Jasmin, my almost five-year-old, exclaimed, “I want to speak Arabic!” She began to name every animal in Arabic, followed by telling me in Arabic what she was doing (“drinking water!” “getting milk.”) She proceeded to list off all the people with whom she could speak Arabic. (A big incentive, besides her Moroccan family, seemed to be the babysitter’s kids whom she has not yet met. She explained to me that they don’t speak English yet so she will have to speak to them in Arabic. It’s fascinating the effect that other children have on language development, something I have noticed with my kids’ interest in French, but that’s a post for another day!) So here’s the first proof that the Arabic babysitter is indeed having a positive impact:



And in case you aren’t an expert in deciphering kid-speech-over-three-year-old-singing, Jasmin says, “I want someone to teach me Arabic everyday!”

I couldn’t be more excited!

   Our Top 10 Articles in 2011

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

By The Editors (Stephanie)

If you haven’t checked out all these great articles from our most read articles in 2011, then you definitely should get caught up on them now. Here are our InCultureParent readers’ favorites over this past year.

1. Why African Babies Don’t Cry
2. Breastfeeding in the land of Ghengis Khan
3. Reunited Outside the Orphanage Walls
4. Falling off the Opol Wagon
5. Best World Maps for Your Child’s Room
6. Diwali Craft: Make a Lantern
7. Mothers to Be: Pregnancy around the World
8. Burqas, Miniskirts and Sex: My Childhood in Egypt and Saudi
9. Is Raising Bilingual Children Worth the Costs?
10. A Few Drops Outside the Tribe

Happy reading!

   All I Want for Christmas is Perfectly Bilingual Children

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

By Stephanie Meade

When it comes to raising a bilingual child, I have several beliefs about how you can waste your time. I think it’s a waste of valuable second language reinforcement time if you don’t watch movies in the minority language, read books and listen to music in that language and most of all, have a babysitter or nanny in that second language. I would also never pay for private school if that education is not in another language. Private education is a valuable opportunity to send your kids to school in another language so why waste it on monolingual education? However despite all my lofty beliefs, we have not had many of those options available to us with Arabic. Arabic immersion school? Ha, I must be dreaming.

We have struggled with our children’s Arabic bilingualism in the U.S. because Arabic is not a language that is reinforced or supported much in the community. (I suspect that it would be different if we lived in say Dearborn Michigan, however.) I have many friends raising their children bilingual in Spanish, and comparatively, Spanish bilingualism seems to come a lot easier in the U.S. (I’m not saying it’s easy, but easier). Children actually hear that language when out in the community, giving them a sense that the language is greater than their household. Spanish books are found at every library and bookstore, we can flip on several Spanish radio stations in the car and even without cable, the kids can watch morning cartoons in Spanish. Through no effort on our part, two of our children’s preschool teachers are native Spanish speakers. When I scan the nanny listings each week and key word search for “Arabic,” I feel a ting of envy at the number of Spanish-speaking nannies. Don’t get me wrong, I love Spanish and we often think about raising our kids’ trilingual in Spanish as well, since I speak it. They already learn a little at their preschool. But Arabic is their father’s native language—it is their heritage. When it comes to language importance in the family, Arabic is queen, sharing the spotlight with English.

My husband has spoken to both of our girls since birth in strictly Arabic, never lapsing into English, which would make us a one-parent-one-language (OPOL) family. As a result, they understand Arabic perfectly. However, 98% of the time, they answer him in English. They have certain words they say in Arabic (e.g., water, sleep, pray, aunt, uncle, grandmother/father) and others which are strategic on our part as they only know these words in Arabic and not English, like booger or fart—trust me, it’s so much better in the grocery store line when my kids hold up their finger and say “look, khanuna” than “look, booger!”

Since the girls were born, my husband has also been around a lot and spends quality time with them. We do all the “right” things to encourage their bilingualism: they read Arabic language books together (although unfortunately never in the Moroccan dialect–they don’t seem to exist–even in Morocco). They listen to Arabic music daily. My kids can sing many songs in Arabic. (Funny they can sing in Arabic but are unwilling to speak it!). I get the sense my children think Arabic is something remote, a tiny, useless language spoken mainly by their father. And yes, we Skype all the time with relatives but those conversations consist of the kids staring at the screen while everyone tells them, “How are you? God bless you! You’re beautiful!” while they alternate between smiling and shy before growing bored and shirking off to play. And yet, they still don’t speak much Arabic.

