Papaya

The papaya tree in our neighbour's garden, attracts all sort of wild life. Remember this cute squirrel having break fast?

These days the squirrels don't seem to be in to papaya as much anymore (pun intended ;-) ), and the birds have lost their appetite too, so new scavengers have moved to the tree:

Not as cute, but I love how they have the colour of the papayas and the fact that they stay on the fruit and are not buzzing around helps too.

Nightmare scenarios

The Dutch news has been dominated by the disappearance of two brothers, after their father was found having committed suicide. Now the boys have been found dead too....

In France a British father has killed his children on the first visit he was allowed to have with them after a long time...

Last Sunday a grandfather and grandmother took their 2 year old grandchild for a bike ride in the South of the Netherlands. They peddled along a quiet road on a separate bike lane, away from the main road. One car, one slight bend and all 3 were killed.

My children are 12, 14 and 16 and from the moment they were born I have had nightmares and horror scenarios going through my head. Besides all the 'normal' fears of them falling off the stairs, getting a life threatening illness or crossing the road without looking, I have feared trains taking off with my child(ren) in it and me on the platform (or the other way around), children on their own in an elevator or them getting lost while on a school trip.

The fear of loosing a child is overpowering and I can't imagine what it must be like for the mothers of those murdered children. Imagine the "What if" and "How could I have prevented this?".

The truth is that there is not much you can do. You can teach them how to cross the road safely and what to do if that train indeed takes off without mama in it, but there is nothing you can do about that one driver loosing control or that insane ex-partner that doesn't want you to have the kids if he can't have them either...


We take risks every day, calculated risks most of the time, but the trick is not to let it get to you. I don't want to influence my boy's life by my fears. We raise them as best we can and give them all the love we feel for them. Our fears should be translated into sound advise and then let go of... soooooo hard to do.

My boys are 12, 14 and 16 and sometimes it feels like a miracle that they made it so far without any serious injuries. I will keep saying my prayers and hope for the best.

Feeling like a foreigner?

After all the summer school posts and showing off my mother's day delights, I didn't have a lot of inspiration to write a blog post this week, so last night I asked my friends on Facebook for suggestions. This morning I found 3 replies: 2 about 'food' (bitterballen and frikandellen, Dutch snacks) that I can't write about for the risk of dribbling all over the key board.
The third suggestion was more helpful (sorry Liset and Carla). My Libyan friend Rasha suggested to write about:

How living abroad slowly changes you and you feel more and more like a foreigner when you actually go home.

I wonder if that is true for me, has living abroad changed me? Do I feel like a foreigner when I am in The Netherlands?
The answers? "Yes!" and "A bit".

We are now half way through our posting in India (or maybe not...) and this is our fourth country besides our base country. We have lived on different continents, experienced different cultures and religions and met people from all walks of life. I think life as an expat is bound to change you. To 'survive' a life like this you have to be open minded and curious, you have to be able to adjust and 'go with the flow' to a certain degree. You will be overwhelmed, bewildered, disappointed and pleasantly surprised. There will be misunderstandings over simple things and frustrations galore, but there will also be the very valuable friendships and the joy of figuring it all out.

We have never had a posting in a country that is even remotely similar to The Netherlands and in 3 out of 4 of them we were/are the obvious foreigners, sticking out in a crowd like a sore thumb (In Australia we could pretend to be locals till we had to talk. The Aussie accent is not easily mastered).

How does living abroad change you?

I think and hope we have become more open minded. When you live in a country with a different culture and religion, you get to understand it better. Things that seemed weird or even scary can become familiar and (almost) normal when experienced in their context.
When you know someone's back ground from close by, you understand why they react the way they do and maybe not the way you would want/expect.

I am sure living abroad has made our family a very close knit union. The 5 of us are the one constant factor where ever we go. I know we would have been close if we had stayed in The Netherlands, but moving around and settling in in unfamiliar places does make the cement just that little bit stronger. We are the only 5 that have gone through the same thing, the only 5 that know exactly what it was like for us.

If there is one thing you have to learn as an expat, young or old, it is making friends. Friends are essential! Friends are the key to staying sane. You don't need many, but you need a few good ones.
When you live in your own country, friendships are formed at school or at work, maybe during sports or while waiting for your children at the school playground and those friendships tend to last for a long time. When you stay somewhere for a limited amount of years, forming friendships is a different ball game. You have to be fast and furious, no time to waste. That same approach scares the hell out of people at home. You run the risk of being labelled a stalker or a least a bit pushy.

