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Happy 4th to all Americans out there. Belated, that is.
Today (yesterday, in case you’re confused) we celebrated our first American Independence Day in years with that quintessential American activity–shopping.
We rarely go to the mall and when we do, I’m always surprised at how many other people have had the same idea. I’ll think, “Oh it’s a lovely sunny weekend. No one will be there! We’ll have the place to ourselves and we’ll just duck into the Lego store and pick up Abel’s birthday present in 2 minutes!” And then we spend 45 minutes just looking for parking. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
We started out with a patriotic breakfast. I mixed blueberries and raspberries (hand-picked! Fresh!) in a bowl and put them on the table next to a bowl of powdered sugar and voila! Red, white and blue means a perfect 4th of July breakfast. We had French toast, or Freedom toast as I proudly called it (don’t choke; I really did call it that but it went right over the kids‘ heads and Donn just rolled his eyes at me) and then we spent most of breakfast discussing French history, as it turned out. Don’t worry–for July 14th we’ll have the same breakfast and then we’ll discuss the American Revolution.
It was up to Ilsa, however, and her fiddly little personality to make it a truly Patriotic breakfast.
Isn’t she great, folks?
She also needed a new swimsuit for camp. “Do you think Target is open today?” I asked Donn. “I don’t know,” he said. I decided they probably were–after all, what‘s more American than trying to make a buck? And I was right. Not only was Target open, EVERYBODY was open, except for banks and of course no mail.
In the evening, we went to a barbecue with friends who live out in the country. They promised some good fireworks. “Our neighbour is a pyromaniac,” they told me. So we went to celebrate our independence in the American way–loud explosions and bright colours!
They live out in rural Oregon, a place of sun-drenched vines and orchards rolling off into the distance, of textured, verdant hills. They live on an acre or two, with huge trees and inviting lawns and a cosy, light-filled home. And they were right–their neighbour goes waay beyond your typical neighbourhood pyromaniac. At dusk, we took our chairs out back, where we had an uninterrupted view across a yard to a really impressive display of enormous fireworks. It was at least as big as most city displays, and it went on and on and on. Fantastic! It really was a perfect way to spend a 4th of July evening; tables groaning under the weight of all this really good food (including mounds of local fresh berries and cherries), good company, and really loud noises accompanied by pretty lights.
Of course I forgot my camera. I couldn’t believe it. Also, Donn “the Photographer” was similarly unarmed. You will just have to imagine it; the kids shivering in the slip’n’slide, the badminton birdie getting stuck in the branches of the tall, tall oak, the sheer volume of my children as they ran through the late afternoon light, the bursts of red, white, orange, purple and green against the velvety black, so bright that we cast shadows in their brief glare, the will-o-the-wisp motion of children running with glow sticks in the deep shadows under the trees. Perfect.
Ilsa is having such an American summer. I think this is to make up for last summer, when we were basically moving the entire time and people, specifically Ilsa, didn’t actually have very much fun. She brought it to my attention a lot at the time. And even though I didn’t intend to make this her best! summer! ever! , it seems to be working out that way.
First, as always, we had to suffer. And you don’t know suffering until you are forced to do 3 months worth of Spanish class in 5 days while on vacation at the grandparents, with that sparkling chlorinated swimming pool just calling to you out the windows. That was a dark night of the soul, let me tell you.
But then we finished Spanish (and there was much rejoicing…YAAY!). And then we went to the zoo. And then we drove back to Oregon, and a few days later, there was Jr Hi sports camp.
Ilsa is not what you might call a sporty girl. She thinks soccer is boring, and volleyball is hard. (She’s also 4’3”) I had asked her if she wanted to go and she said no, so I had decided to just send the boys. This is a low key sports camp; 3 hours a day, 4 different sports, ending with a huge water fight on the last day. She wasn’t interested until she found out that Amy was going, then we couldn’t keep her away.
This week, it’s Art Camp. Again, this is pretty low-key; a friend of ours is doing it. “Ilsa has to come; she’s the kid that’s most excited about it,” Lisa told us. So off she goes every morning, coming home with canvases and clay fairies (she’s in a fairy phase) and mosaics and all sorts of things.
Next week, it’s summer camp–swimming and horses and cabins of 6 giggling girls and one giggling counselor and (hopefully) leather crafts. Cuz nothing says “You’re having a great American summer!” like pounding a flower into a leather circle and calling it a coaster.
However, once these camps are over, I expect the whining to start. You all know it. “Mo-om, I’m bored,” they say. One summer, in Mauritania, I had prepared a lecture that I could deliver at the drop of a whine–super fast, rattling it off, a fairly typical “this house is full of books and toys and computer games and you have so much more than those around you blah blah blah” This works great on kids, let me tell you. They inevitably responded with, “Oh thank you for correcting our thinking, Mum, you’re so right!” And then they would skip happily off to build imaginative forts out of household objects and do science experiments. Of course they cleaned up after themselves.
In real life, they did have a bit of a point. Mauritanian summers are hot, and dusty, and boring—all their friends have left, sometimes the electricity goes out, it’s too hot to play outside till about 5. I was bored myself. But I still hate the whine.
This summer, I have a new weapon in my arsenal. We got copies of the Pocket Editions of the Dangerous Books…The Pocket Daring Book for Girls: Things to Do
Most of the content of the books are also in the large versions, so you might wonder “why bother?” However, the smaller book is much more portable and travel friendly, and it does include new things as well. Thanks to this book, we have paper hats and airplanes all over the house, slingshots have been attempted, and secret inks sprout like mushrooms. I’m thankful that so far, no one has tried their own zip line or home made geyser, but I’m fairly certain it’s only thanks to a lack of materials. There are even instructions about how to fry an egg on the sidewalk and how to make your own stink bomb. Should be an interesting summer.
Seriously, I love these books. They are so fun! Almost as much fun as crawling into bed, exhausted, and finding my little active, engaged, imaginative monkeys have short-sheeted it (instructions also in the book).