We all know that kids speak a language when there is a need. My kids have never sensed a need for Arabic. They don’t need it in their community, with friends or with their Dad. He understands them perfectly fine in English. The only time that changed was when we were in Morocco a year and half ago, when they were three and 18 months old. By the end of our three weeks, they were starting to speak to each other in Arabic. “Come play.” “Here, take this.” “I want milk.” It was beautiful and died about two weeks upon our return to the U.S.

Because we know their Arabic requires more support, our priority has been finding an Arabic-speaking babysitter, preferably in the North African dialect. We would love someone who speaks limited to no English or can at least pretend she speaks no English, so that the kids finally have a need to speak Arabic. When we moved to California close to two years ago, we thought it would be easy in such a multicultural community, flush with Middle Eastern markets and mosques, to find an Arabic-speaking babysitter. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we had previously lived, you could count the number of Arabs on two hands. At that time too, the girls were both under three and we believed that all it took to raise bilingual children was their father speaking his native language to them all the time. OPOL equals bilingual children, right? We were naïve back then.

The babysitter search has sometimes felt Sisyphean. The first Arabic speaking babysitter we found was Yemeni, which wasn’t ideal dialect-wise as Yemeni and Moroccan are far more distant than Portuguese from Brazil and Portugal, but hey, it was Arabic. She proved to be too old school and never made it past the interview stage. Then we had a slew of finding almost-but-not-quite-right babysitters, mainly Turkish and Persian. They were all warm and kind, the type of people we would want watching our kids, but they only spoke a little Arabic, mainly from learning to read the Quran growing up. Finally, we stumbled upon an Algerian who seemed ideal–it was the same dialect. Exciting! But after we hired her, she wanted nearly double the rate our other babysitters charged and while bringing along her two-year-old. We couldn’t go broke for the kids’ Arabic (although I tried to convince my husband we could pay, we should pay, in the name of Arabic, but trust me, you don’t want to step between two Arabs negotiating, especially if one has quoted a price the other deems to be ridiculous—you may as well forget it.) Again, disappointment.

But finally, it seems I may be getting close to my Christmas wish. We found a Moroccan babysitter! She seems great with the kids so far, is available at the hours we need (no easy task when you need only part-time) and again she’s Moroccan! I can’t wait to see her level of impact on the girls’ language development. I hope that she is the missing link we need.

   10 Tips on Living with Chronic Illness

Monday, December 12th, 2011

By J. Claire K. Niala

As I write this piece I am sitting in a health clinic that my daughter and I attend. When we were here yesterday, a woman who suffers from the same condition remarked how badly her mother felt at having passed it on to her (our condition is genetic). Before I had a moment to think, I blurted out that I didn’t feel badly. Don’t get me wrong–I hate seeing my daughter in pain and like any mother I would love to remove the word “suffering” from my child’s life. However, it’s just not realistic.

I remember being pregnant and hearing the refrain, “I don’t care what gender my child is as long as s/he is healthy.” I did not join in. There was every chance that my child would suffer the same chronic illness that I do, so we make the best of what life gave us, whatever the challenges. Some of those challenges are day-to-day–my four-and-a-half year daughter still doesn’t sleep through the night–and others are major, like when she was nearly two and we both needed to be hospitalized at the same time. I put my hospitalization off for a week so I could stay with her at the children’s hospital, which made me a lot more unwell.

Mainly, though, we carry on our lives much like any other family—having incorporated all the adjustments we need to make into our daily lives. Here are our top ten tips for living with chronic illness:

1. It’s OK to be grumpy
We usually try to be brave and just get on with it, but some days it is just frustrating and annoying and it helps to say so.

2. Imagine being well
The power of visualization is phenomenal. (We have managed to avoid hospitalization for the last two years with this as one of our tools). It is best carried out between 4 to 6 a.m. but useful anytime. If you can imagine feeling well, you can be well.

3. Let out your anger
Scream, throw things (where you won’t hurt anyone), stamp, shout. Let it out, then pick up the pieces and carry on.

4. Treats help
A sweetie, staying up a little later than usual one night, a new book. If you have just gotten through a particularly tough time, reward yourself for seeing it through.

5. Maintain balance
On the one hand, do absolutely everything you possibly can to find out about the latest research on treatments, things you can do to manage your condition better and so on. On the other, do not spend your whole life chasing “cures”—learn to accept your condition and live!

6. Ask for help
You don’t have to manage it all on your own. Just like helping others makes you feel good, give others the gift of allowing them to help you.

