Cultural differences

One of the things I really love about being an expat, is that we get exposed to different cultures. Going on holidays to a far away country is not the same as living there, trying to learn the language, finding your way in the local supermarket and learning to cook with different ingredients. We have lived in 5 different countries on 4 different continents so far and every one of those countries had their unique culture and religion(s). With exception of The Netherlands and Australia, we have always stuck out in a crowd and have been the obvious foreigners. The only 'discrimination' we have encountered so far is that prices tend to be higher for us than for locals (especially in Nigeria).
I have high hopes that my boys grow up as world citizens with open minds and without prejudice, but maybe I am a bit naive. Time will tell.

Every Tuesday morning I go to the ANU project to teach English to a group of women. They make bags out of tetra packs and cement bags to earn some money. One of the volunteers bought some bags last week to give as presents to friends in The Netherlands. When she got home she had a good look at the bags and felt she couldn't take them to Europe.... Too much of a difference in cultures I'd say.  See if you agree:

The two bags she bought with the design that might not be taken lightly in Europe....

The swastika is a very old and very common sign in India, symbolising 'auspiciousness' or good luck. Thanks to Hitler most Europeans won't be able to look at it in that way anymore. You might even get molested walking around with one of those bags.

Still, whatever the design and however you feel about it, I think it is an art to make this out of used tetra packs!

Stereotypes

The latest craze on Facebook is posting photo collages with stereotypes of people, jobs or countries. They are very funny but they also make you think about the (mis)conceptions there are.

Two examples (again copy-pasted from FB, no idea who has the copy write...)

So who has the right perception of us Dutchies? I remember how princess Maxima (the wife of our crown prince Willem Alexander), got into trouble when she stated that "The typical Dutch person doesn't exist". 
There is some truth in every stereotype I guess. I don't smoke 'wiet', I don't know any of the Dutch folk dances and we don't go on holidays with a caravan, but I know Dutch people who do. We do/did own/owned (depending on what is still left of our stuff in Libya) clogs and orange outfits and we have worn them to many a get together where a Dutch touch was required, and proudly. And how I miss my bike (Libya again). I had one boy in a seat on the front, one in a seat on the back, a trailer for schoolbags and shopping and a boy on his own bike next to me (holding on to him with one hand on his back/neck) not so long ago. But I never cycled holding an umbrella...

How true is this one??? I always have a hard time finding an answer when someone asks me what I do all day? I keep myself fairly busy, but with what? Not with travelling and massages, although that would be bliss I am sure. I guess the 'What I think I do' is fairly accurate haha. The 'What I really do' picture is not correct in my case (I never sit on our table like that haha).

If you would ask me now my answer for today would be: 'getting up way too early to get the boys of to school, fed, watered and properly dressed, tidying up the house, drinking coffee with my husband, check my mail and Facebook, read the news, read blogs and write my own blog while in between I do the dishes and loads of laundry.' It is not even 10 AM yet!

So do you fit into a stereotype?

13

Today is Ruben's birthday. He was born 13 years ago at Nickol Bay hospital in Karratha, WA. Our second boy. I remember how surprised I was that he looked so different from his older brother. He still does. He is the only red head in the family (on both sides) and he is the most even tempered, happy go lucky boy I know. Let's hope puberty won't change that...

We have 2 teenagers in the house now and an 11 year old that is trying very hard to behave like one too. I love seeing them grow and change and becoming more mature, while at the same time they are still boys.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUBEN!

Draught

The summer hasn't even hit us yet in Bangalore, but we are having issues with the water supply already. The gated community that we live at has a big water tank that gets filled by different sources. One of those sources is a bore well close by, that has somehow lost it's capacity at the beginning of last week. I am not sure if it was due to a faulty pump or because the well dried up, but the fact is that it didn't produce any water anymore.
The other way the water tank gets filled up is by tankers that come in several times a day. High demand for water and the heavy Bangalore traffic reduces the amount of tankers coming in on a daily basis.

Both problems combined means we have been on a water ration since Tuesday. We have a few hours of water in the morning and a few hours in the evening and the rest of the day we have to make due with the water we have collected in buckets.

The community's Yahoo site is stacked with mails about rationing water, wasting water, accusations of people hoarding water, what could be the solution (short term and long term) to prevent this from becoming a more chronic problem, etc etc.

For me it means I have to get up early enough (even during the weekend) to make sure I can have a shower, do a load of laundry, wash the dishes and fill some buckets to flush the toilets and wash our hands, while we have water between 6:00 and 9:00 AM. Similar exercise during those hours PM.
Unfortunately we live quite far from the water tank, so it takes a considerable amount of time for the pipes to fill and the water to reach our house. Last night we still didn't have water at 19:00 hr.

The management committee of the owners association has been working hard all week to try and find extra supplies of water from outside, but also to get the bore wells that have been drilled a few weeks ago inside the community's walls working. This takes time, but we are hopeful that it won't take a whole lot longer before we have enough water coming in to have our taps running for at least a few more hours during the day.

Copy - Paste

There are a lot of 'life lessons' and 'wise words' posted on Facebook every day and it often happens that I think: I should remember this one! But then I forget. I have copy-pasted one here today that I had read several times before and thought was a nice one to think about. So here it is, something to ponder over during the weekend maybe? 