Happy Leap Day. If it wasn’t leap year, the twins would already be 11; as it is, they are counting down the hours till the auspicious day itself. Ilsa is planning on having breakfast in bed, if you please.
Abel: “I don’t need breakfast in bed. Mom and Dad have enough to do tomorrow!”
Ilsa: “Abel, that’s sweet, but one word: Our Birthday!”
Abel: “That’s actually THREE words, really.”
I am still putting the finishing touches in place for their party (ok, in real life? The first cake is in the oven, and I’ve finished and sent out all the invitations. So perhaps not exactly finishing touches. I’ve got hours, though). This party has been stressing me out, because there’s a lot of weight riding on it, their only American birthday in memory, and likely their last until they’re university age and won’t be as excited to go to Build-a-Bear (hopefully, although given Abel’s attachment to stuffed animals I’m a little worried…) or the Lego Store or another of America’s riches.
Part of my stress comes from their friends, these American children whom I barely know. I read the news, I follow the trends, and I know that in choosing to raise my children overseas, I have placed on them a burden of being not quite like their peers. In many ways, the twins are mature for nearly-11: for example, if they meet an elderly Mauritanian man wearing filthy, baggy pants and a long robe, raised under the wide skies of the desert and still living in a tent, they can shake his hand and greet him with composure in their mangled Hassiniya; in the same way, they can kiss the cheeks of a American woman that they don’t actually remember, and chat with her. They are decent at navigating strange airports, and don’t complain much when forced to stay up all night to catch flights departing at 3:30 a.m.
On the other hand, they are young in their entertainment values and in much of their outlook on life. I see the local kids and their cell phones and iPods and working knowledge of R-rated movies, girls with manicures and lipgloss at 10. And I think of Abel, who seems to spend most of his time in character; life with him is like living in a Looney Tunes cartoon; and Ilsa, who still proclaims at least that boys are yucky and still doesn’t care if she gets her ears pierced, much less anything else. They are nowhere near bored or cynical; they only roll their eyes at us when they know we’re teasing them; they get excited about hand-me-down clothes or flowers blooming or going out to lunch.
I’m no doubt exaggerating my worries: after all, although I don’t know all the kids, at least half of the invitees are the kids of our friends. But I really don’t know what’s cool in the tween set, where it seems the majority of parties take place someplace a little more fun than my house—at a water park or a bowling alley or ice-skating rink. How do I combine all these elements into a party that will be enjoyed by all without going into debt? Complicated by the fact that I’m not doing back-to-back parties, so I’m combining boys and girls, ranging in age from 8 to 12, 15 in all (counting my 3).
I don’t really care, one way or the other, what these American kids with potentially supercilious stares think of me, but I don’t want my kids to suffer from my own cluelessness.
So I went online, of course. I asked the redoubtable Beck, who instantly shot back many good suggestions, and I also found a great site called BirthdayPartyGamesLady, who does all the work for you but charges (as she should). I borrowed and combined ideas, not wanting to plagiarize, and this is the invitation we sent out:
First, a plain brown envelope with the words TOP SECRET printed in red on the front, and on the back, the words: AGENT (name of child): FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, which made me sing that song for the next day and a half.
Inside, on plain paper, the following:
Our intelligence reports suggest that the notorious international jewel thief Diamant Rouge has infiltrated our plans for Abel and Ilsa’s 11th birthday party.
Your mission is to come to xxxx in xxx (zip code: xxxxx) to help them search their house and surrounding areas for clues leading to the arrest of this renowned criminal.
We expect you to arrive by 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 1st, and leave by 5:00.
You will have to blend in with children at a birthday party; we suggest you wear casual comfortable clothing and smile.
To accept this mission: call Agent J at HQ 503-xxx-xxxx.
So what do you think? Will this work for modern tweens? Or will they roll their eyes?
It’s too late to change anything of course—I’m up to my elbows in writing clues and I still need to make the second cake (twins compromise a lot—I don’t make them compromise on cake flavour, so I’ve made two since they turned 5). I also need to make them Welsh cakes, which is a tradition since they were born on St David’s Day, who is to the Welsh what St Patrick is to the Irish. So it’ll be a late night, and I should get back to work.
And the goose isn’t the only thing getting fat around here!
Well, we are finally on vacation. At last. We decided that yesterday would be our last day, but with one thing and another, we didn’t get around to doing Spanish, so we had to finish it up today. The twins’ faces were a joy to behold when I announced that not only were we doing school during Official Vacation Time, but we were doing it on a Saturday to boot. That was a fun time. “But I wanted to sleep in,“ wailed Ilsa, until I reassured her that we weren’t going to do it first thing. (I wanted to sleep in too) We did the last day’s lesson plus took the test for Units 1 & 2, and then I released the children out into the chill air, rejoicing. We will take 2 sorely-needed weeks before we have to worry about it all again.
On Thursday we drove up to Tacoma to get my mother and bring her down to spend Christmas with us. It was interesting to see the standing water along the side of the freeway, and the tidemarks from the recent flooding visible even through the dusk of a winter afternoon.
We left 2 hours later than planned, which is pretty typical for us. The problem was that I walked into Ilsa’s room to change the sheets for Mum. She had promised me that it was clean and organized, and it was, but I felt that a small room really doesn’t need an extra 8 boxes full of paper scraps fantastically folded, markers with their lids left off, and scraps of yarn. She was less than thrilled when I went into full cleaning mode.
“We just did this,” she informed me.
“I know! How could it have gotten so bad so quickly? How long have we lived here anyway?” I agreed, which didn’t help her mood.