7. Cry
It is a great release to let the feelings flow.

8. Smile
Especially when you do not feel like it. It confuses your brain into actually making you feel better.

9. Rest
When you feel well, it’s tempting to rush to get everything done that you put off when you were ill. If you can rest, then you actually have a better chance of maintaining your wellness.

10. Miracles can and do happen
There are many stories of amazing turnarounds and things happening that science cannot explain. The fact that I have a daughter is one of them. Your story could be such a miracle too!

   Multicultural Matryoshka Dolls

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

By Stephanie Meade

As a recovering etsy addict, I can usually always find something (or ten things) to covet and love on that site (e.g., girls’ dresses and skirts, knitted toddler hats, baby blankets, art for kids room, art for adult walls, etc.). I was excited to stumble upon this very cool, multicultural product for kids: matryoshka art prints and magnets by Amy Perrotti on etsy.com. She draws matryoshka dolls with different cultures featured. This is just a small sample of some of her work–it’s original, bright and fun. Can you find your culture?

There’s no Moroccan doll, which is not a critique as she features many diverse cultures, so I am going to rephrase that to say there’s no Moroccan doll yet.

Speaking Four Languages at Home

   When People Confuse my Heritage

Monday, November 28th, 2011

By Jan Petersen

I interrupt my regular posting, to bring you a post from my wife, Souad.

At the doctor’s recently, I received a funny question about my accent and heritage. Three years ago, I was diagnosed with a cataract in my left eye (I was only 33!). For the last two weeks, I have been experiencing some pain and loss of vision in my right eye, the “good eye”. I went to see an ophthalmologist who diagnosed me with a uveitis, an auto-immune inflammation. Now I have steroid drops in my eye for at least three months, which means I can’t wear contacts anymore. If any of you are very short-sighted, then you will know how depressing negative 12D prescription glasses are.

This eye doctor is a renowned ophthalmic consultant, with an impressive resume and loads of acronyms following his name. He asked where my accent came from, since he guessed I was not English. I said I was from Algeria but my accent can sound a tiny bit French. He agreed.

I went out for 20 minutes to give my pupils time to dilate for further examinations. When I came back in, the surgeon had become more curious.

“Excuse my curiosity, but I am personally interested in ethnic minorities, and interactions with indigenous people. I know Algeria used to be a French colony and is now independent. How is your colonial minority treated by the indigenous Arab population?”

I went silent for five seconds, confused, but then it dawned on me. With my fair skin, straightened hair and generally Caucasian features, he thought I was of French descent. I was dressed as a European. I explained that I was 100% Algerian. “I am actually of Berber descent, but there are loads of us in Algeria.”

Doctor: “Do you mean you do not stand out in a crowd in Algiers?”

Me: “Uh, no. There are all gradations of skin colour in Algeria, and I certainly blend very well on the street there.”

Needless to say, the poor man was a bit embarrassed and apologised profusely for his prejudice. I found it funny. I was glad that he spoke his mind with such clarity. When I used to live in France, I would get these kinds of remarks quite often. French people always assume I am French, because of the way I look and speak. I actually make a point of telling them I am Algerian, which usually elicits either surprise or a knowing, “Ah, you must be Kabyle (Berber).”

Here in England, it’s different. People have no idea where Algeria is. When told it’s between Tunisia and Morocco, they express surprise there is even a country between these two. Well, yes, it’s hard to miss 1200 kilometres of coast and 2.5 million square kilometres even if you tried! So when I say I am from Algeria, people in England usually either assume I am Nigerian and lift an eyebrow at my skin colour, or think I am Albanian and wonder if Albania is part of the European Union. But the English being English tend not to ask for further clarifications. They either don’t care or don’t want to embarrass me or themselves.

So, thank you Doctor L for being yourself and for your curiosity about me. There is no need to be embarrassed, I like to confuse the cards and break prejudices from time to time.

   Traveling with Kids Doesn’t Have to be a Burden

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

By Stephanie Meade

It’s been over a year since we took any trips on an airplane. I forgot how much I enjoy the hustle and bustle of airports, even with kids, as I love their excitement over the little things: Planes! Escalators! The scale at check in!

