Why I Started Blogging

As I wrote in my recent post great things can happen online. I have been nominated for the Expatica "I am not a tourist” Expat Blog Competition 2012.

I was asked by Amsterdam Mamas in their Meet the Blogger series to answer a few questions and the first questions was: Why did you start blogging? Which is actually a really good question. I started this blog in June 2011. So I have celebrated my first blog anniversary and we did that with a lovely interview with Heidi Sand-Hart, the author of the book "Home Keeps Moving". There was a giveaway too, so that was one of my posts with the most comments.

Amsterdam Mamas was created in 2010 by a group of expat mothers and mothers-to-be who wanted to support each other and exchange information about their experiences of pregnancy and motherhood in Amsterdam. Do hop over and visit their website. If you want to know why I started blogging you can read it here in the mini interview.

Just to let you know Expatica posted about DrieCulturen too this week.

The Expat Blog competition is open until the 7th of October which is the day of the expat fair at the Beurs van Berlage in the heart of Amsterdam. Hop over and see all the other blogs that have been nominated and cast your vote here: http://www.expatica.com/iamnotatourist/blog_vote.php. 
  
By the way what do you think was my best or most interesting post? I would love to hear from you.

Interesting posts:

• Cultural identity Confusion and Third Culture Kids
• A Third Culture Kid speaking: I am not from Anywhere
• Are you Raising Messed up Kids?
• What do the Dutch Miss When Living Abroad?

Great things can happen online

Guess what my blog has been nominated for the Expatica "I am not a tourist Expat blog competition". I was nominated by The European Mama. She's a fellow blogger, a Polish mother living here in the Netherlands with her German husband and two daughters. Great things happen while I'm blogging or even sometimes while I am not looking. Suddenly my blog gets nominated for a competition, I meet new people online, and I get comments on my posts. Thank you. I am really enjoying this blogging adventure! Now the good thing about the blog competition is that you, the readers get to decide which blog wins the price.

I was asked which post I would like to share for the competition and I choose this one: Meet Rebecca an expat raising trilingual kids in the Netherlands. I choose this post because I am always very interested in the stories people have to tell. We can learn from the experiences of other parents. I was raised bilingually while growing up in Africa. I am so happy my parents made the effort to teach us Dutch. You can read more on how I learned my mother tongue. I think teaching your children your own language is one of the best gifts you can give them.

Maybe they do not appreciate it now but I can nearly guarantee you that in the years to come your children will be thankful that you taught them to speak their mother tongue.

" Preserving Your Heritage Language is the key to preserving your next generation, giving your child a true sense of identity and a high level of self esteem."

-- Soji Oyenuga, 2006

The Expat Blog competition is open until the 7th of October which is the day of the expat fair at the Beurs van Berlage in the heart of Amsterdam. Hop over and see all the other blogs that have been nominated and cast your vote here: http://www.expatica.com/iamnotatourist/blog_vote.php. 

Related posts:

• Top 10 countries for raising kids abroad in 2011 (the Netherlands is 2nd on the list)
• My 10 advantages of growing up abroad
• My 10 disadvantages of growing up abroad
• The downside of growing up overseas as a third culture kid