Today friends stopped by with…some kind of Finnish Christmas bread which is made with cardamom and has cream cheese frosting of some kind on it. It’s superb. Mum brought tubs of chocolates given to her by some visiting group and I put them out in crystal dishes, forgetting what a mistake it is to put chocolate out where it can just be seen and eaten, just one small one, all the time. I’ve made mince pies and coconut pies (note: Americans call these tarts but I’m ½-British and these are mince pies) and I’m making shortbread and fudge and cranberry-orange muffins, just in case. People are coming for tea tomorrow and for a light supper on Monday night, after church. We’re mostly done shopping, although we still haven’t found anything perfect for Mum, and we still need to get things for stockings, and we still don’t actually HAVE stockings. Ilsa has gotten tired of sewing, surprise surprise, and begs for the chance for “fun” sewing rather than the pressing weight of Having to Sew Stockings which hangs round her neck, although some of you may remember that this was her idea.
We went to Cost Plus at 10 p.m., taking advantage of holiday hours since having Mum here limits our activities during the day. Ilsa has been begging me for months to take her shopping for candy for her brothers’ stockings, so we took her along. On the way, Donn and I started to slide into a minor squabble over those few remaining items. A little voice spoke up. “They seem to have forgotten that I’m here,” said Ilsa clearly. “I hope they start talking about what my presents are.”
And a visit to their European chocolate section has guaranteed that I will continue to get more and more like that Christmas goose, at least in the near future.
On Tuesday, there was a bombing in Algiers, and 17 people died. Closer to home, I read the story of a teenage girl who committed suicide after getting hate mail on a MySpace account, supposedly from a boy, actually from the mother of another teenage girl down the block.
We went to the mall to go Christmas shopping and look at all the pretty things.
On Tuesday, many people here in Oregon continued to be homeless, flooded out; their wrapped presents and early Christmas trees swept away, pets drowned and cars overwhelmed in the deluge. A late mudslide sent trees crashing into houses and swamped a highway; the photo of it on the cover of the morning paper was amazing.
We lit the lights on our tree and played Christmas carols, enjoying the sound of ethereal voices soaring up, up, up on a descant at the end of O Come, All Ye Faithful.
It is easy to forget about other’s sufferings. Turn off the television (something we’re always happy to do), only read the funny bloggers and don’t read the Yahoo news, think of happy things. We’ve all got our own grief. My mother’s health is failing, for example. She’s 84 and has Parkinson’s. I’m trying to spend all the time with her that I can, but it isn’t much—there are many logistics that make it difficult. But I can always escape into a book or a movie.
No matter where we live in the world, it is easy to close ourselves off from the pain of others. Sometimes this is good. If we are dealing with our own struggles at a time when they are intense, it may be necessary for our mental health. But it can also be a way to absolve ourselves from the responsibility we have for our fellow human beings.
In America, it’s really easy to forget. Our roads are paved, our houses are lit. In Africa, it’s a bit harder. I would walk out every morning from my nice house and see a family who lived in a tent; they regularly rang my doorbell and asked me for water. When’s the last time someone who wasn’t just a visiting thirsty friend asked you for water, so necessary for everything we do throughout the day?
In America, life is easier. We stress about the things we want—pretty candles for decoration! new holiday-themed cushions for the couch!—but in general, we know that even the homeless on our streets can, if necessary, find a bed and a meal for the night. Our government is involved too; giving money for flood relief and monthly checks to the mentally ill on the streets. We can give money to help shelters, so that we don’t have to worry about giving an addict money for another shot or another drink, and feel absolved from guilt.
In Africa, it’s harder to get that feeling. It’s complicated. The intersections are lined with beggars, women in wheelchairs holding up emaciated infants before your horrified eyes, and you know that they are not getting monthly checks from anyone. But you still have to be smart. Those small boys…surely that one is not more than 4 or 5…with huge brown puppy-dog eyes, holding up a red can and telling you they’re hungry, must not be given money—at least not if you know the system. These are Talibe boys, who have been sent by their parents into the care of a local imam; he in turn sends them into the streets to beg. If you give them money or tea or sugar, they take it back to their imam. If you hand them a carton of milk you have just bought for yourself, you must open it first—otherwise they will take it back into the store and get the money for it. The same goes from bananas and oranges. Many boys spend the years of their childhood on the streets of Nouakchott; I’ve heard that those who return with their cans empty at the end of a day may be beaten. And yet there are seemingly thousands of them on the streets on the city, surrounding your car everytime you stop.
I’m happy to be in America. I’m happy to have a break from that crushing guilt of wealth—of knowing that we can afford to eat meat every day, of knowing that we may feel stressed about our finances but if we run out of water, we’ll still be able to buy some. Far from there being something wrong with this, there’s something beautiful about being in this situation; it’s a lovely thing to have your needs met. The problem is when we forget that we are in the minority in this world; when we think that the pretty things at the mall are all there is, when our window on the world is blocked by the weight of our possessions.
Ok we went a little bit overboard on the tree this year.
The tree is smaller than the one in the White House.
It is smaller than the one in the middle of the Washington Square Mall.
It is, however, a LOT bigger than the ones we got in Mauritania.
(Note: this was the biggest tree we ever had in Mauritania, and as you can see it was quite a healthy size. Donn and Ilsa painted the pot.)
On Saturday morning, we went out to find it. We were very excited. We went with some friends, who took us to a tree farm. It was an unusual day for Oregon–clear blue sky, sunshine, and really really cold. We bundled up against the wind and set out to find a tree.
The first farm was a wee bit disappointing. We wandered through row after row of spindly Noble firs. It was evident that these poor trees had been mutilated–they were obviously larger trees that had been cut down and shaped to about a 6-7 foot height, but their trunks were disproportionately thick, and–worst indignity of all!–a top branch had been bent upwards and tied to fake the tip. I don’t know what they were thinking.
Donn and I love noble firs. Douglas firs and even grand firs are cheaper, but in our minds, nobles are the best. And, we may not have TONS of disposable income, but we are thinking of this as our “five-year-tree.” In other words, it’s making up for all those scrawny puny Mauritanian trees, and for all the ones to come.