The Mayonnaise Jar

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day is not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and two cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and filled it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured it into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “YES”.

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions. Things, that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the things that matter like your job, house, and car. The sand is everything else -- the small stuff.” he said.

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “There is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you...” he told them.

“So... pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Worship with your family. Play with your children. Take your partner out to dinner. Spend time with good friends. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the dripping tap. Take care of the golf balls first -- the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled and said, “I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

Enjoy your weekend, make sure to have a nice cup of coffee with a friend!

1 Year

Tomorrow it will be 1 year since "The Day of Rage", a memorable day with demonstrations against the government in Libya. In the week leading to it there was a lot of talk about it between expats and I checked the stories with my Libyan friends to find out how much of an impact it would have. Rumour was that Gadhaffi himself (still strange to be able to write his full name and not refer to him as The Leader or Mr. G.) was behind the demonstrations because he wanted change of government anyway and this made him look like one of the people. The fact that demonstrations were allowed suggested it was all orchestrated by The Ruler anyway. Usually busloads of people were dropped at the Green Square and handed banners to "demonstrate", always pro-Gadhaffi of course.

Nobody seemed to sense this was going to become the start of the revolution, but it did. I would love to say: "And the rest is history", but it isn't. It has been the beginning of a long process. Gadhaffi is gone, but Libya is still struggling to find it's way to become a free and democratic society. After more than 40 years of dictatorship, with no freedom of expressing your own opinions, always being scared you would be overheard and thrown into jail (or worse), and a strong tribal influence on society, the whole political infrastructure has to be build from scratch.

The past year has been traumatic for a lot of people that are connected one way or the other to Libya. I know that we were lucky to be able to leave the country just in time and we didn't have to live through a civil war, but even after a year we still are affected by it. It has had a big impact on our lifes.

I am not sure if it is appropriate to say Happy Anniversary to Libya, but I do hope and pray the 17th of February will prove to be the day that things turned out for the better!

Alif Mabrouk Libya!!! 

Nothing goes as planned...

Joshua and Ruben are back from their school trips, which was not as straight forward as it sounds. Ruben came on a bus/touring car/coach from Pondicherri and arrived back at school at 20:50 instead of 17:30 as planned. He came of the bus, said hi and hardy uttered a word after that. He was exhausted and seems to have had a great time (even after a night's sleep he is not telling much).

Joshua was supposed to arrive at the airport at 19:45, but he landed at 9:30 this morning. The flight from Kathmandu was delayed by 4 hours because of bad visibility, so they missed their connecting flight in Delhi. The teachers managed to get the whole group (35 pax) booked in a hotel and on 2 different flights today.
Joshua had a great time in Nepal and he has been telling us what he has done and seen at least ha ha.

Since it is my parents' last weekend in Bangalore, we had planned to take them on their last tour through the city, to Commercial street and Russel Market, but when I came home from the airport Dad was still in bed and Mum was sitting on the couch, both not feeling well. The stomach bug has hit them. Not an ideal thing to have when walking through town, so we decided to stay home.

The boys are lazing around, too tired to do anything other than gaming, Mum & Dad are staying close to the bathroom and I have a stack of smelly boy's clothes to sort and wash. At least that's the plan.....

Photo overload

I did it! I finally finished the photo book with the pics of our trip to Mysore and Kabini. 64 pages filled with memories have been sent online to the HEMA and will be delivered at my parent's house next week. It was a huge task, but it was also fun to do.
Next one is the album with photo's from our tours around Bangalore. It is Mum & Dad's last week here and with Dad being trigger happy, it looks like it will be another fat book.

Here is a taste of the safari shots, only a few, but you will get the picture haha.

Busy week

This week has not been very productive on the blog front, but I have been busy with lots of other things. I have sorted all the photographs that were made during our trip to Mysore and Kabini. My task for this weekend is to get them into a photo album.
We came back home on Monday afternoon, with Joshua and Mum not feeling well. On Tuesday Simon stayed home with the stomach bug and on Thursday evening the bug hit me. It's only a one day thing, but it hits hard.

Tuesday I went to the slum to teach English and had great fun with the ladies that attended my class. They even taught me some Tamil.

On Wednesday I went to the hair dresser with a friend and we had lunch with Mum & Dad at Leela Palace afterwards.

On Thursday we went in to town to see some churches. The Infant Jesus Church is always very busy on Thursdays with continues masses in different languages. Mass is not only attended by Catholics, but also the Hindus join. The atmosphere is great and the combination of rituals from different faiths is wonderful to see.
We also went to see the Cathedral and had a walk around Russel Market afterwards.

Today Adriaan and Mum & Dad are going to Nandi Hills, North of Bangalore. Tomorrow we have been invited to have dinner at Baburaj's house.
Monday morning I have to drop Joshua of at the airport at 5:00 AM (!) for his school trip to Nepal and Ruben has to be at school at 6:00 AM on Tuesday for his school trip to Pondicherrie.

Guess I better start with that photo album now... Enjoy your weekend!!!