I often hear about parents who gave up their jet-setting lifestyle when kids came along because travel was too much work. While traveling with kids definitely involves more preparation and requires more stuff, it doesn’t have to be a burden. I try to limit the amount of stuff needed to the basics (for example babies, especially ones who are not crawling, don’t need cribs—they are just fine with some blankets folded on the floor). I also adjust my expectations. Because I know we will need more time for everything, we get to the airport plenty early (which involves telling my husband the flight will leave about 45 minutes to one hour before it does) to allow the kids their own time to dawdle, take it slow and get lost in the things that interest them as well. We also don’t take a stroller with us usually, something that surprises many other parents. But seriously, we have never needed one because this is how we roll:

If your child is two or younger, then a carrier is invaluable–the ergo was our favorite from ages six months to three.

As with every trip, I set out for Michael’s (or any craft or dollar store will do) and pick up about 10 of the cheap, no more than a dollar or two items to entertain my kids on the plane. This last trip was nearly four hours on the first plane and two hours on the second, so a bit long, but luckily not as long as flying to Morocco. We would also be without electronics of any type as our portable DVD player was broken. I always hide the new toys until we get on the plane; depending on how antsy they are during takeoff (this usually happens on the second plane once the novelty of flying has worn off), I start talking to them about what fun presents are in the bag. Nothing like the promise of a present to encourage sitting still.

This time our craft/toy bag included: scotch tape (you would be amazed at how long this can amuse kids—our kids taped up their tray tables for what felt like ages but was probably 20 minutes, which is an eternity in airplane time), scissors, beads and string for bracelets, play doh, Hello Kitty activity coloring books, mini dry-erase sketch pads, stamps, stickers alphabet flash cards, preschool question and answer flash cards (my kids like cards), and pre-cut turkey crafts that kids just have to assemble with glue. I also always throw a few books, blank paper and crayons/markers into the bag. I only bring stuff that won’t matter if it gets lost under the seat, because it inevitably does.

I also have a bag within a bag with a variety of non-sugary, non-junky snacks. I don’t want them too sugared up and restless from sitting down for so long. Previously, I made the mistake when traveling of buying all sorts of novelty snacks they don’t usually eat but love (like cheddar bunnies, animal crackers, etc.). However, now I make sure the novelty items are games and toys and the foods are an assortment of their healthy favorites (e.g., pancakes, hummus sandwiches, pomegranate seeds, plaintain chips, raisins). Tip: never underestimate the amount of snacks you will need. My kids usually always finish everything and there’s inevitably something they usually like but won’t touch. On average, each toy enjoys about 20 minutes of attention span, alternated with snacks, trips to the bathroom and other games we come up with—lately my girls’ like playing hairdresser—and we made it through two flights.

On all four flights, both to and from Florida, we were complimented by all the people sitting around us on what great travelers the kids were (relief as it wasn’t always this way; I recall the grumpy French boyfriend and girlfriend who glared at us for hours on a Frankfurt-San Francisco flight as my kids were so restless; or the two-hour long screaming, flailing, out-of-control tantrum one of my kids had on a flight to Santa Fe because she refused to sit during takeoff or at any other point). Truth be told, while their good behavior had something to do with the energy that went into keeping them entertained on the flight, it mostly involved their not being two anymore and the bribes offered. After flight number one, they were awarded lollipops for good behavior. When they started pushing each other in their seats or annoying one another, this worked charmingly to settle them down and keep their hands to themselves. And then they were promised an ice cream at some point during the weekend for good behavior on the second plane.

What are your tricks for good plane behavior?

Speaking Four Languages at Home

   How Francois Grosjean Broke My Multilingual Heart

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

By Jan Petersen

Francois Grosjean broke my heart with an article he wrote recently, “Helen or Hélène.”

The actual quote that touched me was not from him but from Uriel Weinreich, who was a language researcher in the U.S. It goes “few language users are poets.”

The idea is that if you are multilingual, you are trying to be more efficient with your communication. Based on whom you are communicating with, situation or other factors, you will use whatever language best gets your point across. Kind of a real-life example of “function over form.”

Hm… so what if you are writing for a blog? Or if back in the days when you were monolingual, you really appreciated beautifully crafted text? Is it possible that because you are now multilingual, your ability to communicate with style has actually suffered? Is your head so full of languages that you are not able to excel in any of them? That is quite a frustrating thought. And it touches a deep-lying fear that I didn’t even know I had!

Observations

Thinking about it now, I did worry about my German in the recent past. The two issues I saw were code-switching (or rather failure not to) and situations where I used slightly inappropriate language.

When I am speaking with Germans, I often find myself using words borrowed from English and French. I am sure this annoys the heck out of them and makes me sound like a pretentious idiot, but I can’t help it–it’s how I speak now.