Did I mention it’s a tiny bit big?
We left that first tree farm. We knew perfectly well that we were being really picky, and we felt ok with this. Oh sure, people are starving, others are flooded, some people have real problems, but we didn’t care.
We drove around a bit in the countryside, and eventually found another place that had mammoth trees, beautifully shaped, truly large and well proportioned. Heaven. And so, somehow, we found ourselves the proud new owners of a…gulp!…ten-foot Noble fir Christmas tree.
It’s the prettiest tree I have ever seen.
Decorating it was a bit tricky. The Nomad family tend to be a little height-challenged, with Donn the tallest at 5’6”. We have decorations, lovely color-coordinated ones, on loan from a friend since ours are still in storage in Tim and Debbie’s garage in Nouakchott. It’s strange to have all our ornaments match one another; we’re used to ornaments collected through the years, with lots of memories attached to them, the overall effect definitely “family tree” rather than “beautiful.” (Actually we’re used to only being able to hang about 4 ornaments, but I’m thinking of our trees in America before we left)
Ilsa, however, rescued us from looking a little too together. Noticing we had no treetop ornament, she fashioned an angel out of tinfoil. She did a very good job–the look is really that of the Nike of Samothrace, plus the head–except that it is definitely tinfoil, taken from a kitchen drawer.
How to reach the top? Donn put the angel on the end of the mop and stood on the arm of the couch while the kids and I laughed and laughed.
On Sunday morning, there was frost outside. I woke up the kids, who don’t remember seeing it before. We bundled up and went for a long walk, 45 minutes to church, getting warmer and warmer, finding the building too warm when we finally went inside, flushed bright red from our exertion in the bitingly cold air. Then, wonder of wonders, it started snowing. It rarely snows in Portland; we’re too temperate, too warm, we have ice storms but snow is rare. Snow that actually sticks to the ground is the rarest of all and this was no exception. It snowed off and on for several hours, but didn’t stick.
We started off for home through the snow. It was magical; the red berries and pale green lichen adding colour to bare trees, the flakes drifting down, the cries of the children complaining of cold, of sore feet, of tired legs echoing through the still air. We tramped home and collapsed, exhausted, on the couch, proud that we’d walked 1 ½ hours that day. Well, Donn and I were proud. The kids were disbelieving and unimpressed.
We have also so far made sugar cookies and a gingerbread house from a kit. I don’t really like sugar cookies. They’re too sweet. I add lemon zest, cinnamon and nutmeg; I mix the icing with lemon juice instead of milk or water. No good. They will still make you sick with gooeyness.
But the point isn’t to really eat them. The point is to decorate them, and then give them to others to eat. So it works. My only job is to accept (with no visible show of reluctance ) the ones decorated especially for me, to not show favoritism, to provide dough and cookie cutters and to down several cups of tea or coffee to make them palatable.
Also to go on long walks, to counteract the effects of copious amounts of unavoidable sugar.
The trip to California went well. We didn’t actually lose any of our curriculum at the in-laws, which was a great relief, and we had a good time visiting with family we hadn’t seen in years.
On Thanksgiving Day, in the early afternoon (after a big breakfast), we washed all the china. My mother-in-law’s aunt was secretary to Gen. MacArthur in Japan during WWII, and she bought an entire set of Noritake china with gold rims. It’s beautiful stuff. My in-laws got it as a wedding present. They used it a few times, then packed it up–over 30 years ago! They hadn’t used it since. I suggested they follow my philosophy, which is simple. Stuff is fun, but it’s just stuff. What is the good of having something just to have it? They dug it out of storage and Donn and his dad spent a day unpacking it.
When I moved overseas, I had two choices: I could pack my china (Doulton) and leave it in my brother’s garage, where it would be “safe” unless there was a fire, flood, or earthquake, or even a theft. Or I could take it and use it. It might get broken, sure, but then, it might get broken in storage too.
What’s the good of having stuff if you never enjoy it? I took it.
Cooking a big dinner for 16 was divided between me, my mother-in-law, and my brother-in-law. It worked out perfectly; no one felt they had too much to do. Everyone was there; from grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles from all over the US, cousins and nieces and nephews, and even the newest, our 10-month-old great-niece. We set the tables, made fresh cranberry sauce and spinach salad, etc. There was an incredible variety of food. I really enjoyed it; it’s been 7 years since I ate a proper Thanksgiving meal. So I was thankful.
How was yours?
Today my friend Sheri and I went to Starbucks. We decided to go to the farther Starbucks because it has more cushy chairs, and we’re all about sitting in overstuffed chairs with our feet up and talking for hours. We don’t see each other all that often. But I forgot that the further Starbucks is right next to the mall. It’s a small mall, but I don’t go anywhere near anything even remotely retail (coffee is different) on the appropriately named Black Friday. Neither does Sheri. So we drove back to the closer Starbucks, because we are in America, where it seems logical to the Powers That Be to put Starbucks upon Starbucks upon Starbucks, so that you never have to go more than 3 blocks without having access to a double shot of espresso or a froufrou faux-coffee sugary drink. I hate Starbucks marketing but I just can’t hate Starbucks–it smells so good in there, like espresso. You might be getting the idea that I like coffee. I do, a bit. (I don’t mainline it though–that is just rumor)
We had fun driving around this small town in the California desert, mocking the names of various stores. Like Smart & Final! What would this store sell? Presumably, no returns either.
Another one is called Big Lots! I can hear the marketing strategy now…Americans like things big, and they like lots of ‘em! Let’s call it Big Lots! Uh, yeah.
There’s also Fresh & Easy. I’m not even going to start.
I just want to take a moment to whine about America, and I’ll begin by telling you a little story.
When I was in college, I got a job at a Hallmark store in Tacoma Mall. I worked there summers and holidays, including Christmas break.
