Third Culture Kid Christmas Wishes!

Happy Christmas to you all! I want to break the 7 week silence to give you season greetings and share some of my Christmas season experiences. I had a "TCK moment" at a Christmas concert in Leiden, the Netherlands recently. There were a couple of choirs that sang Christmas carols in different languages (Dutch, English, French and Spanish). I really enjoy singing Christmas carols. The audience was encouraged to sing athe chorus of "The Star Carol". The conductor made us practise because he said that the Star Carol was not well-known. When I heard it memories came back to me of singing carols at Townsend Highschool in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and at my primary school in Blantyre Malawi. Where did I learn that carol? Was it in Malawi or Zimbabwe? I just don't know. It was my "TCK moment", realizing that my past was different from that of the Dutch lady sitting next to me.

Can you feel "at home" while singing a familiar carol? I did have some kind of feeling like that. There is something about music that can trigger memories. Here is the chorus of the Star Carol, maybe you know it too:

Spotted this tree in Antwerpen, Belgium

"See His star shining bright
In the sky this Christmas night!
Follow me joyfully;
Hurry to Bethlehem and see the son of Mary!"

I had another "TCK moment" during an international Christmas church service on Christmas eve. At the end of the service we all sang Silent Night and we were encouraged to sing it in our mother tongue all at the same time. What an interesting mix of languages! While we were singing I discovered that I know the words of Silent Night better in English than in Dutch, eventhough I am Dutch and it is officially my mother tongue. While growing up in Africa most carols were sang at church and at school and the language there was English. So I know the English version better than the Dutch.....

A couple of days ago I was walking in Antwerpen, Belgium and I spotted a third culture kid Chrismas tree, it was a tree full of "travel boxes". Even TCKs that are adults and have settled down, like me, often still love travelling or feel some kind of bond with travelling.

What will the new year bring us? New travels? Or will we stay in one place and grow some roots? These are some of the questions adult TCKs ponder about. What about you? Will it be a year of moving or staying in one place?


I want to share a comment Rebecca posted. I interviewed Rebecca 1,5 years ago, you can read the interesting interview here. She is raising trilingual expat kids here in the Netherlands. I asked her where home is for her daughters. Recently her daughter said "Home is where the people you love live." I hope you were "home" this season, with the people you love! Did you have any "TCK moments" this season? Please share them with us.




Related posts:

• Christmas around the world (DrieCulturen)
• "Home"for the holidays? not that easy (CNN)
• Third Culture Kids in Transition (HollyDyck)

My heritage of growing up overseas: Close encouters of a tropical kind

I actually have a very funny memory of a watermelon. I must have been about 13 years old. We had travelled all day from Beitbridge in the South of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe to our home at that time in Bulawayo. These were bumpy roads and we had bought a juicy, big, ripe watermelon along the way. We had probably bought it for a good price. It was a warm day and the idea of a succulent, juicy watermelon must have been very appealing at the time. Why we did not dig into it straight away remains an unanswered question in my mind.

Image by Fedegrafo Morgue File

When I talk about we, I mean my parents, my brothers and my little sister of 5 years old. We had travelled that day in a land cruiser owned by the NGO (non-governmental organisation) that my father worked for at the time. This land cruiser had taken us along nice, well maintained, tarmac roads but also along bumpy, unpredictable bush roads. Now the watermelon had made this journey along with us too.

On arrival at home all the kids had to join in carrying the luggage into the house, making sure the land cruiser was emptied of all our belongings and returned into its original state. Not sure if that was possible, but anyway. Seeing as we had been away for more than a week there was always a pile of letters awaiting our homecoming. These were put on the kitchen table together with our precious watermelon. Tired from the journey we left our friend the watermelon and the mail on the table for the night.

We were rudely awakened that night. There was the sound of a serious explosion. The stillness of the African night was abruptly interrupted by an enormous amount of noise. The noise was from an unknown source, it was unexpected, unpredicted, and maybe unwelcome. It ended in some kind of “splat!”

Arriving at the scene of the crime, we saw the devastation, we saw the mess. From the ceiling to the floor the ruins were visible. The mail was ruined, sploshed, sticky and gooey. The chairs, the walls, everything was marked by this extreme explosion: the UFO, unidentified flying object. After wiping the sleep out of our eyes, we recognized the remains of our juicy watermelon, glued all over the kitchen. Seeds and juice were everywhere. That what should have brought us pure joy, life, juice, excitement, ecstasy and refreshment, had now become another task, chore, a dirty sticky mess, a disappointment, a disgust and lots of sweat.

So that was the end of our fermented and well-travelled watermelon.

Have you had funny experiences abroad? I would love to hear them.

Related posts: 

• My heritage of growing up overseas: Respect for Malaria 
• My heritage of growing up overseas: a heart for the children of the world 
• The downside of growing up overseas as a third culture kid
• Third culture kids: learning their mother tongue

The palettes of the global nomad, all about food

Fried flying ants: photo thanks to L.Lagore

As I wrote in the post Global nomads on the move recently 3 films have be made called: Move, Eat, and Learn. Today my topic will be on eating. Global nomads have taste buds that are used to the tastes of the world. There are so many different dishes, so many different tastes, and so many different foods. Just to discover them all is an adventure. The short film at the end captures this adventure well. Tastes and smells bring back memories of my childhood in Africa.

Words I associate with the word "EAT":

• Enjoy
• Appetite
• Tasty

One of my favourite desserts is pavlova, a meringue based dessert named after the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova. I first ate this dessert in Zimbabwe probably at a potluck meal. A potluck meal is meal where everyone just brings something along to share with all. It is so much fun, a great surprise what will be on the menu, and a good way of tasting different dishes. Originally the pavlova is from New Zealand or Australia. I found a recipe for you. You can decorate it with the fruit of choice. By the way potluck meals are great in international communities because everyone can share their home country food.

The blog Persimmons and Chesnuts is written by an adult third culture kid who lived Japan as a child. The writer has developed a passionate love affair with food and especially Asian food. The blog has a post called The palettes of TCKs: chicken wings, it is worth reading. There are more recipes on the blog.

Once I was in Indonesia and I had the privilege of tasting klappertaart, an Indonesian-Dutch dessert, delicious! I wrote a post on eten in het buitenland (a Dutch post on food overseas) before. One of the strangest things I ever ate were fried flying ants, they are really crunchy! Here's the recipe. I found  somebody else who ate them too and wrote a post on eating flying ants. I must admit that I recently refused to eat fried scorpions (China), the thought of eating a scorpion was just too terrible. There was no way it was going to find it's way down my gut!

My roots are Dutch and seeing as I live in the Netherlands I suppose I must make mention of Dutch food. Well on the blog Clogs and Tulips you can find more information on stroopwafels, boerenkool, patat and other foods. What are your eating adventures? Have you eaten strange foods? Do you have "food" memories? Please share them with us.

 Click here for the film EAT. Enjoy!