Most multilinguals code-switch in their daily life. As Francois Grosjean points out, one reason is that we pick up language for new life circumstances as we live through them. I never needed to learn language describing all aspects of being a parent while I was in Germany. And my vocabulary around buying a house is entirely English because we bought a house in the U.K.

To aggravate things, we do not speak a common language at home. While I speak German with my daughters and some colleagues, my communication is dominated by French and English (not sure which one is more present, actually). Plus, I basically code-switch all the time, because most people around me do understand and it just is more efficient.

I’m afraid I have very little motivation currently to develop any of my languages. This strikes me as a terrible thing! I used to love language and playing with it. I used to be a snob about it, to be honest. I used to have a fairly good active vocabulary. My mother used to run a bookshop and I read pretty much everything she brought home. I rarely had to look up grammar and I conservatively decided to stick with the old rules when Germany adopted new spelling and grammar rules in 2006. Yeah, that snob.

These days I find myself in business meetings rummaging through memory in search of the appropriate thing to say. I often feel I am lacking a certain finesse. I have at times said completely inappropriate things because I just couldn’t remember a sophisticated way of saying what I had to say.

It’s not bad news, of course. I didn’t actually lose anything. I merely shifted my attention to foreign languages. What I lack in refinement in German, I can easily make up for with an eclectic English vocabulary. Every German word lost, I replaced with a French or an English term, sometimes both.

So can I get my German back?

I think I can. It will involve reading more German books and more importantly using my German more often. I have to write more too, I suppose. And the more I write, the better I’ll be at it. Nothing beats experience.

You can read Francois Grosjean’s response to this article here: www.incultureparent.com/2012/01/francois-grosjean-responds-cherishing-the-multilingual-heart-not-breaking-it/

   Our Dia de los Muertos and Halloween Fun

Monday, October 31st, 2011

By Stephanie Meade

This weekend we had a taste of all sorts of fall festivities and also celebrated Day of the Dead for the first time at a joint pumpkin carving/Day of the Dead celebration play date. (I must admit, these blended cultural celebrations are truly some of my favorites as they are the perfect reflection of how all the mixed families out there (and not solely multicultural families but also people who love incorporating diverse cultural elements into a celebration) create traditions.
But let me back up a second. El Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican holiday honoring loved ones who have passed away. A friend from Mexico, Adriana, sent me some awesome pictures of her Dia de los Muertos celebration to put the holiday into better context. The first picture above are fields of the cempasuchil flower, which is the popular decoration for altars and houses during the celebration.

Here’s the entrance to my friend’s house–the cempasuchil flower petals are thrown in such a way that it leads the way to the front door. They are supposed to invite your spirits, the ones honored in the ofrenda (altar–pictured to the right), into your house. She notes that usually she places the petals on the evening of November 1st., right around midnight (on the 2nd), so that the spirits know everything is ready and waiting for them.
Finally, pan de muerto is a popular food eaten for the holiday. Here are some of the panes de muerto Adriana made. You can find a recipe for pan de muerto here: http://www.incultureparent.com/2011/10/day-of-the-dead-recipe-pan-de-muerto/
At my friend Rosanna’s house, we had a fun pumpkin carving/ Day of the Dead celebration. Rosanna had made her own ofrenda, in honor of her grandfather (and I loved that there was a shot of tequila on it as her grandfather loved tequila–can you find it in the photo?) and we shared some pan de muerto. Each of the kids received mini, edible calaveras de azúcar (sugar skulls).

As the only gringa there, everyone expected I knew something about pumpkin carving but like everything, times have changed since I used to carve pumpkins as a kid, with triangle eyes and jagged teeth cause that’s all you could manage with a kitchen knife. I didn’t realize they made pumpkin carving kits now, complete with traced images to carve out for the face. That explains the mystery of why every pumpkin on my street looks like an artist did it. Here’s my Moroccan husband carving pumpkins, which is amusing as the man has never carved a pumpkin in his life and remains a bit confused by Halloween (for example, why the scary element is one of his main questions).

Here are all the kiddos with our pumpkins that make us all look like artists. Shh, don’t tell they were thanks to Target pumpkin carving kits!

Sunday we hit the obligatory pumpkin patch–one of my favorite parts of celebrating fall with kids. Here are mine going for the largest pumpkin they could find:

Our fall fun culminated in their school Halloween celebration, followed by trick or treating tonight. The girls were very intent and excited about being matching “stinky piggies.” It was pretty easy to convince them that dancing pigs were much cooler, once there was a tutu involved.

Happy Halloween!