I hated working in a mall over Christmas. I can imagine no quicker way to squelch whatever joie d’espirit might have existed. I remember two women fighting over a place in line. “Where’s your holiday spirit?“ one shot at the other. “Well, where’s yours?“ the other shot back. I was glad neither was armed–it could have gotten really ugly. Plus, I had to wear an apron that said, “Santa’s Helper.” Once, a woman asked me if I worked there, and I said, “Would I be wearing this apron if I didn’t?” I refused to wear the hat.
The worst of all was December 26th. I begged not to have to work, but didn’t have a choice. On December 26th, all Hallmark Christmas merchandise goes on sale for 50% off. Why? Because Hallmark doesn’t want to have to store all that clutter for a whole entire year. Soulless corporation they may be, but at least they have some sense.
I was never so ashamed to be a woman as I was at 8 a.m. on those Boxing Days. There, lined up in the mall outside the store, would be hundreds of women, all women, no men. (The men were home asleep. Sorry to say it, but the men had some sense) These women would be crowding each other, pushing up against the metal barrier, clutching enormous black garbage bags. I would think, “Go home. Be with your families. Enjoy watching the kids play with their toys, make a big breakfast. Relax.” But no. With crazed eyes roaming back and forth, sizing each other up, they would wait till the metal barrier began to creak up, then they would duck under it and run to the Christmas section, elbows out, pushing the hapless out of the way.
I would hide behind the counter till the manager saw me and made me come out and ring up sales.
It seems to have only gotten worse since those long-ago days. I understand the thinking behind Black Friday. It’s the official opening of the Christmas shopping season. I get it. But what I don’t get is things like Midnight Madness, or the Come at 5 a.m. For Special Deals. It seems really sadistic on the part of the store owners, who presumably are home in bed dreaming of money. The poor workers don’t want to be there. The shoppers don’t really, deep down, want to be there. Why not just have the same sales from, for example, 10 a.m. to noon? Or, catch people off guard, from 1:45 to 2:57?
I was also mystified by all those stores now open on Thanksgiving. Ok, food stores being open for a couple of hours makes sense, but more and more stores are beginning to stay open for the holiday, in order to…you got it…start on the Christmas shopping season. Again, it doesn’t really make sense. Why not just wait a day? Who is going to go Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving Day?
I know you all agree with me, and yet I’m wondering…if we all agree, why does it keep getting worse? How can we stop this madness?
Me, I’m going back to Africa, but what can you do? Tell me if you’ve got any ideas.
This is the post I wrote a year ago, on Thanksgiving Day 2006.
Did you realize that Thanksgiving is this week? Well you probably did but it’s sort of snuck up on me.
Thanksgiving is one of the few uniquely American holidays. It’s not celebrated in France, or England, and certainly not in Mauritania. This morning in my Advanced Conversation class at Oasis, I gave them a little history of the holiday, which means that they now know more than most Americans. (Bet you don’t know when it became an official holiday. And who moved it to the 4th Thursday of November?) This is typical—they probably know more grammar than you do, too. Why? Because they care. Don’t worry—your pronunciation is better and you have a sound grasp of idioms, so you are unlikely to call someone on the phone and say, “How are you fine?” or write “I was sitting on the water tower sleeping like a log.”
Someone asked me about Halloween here. It doesn’t exist, although the dragonflies swarm in the heat, and at sunset the sky fills with torn-winged bats, as it does most nights throughout the year. The embassy hosts a party, only $6 per person and that includes a hamburger.
Thanksgiving doesn’t exist. Christmas doesn’t exist. None of these days are holidays—stores and businesses are open, you can go to Mauritel and pay your bill (just for fun) or buy bread at the bakery or do any of your normal, everyday activities. The days are hot and bright, if not exactly merry. The university is open.
So how do we celebrate? On Thursday, the kids have morning school but don’t go back after lunch, so the afternoon is free. (Up until about 1 ½ years ago, the weekend was Friday-Saturday and the kids had afternoon school on Thursday. We used to have them skip it.) A group of Americans gather in someone’s house. Everyone brings something; no one has to do too much. We usually eat chicken, potatoes, green beans—a lot of the usual fare. Our pumpkin pies are made from scratch and we only have cranberries if someone happens to have brought a can from the States the previous summer. One year we had grilled fish, another year rabbit. Both were excellent.
Christmas is usually better. The afternoons may still be hot, but by then the nights are usually cool and starry. I stand out on the balcony in the fresh breeze and think how the architecture around me is like old Christmas-card drawings of Bethlehem, with the flat-roofed houses and rounded doors. The kids are off school. A small group goes caroling round the other expatriate houses, garnering stares of amazement or amusement from neighbourhood children out kicking soccer balls, and each other, in the dust. On the last day of school, a skinny, dark-skinned Santa Claus arrives by donkey cart.
I bought a potiron this week, cut it in pieces and boiled and mashed it, and spent far too much time online trying to find my old pumpkin cookie recipe, which I got out of a Sesame Street Parent’s Magazine about 8 years ago. I finally found it, but of course only had about half the ingredients. I took the cookies and coffee for my Conversation class, and after we’d discussed the elections and Thanksgiving, we had a little party. Everyone was amazed at the thought of pumpkin (potiron) in cookies or pies. Really it is odd, but we’ve long grown used to it. (I’m still not used to the thought of it in coffee though. That’s just weird. What is Starbucks thinking?) Afterwards we went around and said what we were thankful for. It was a new concept. People weren’t sure what to say. I said, “Oh things like family, good health, that the elections went calmly and well, that it’s finally starting to cool down at night, that we’re all here together.” “That’s it,” they all said. “All of those things. That’s what we’re thankful for.”
Here’s a picture taken outside our old house, a view of our neighbour’s tree (my kids were usually up in the top of it), and a tent family living in front of a new house unfortunately painted Pepto-Bismal pink.