Do I feel like a foreigner when I am in The Netherlands?

Maybe a bit, or maybe not like a foreigner, but I do feel different. We live a life that changes often and we try to make the most of our time by sight seeing and travelling around. A lot happens in a short time. When we go to NL for holidays I am always a bit surprised to see how little has changed while we were away. The same lady is still at the till in the super market, the same faces on the television.

The one thing that does make me feel different is the fact that I can't really explain our way of life abroad. It is so different from the 'normal' life at home, that I soon feel like the stereotypical spoiled and lazy expat wife (good thing I don't drink). I have to consciously stop myself to tell stories about our experiences abroad for fear of being perceived as a show off or a 'know it all'.

We miss out on a lot of things at home. We miss our family and a lot of special occasions, happy and sad ones.
My boys miss out on the Dutch way of life and probably know more about other cultures than our own. They have lived abroad longer than in NL. Time has to prove whether we made the right decision, whether we made them into world citizens or into foreigners in their own country.



These are my personal views and opinions. Other expats might have a different perspective. What do you think? What is your view? Please let me know!!!

Mothers Day

I have been spoiled today: breakfast in bed, brownie-cake, fun at the pool, a lovely dinner and the boys did the dishes!!!

Something in their eyes...

When we walked back to the car yesterday, after summer school, we came across this cute little baby boy. He was in his mother's lap and surrounded by 5 or 6 women.

 

Sometimes it is hard to tell whether a baby is a boy or a girl. This one is wearing what I would consider a girl's top and the ankle bracelets would hint towards a girl too, but as you can see, it is a boy. An innocent new life, born in a slum in Bangalore, too soon to now what he will become in life, too soon to know if I should feel sorry for him. For all I know he could be the future prime minister of India. He could be the one that makes a difference. Let's pray he is, despite all the odds against him!

Just a bit down the same road these children were asking me to take their photo. The older two had lost the innocence in their eyes that little ones still have. These children looked and behaved like street kids. They were in my face and quite demanding. What has happened in their lives that they have become this way?
It is too easy to just blame life in the slum, but I do think it is a large part of it. The children here see and hear too much and have to grow up very fast. They have to look after themselves a lot of the time. No money, no food, no toys and even no education for some. Life is not pretty.

There is something in their eyes that changes over time......

Orange

Lots of orange this week. The Dutch-orange on Wednesday:

and the 'political party'-orange yesterday on the road (Karnataka state elections will be tomorrow):

I was on my way to school when we saw that group. Ruben and Simon had Science Fair yesterday morning.

Simon researched if it would be possible to send a person to Pluto (provided that that person would still be alive upon arrival), the answer is NO. If you want to know why not, please contact Simon, he can explain it to you in detail.


Ruben and his friend Jacob talked about pollution. They made a really nice presentation on the iPad and had a good story to go with it.

Little people

It was a very hectic day at summer school today, we had 50 children in the morning and 46 in the afternoon for our fun games. The noise levels were up and, despite the heat, the kids were pretty hyper. They all left with lots of energy while the volunteers all looked like they wanted to collapse on the spot.

Today I want to show you some portraits I made of a few children. Beautiful little people living in a slum in Bangalore. Through my volunteer work at ANU, I know their mothers and I know a bit about their background. It is amazing that these children have such bright smiles and such lust for life, but thank God they do!

Brothers and sisters, reunited for the school holidays. Only the youngest still lives with their mother, the other 3 go to a boarding school in Chennai. That sounds horrible, but it is the best thing for these children, especially for the boys. This way they get a good education and (maybe even more importantly) they are away from the slum and the bad influences....

 

The majority of the children in the slum have unemployed, alcoholic fathers. Their mothers get beaten up on a regular basis and food is not always available... I often wonder how these circumstances will influence them. Will they do everything in their power to better their lives or will they stay in a similar situation as they grow up in now?

It is heart breaking just to think about it. I wish I could do something to make it possible for them to get out of the slum, get a good education and earn a proper living....but where to start and what to do? Even though it is the most simple and obvious solution, throwing money at this problem is not going to fix it I am sure.

Like I mentioned before in one of my blogs, I just hope that my little contribution by teaching their mothers English and helping them to keep their business running will lead to a better life for them.

 

In the mean time we will continue with summer school and hope a large group of children will have some good memories of a fun filled summer with some silly aunties.