Well, here we are in sunny Southern California. We are east of where the fires burned so savagely last month, but driving through we saw a few traces of burned hillsides. The in-laws are in fine style; as I type this, my father-in-law is refusing to partner with one of my kids for Taboo in case he loses. He is only partly joking.
I’ve been reading a lot lately. I read Angels of a Lower Flight, about a former playboy playmate, abused as a child, who now spends her life in meeting unspeakable challenges in heartbreaking conditions in Haiti. Then I read Those Who Save Us, a novel about Germany in WWII.
I highly recommend that you read both of them, preferably this week. Neither of them are easy books, but both are excellent. This is the perfect week to immerse yourself in the very real sufferings of those around us. I would come out of the world of these books blinking, bemused, staring around me at my perfect family and nice surroundings, and being just so very glad that I’m not leaving my children starving to death in Haiti as I die of AIDS or am stabbed in the streets, or watching them gunned down in front of me by heartless Nazis, or having to make impossible choices to keep them alive.
It’s just a good reminder that, even though some people already have their Christmas lights up, the founders of this particular place where we live wanted their descendants to take some time to remember, to thank God, to be a people who are thankful for all that we enjoy. I always wondered why Thanksgiving was so late in the year–so far after harvest time. I found out last year, doing research to explain to my Mauritanian ESL class, that it was moved from September to November–I forget why, I forget when. Google it if you want. It doesn’t really matter. I’m just so glad that I get to celebrate it.
So I’m grateful, sitting here listening to my kids trying to play Taboo. Thankful that I’m not playing. Thankful that I finally got a chance to get on my computer after all these days. Thankful for my whole comfortable, crazy life.
(And I’m planning to do a more in-depth review of these books tomorrow. Possibly later)
Some people have a pathological fear of boredom.
I wouldn’t think I was one of those people. I like quiet: calm rooms with soft light; books and journals; the clicking of computer keys; extra cups of coffee; rain on the windows. In university, when they told me, “The life not contemplated is not worth living,” I believed them wholeheartedly.
Then I had 3 kids in 2 years. Then I took them all to the Sahara Desert, where on any given day you might or might not have electricity or be able to buy butter or be served goat intestines boiled without salt. So one might wonder if I don’t have some issues myself.
Given the chance to have a quiet year back in America, I leaped at it. I envisioned spending my mornings curled up on the couch staring out at those golden leaves and watching the rain fall while I wrote the Great American Travel Book.
Instead, we ended up home schooling. For those of you who have never tried it, it’s crazy and time-consuming. It takes up huge chunks of time. I sit next to Elliot and “teach” him Arabic (really we’re both learning; I speak some Hassiniya but this is classical Arabic, and we’re learning to read it too). Meanwhile, the twins, impatient with their questions, write them on paper airplanes and bombard me from the open upstairs hallway. We are barely into a semi-routine. We are behind in education musicale and arts plastiques. The twins have tests coming up in 8 subjects plus Spanish. (Yes, I’m teaching Spanish too. That’s even funnier than me teaching Arabic–at least I know a little Arabic. Before this, my only Spanish was casa, manana, and hasta la vista, baby! And I don‘t even know what that last bit means.)
So we decided to go to California for Thanksgiving, leave early so that this could be an extended visit with eager grandparents, and do school there. We can’t afford to take this time off, since we started our school year late.
Am I certifiable? I mean, what am I thinking?
My in-laws are great people, generous to a fault, welcoming, never ever taking my husband’s side over mine or making me feel less than a true daughter. But their house tends to be cluttered, in the sense that the pope tends to be Catholic. (Also, if I could ever manage to faithfully reproduce their interactions, I could make a million selling it as a screenplay. No one would believe they were for real. But that’s another story) There is no clear “workspace“ for the kids. My father-in-law watches TV from about 8 a.m. to about 9 p.m.–covering most prime school time hours. My children are very distracted by TV, in the sense that teenage boys are distracted by the presence of a supermodel.
Their curriculum is complete and extensive. Each subject has at least 2 workbooks, plus a cahier de broullion (notebook for them to do extra work in), plus a folder of the tests, plus they have to take oral exams and record their answers on audio cassette. It’s complicated, and you have do everything exactly so.
Nonetheless, we’re loading up the mini-van and taking off for sunnier climes. We’re packing roller blades and scooters for EPS (Physical Ed), swimsuits in a forlorn hope that we‘ll be able to use them (the in-laws don’t heat the pool), and, of course, stacks and stacks of French curriculum. In back-packs. With STRICT instructions NOT to spread it out all over the floor and lose bits of it under the tottering piles of old magazines and papers.
Yes, the chances of us leaving an absolutely essential workbook, say for Maths or Science De La Vie et De La Terre, underneath a chair are absolutely astronomical.
No the chances of finding said workbook left under a chair before, oh, April or May, are not good.
Yes I apparently do have a pathological fear of boredom.
And, another long car trip?
Yep. Another long car trip.
I thrive on stress.
…the fifth of November. Gunpowder, treason and plot!
I was thinking about Halloween’s origins, about dark druidic plots on young virgin’s lives, or medieval morality plays where people dressed as skeletons and the Grim Reaper to remind watchers of their own mortality, a call for them to get right with God. Remainders of these practices, like Toussaint in France or Mexico’s Day of the Dead, still keep the focus on one’s own personal dead; those fathers and grandfathers and friends who have already passed away.
But, I thought to myself, only in America could we take this holiday and turn it into just a candy-fest. Oh sure, people dress up like skeletons and Grim Reapers nowadays too, but it’s just so frothy. And I felt a little smug about my home culture. Only in America would more people care about Britney Spear’s lip-injections or clothes budget than the fact that General Musharraf has just declared martial law in Pakistan.
It’s not that I don’t like everything to be fun, but I like to think that other people are being serious, being the adults for me, while I fritter away my time reading the comics section instead of the Business news (bo-ring!). I weighed American culture in the scales of Halloween and I found us wanting.
But then I remembered that it’s November 5, Guy Fawkes Day. Who else but the English could take a serious threat to national security and turn it into a day of bonfires, fireworks, and children going door-to-door collecting small change.
I guess we’re not so bad after all.
Go Britney Spears! And, penny for the guy?
This afternoon, the kids and I went to Goodwill to work on their Halloween costumes.
You may think that the afternoon of a holiday is a bit late to be planning, but some people function best under pressure and with an external deadline, rather than an arbitrary inner one. Also, I’ve always found that if you wait late enough, you avoid those really long lines. My last excuse is that we’re still adjusting back to this Very Expensive place we call home, and end-of-the-month holidays aren‘t always easy.
“Aha!” you’re thinking. “Ms Nomad is getting greedy and materialistic, now that she’s back in the land of Retail Therapy.”
Well you’re wrong. First of all, I was always greedy and materialistic. Secondly, it is a special situation. We’ve just changed climates in a rather dramatic way. We were a family of shorts and t-shirts and sandals. This morning, instead of it being 40 degrees Celsius (about 104 F) it was 40 degrees Fahrenheit–a tad chilly for us Saharans.
I’m not crafty, as you may already know. I don’t sew, as I may have mentioned. So, with a fine exhibition of foresight and organizational skills, we headed off to our local Goodwill two hours before costumes were needed, where I experienced something new–sticker shock. I was envisioning picking up a vest for Abel’s pirate costume for 50 cents, maybe an entire ninja outfit for $2. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Vests were $4; velvet pants (for squires/pirates/Elizabethan gentleman) were $5. Yikes!
I did find a burgundy velvet fitted jacket with many gold buttons and a kicky little back pleat. It’s the sort of thing other people, ones you see on downtown streets or in films of old Bob Dylan concerts, find at Goodwill, so I was quite happy with it. It instantly transformed Abel into a sort of gentleman-pirate. $1.50 got us an eyepatch and large gold clip-on earring. Elliot kept saying, “From the back, Abel looks like a businessman.” On what planet? I wondered to myself.
Ilsa was easy. (I know this won’t last) She wanted to be a spy. All she needed was face-paint to blacken her cheeks and some black tights, which cost, of course, $5.
Elliot was, naturally, the hardest. He’s in Jr. Hi now, so it comes with the territory. He wanted to be a knight, but the only armour we could find was made for a five-year-old. Elliot is 12. We put him in a tunic, bought him black velvet pants (they’re girls but shhh!! Don’t let on! He doesn’t realize it yet) and strapped on the sword. He was supposed to be a medieval squire, but I think several mistook him for a pirate. Oh well.
It was the kids’ first time trick-or-treating. The last time we were in a place that celebrated Halloween, the twins were 3. I think we took them next door, but that was about it, and they certainly didn’t remember it. The French have Carnival in February, where the kids get to dress up but don’t get candy.
We set out in the cool evening air, carrying Starbucks bags. At first the kids were shy and felt silly, and fought about who had to ring the door bell. That soon changed. They loved the house where the woman was dressed as the Grim Reaper and clawed at the air near their faces. Her husband slumped as a scarecrow that didn’t move even when poked until suddenly, he sat up!
They couldn’t believe all the candy. And really, they’re right to be astonished. What other day exists anywhere when, by the simple act of dressing up and knocking on strangers’ doors, do they get huge smiles, compliments, and armloads of really fun American candy? They would say Thank You and Happy Halloween and then scamper down the driveways, unable to contain their glee, pulling open their bags and comparing. They would give me this look of mischievous disbelief, as if they had really pulled one over on the neighbors and managed to trick them into this unexpected benevolence.
Tomorrow is Toussaint, All Saints’ Day, and a holiday in France. In fact, French kids are on holiday all week, a fact which is helping us get caught up here. We are still in our first week of school, but are finding we can double up some days and still get it all done and have time to visit Goodwill and daub faces with black paint and make my favorite pumpkin cookies and go for walks in the invigorating air, scuffling through the leaves.
Pictures tomorrow!
Happy 2007! We started this year as we have started almost all years that Donn and I have been together—listening to U2’s song “New Year’s Day.” This year, we got to watch it—for Christmas, friends back home sent us the DVD of their latest tour.
New Year’s Eve was uneventful. It was the Eid al-Adha—Feast of Sacrifice, known locally as the Eid al-Hahm (literally Feast of Meat, kind of like when Americans refer to Thanksgiving as Turkey Day) or Tabaski, which is the Wolof term. (Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, but it’s had a fair influence here even on the Arabic dialect) The Eid al-Adha is one of the 3 main Muslim holidays. This one celebrates the story of Abraham’s offering of his son; in the Muslim version of the story, the son was Ishmael. If you can (and of course if you are muslim), you must kill a sheep. If you can’t, you should try to share one between several families. If you are rich, you should share your sheep with the poor.
When you walk out of your front door on a major feast day, you see several sheep, throats slit, lying on the ground. We went to bed Saturday night to the bawling of the neighbour’s feast-day sheep, penned in the yard and very unhappy about it.
Usually, feast days include lots of invitations to celebrate with friends. Even if you are not specifically invited, it’s good to stop by your friends’ houses, spend some time with them. Once again, everyone has new clothes.
But I was tired. Outside the sky was red with dust and the air was full of it; in the space of a couple of hours, our yard went from green to sand coloured. It wasn’t a very nice day to go visiting, and no one had specifically invited us. So I stayed home with the windows shut and pretended it was just New Year’s Eve. A stray cat who has adopted us (named Mona after one of Ilsa’s friends) had 3 tiny kittens under our flamboyant tree—2 black and 1 tabby-striped, tiny and wriggly and adorable. The kids are still nose-in-books from Christmas, when all 3 got riches practically without measure in the form of an entire BOX of Scholastic books (split among the 3) from a friend who’s a school-teacher. I’m still stunned by her generosity. The children surface for meals and showers, but other than that we’ve hardly seen them all week.
In the evening, 2 families joined us for a mellow, low-key celebration. One family brought their video projector, and we all watched a movie and ate popcorn. At midnight, we played U2. We realized that Donn and I have done this every year (we think) that we’ve been together, which is a really long time as we dated several years before we got married.
We slept in this morning, then spent the afternoon with friends at a big party. Happy New Year.
Resolutions? Naaw. Life’s too unpredictable.
When you live overseas, especially overseas as in Africa, celebrating major holidays can be a little unusual. That is, we do all the same things, but they might look a little different.
I was thinking about this as we went to buy the meat for Christmas dinner. It was Christmas Eve, a hot sunny afternoon. We stopped by Fawaz to see if they had petit pois surgelés, but they didn’t. Nobody this year had frozen peas, or broccoli, or any of the veggies I wanted that can sometimes be found here at Christmas-time. That’s ok—we had glazed carrots and fresh green beans instead, and it was good.
Afterwards Donn swings over to the meat market. We turn into a narrow, winding alley, choked with trash, live goats and sheep wandering round, lined with wooden tables piled high with slabs of meat. Flies buzz determinedly. From hooks above the tables hang sheep legs with the tail attached. (Note: this is nothing. Someday I’ll tell you about the camel market, where you can buy legs with the hoof attached) The dusty air is filled with the stench of blood.
Donn steps out and is instantly swarmed by young men brandishing hunks of sheep. They push it into his face, all talking at once about how theirs is the best, the freshest, the meatiest, the tenderest. I sit in the car, windows rolled up against the smell and the flies, and wish I had a camera with me.
He buys lots of meat. We have invited two Mauritanian men to eat dinner with us, and Mauritanians love meat and eat lots of it. This will be a new experience for them, as I will roast it with a crusty herb topping and serve it on china with gravy and mint sauce and roast potatoes, instead of boiling it without salt and serving it on a large platter. I am also passing on the intestines and organs too; even after 5 years in the desert, I just can’t stomach them, and we are inviting them to experience a Western-style Christmas.
We are still Christmas shopping. We stop by one last store, trying to find something to give Elliot. They have a French version of Pictionary for $80. We can’t do it—we decide to let him order something online. He might get it in April. But he’s got plenty of other things to open on Christmas morning. This year we got TWO parcels of gifts from friends!!
Christmas morning we spend as a family. We have baked French toast and bacon and Starbucks coffee that came in one of the parcels. We open presents, read the story. Another American family joins us for dinner, plus the 2 Mauritanian men. One brings another American friend whom we don’t know. The poor man feels very awkward, crashing a Christmas dinner, and follows me into the kitchen to apologize. But we don’t mind–after all, it is very Mauritanian to bring along extra people unannounced. We just get out another plate and there’s plenty of food.
Afterwards I make coffee and one of the men makes Mauritanian tea, very strong and minty, 3 rounds drunk in little glasses. We have pumpkin pie and fudge and mince pies and chocolate covered ginger, which I made myself this year. Some guests linger; I make more coffee, we talk with friends while carols play in the background. Some things are the same around the world.
Edited to Add: Donn wanted to make sure we were getting sheep meat instead of goat. Everytime he said, “Kebsh?” the vendors would thrust the sheep tail into his face! That’s the point of leaving the tail–to show what kind of meat it is.
I also forgot to mention that we opened presents to the thumps and bumps of construction work which is going on next door, where our neighbours are adding a couple of rooms to their house. No one around us was celebrating, but that was ok–we were.
We had our Oasis Christmas Party on Thursday night. Debbie invited all the students, teachers, and teachers’ spouses over to her house. The staff brought goodies, and about 50 or 60 people with varying levels of English crowded into one small room and chatted away.
It’s not unusual for students to give gifts to their teachers. I’ve been given a Mauritanian drum, a bright yellow purse shaped sort of like a banana but with metallic accents, white shoes with 4-inch heels, and a framed olive-tree-like piece of art. Sometimes, students buy gifts for my children.
Tom, who’s about 50, taught a beginner’s class this term. As one of his students was leaving, she handed him a wrapped parcel. “Part of it is for you and part of it is for your wife,” she explained. The student had never met or even seen Tom’s wife, but it was nice of her to think of both of them.
He opened it after all the students had gone. It contained a satchel for him and, for his wife, a pink lacy bra-and-panties set!
“Do you like jazz?” Amina asks me one day during women’s hours at the gym. I know Amina because she’s in my Advanced Conversation class at Oasis. She is kind and easy to talk to; once when our car was in the shop she gave me a ride home after class. Her car was one of the nicest I’d ever been in.
I do like jazz, I tell her. “There’s a jazz concert tonight at the CCF,” she tells me. “Would you like to go? I can pick you up at a little before 9.”
The Centre Culturel Français—the French Cultural Center—is located on the grounds of the French Embassy. Here your children can take ballet or karate classes, watch French movies, borrow French books. There are concerts and theater shows, and a small art gallery.
We go to the concert and we both enjoy it. The jazz quartet is lively and obviously enjoy themselves. It’s the drummer’s first concert in Africa, the saxophonist tells the audience. Amina has brought a camera, and afterwards has her picture taken with 2 of the band members, for a good memory. “Quelle gloire!” jokes one. (What glory!)
Afterwards, we sit in the small garden café and sip cokes and talk. I find out that she was married at 18 to her cousin, a man she did not know beforehand. “It is forbidden in our religion—a girl is supposed to be able to say no,” she says. “But in our culture they say, ‘What does she know?’ We do not marry for love.” She blinks, hard. “We have many problems, my husband and me,” she tells me. She is hungry to hear of how Donn and I met, how we fell in love.
She and her husband have a small daughter. They live in a desert town once considered part of Western Sahara but now considered part of Morocco. “I have no friends there,” she tells me. “My…how do you say it? Husband’s sister?…is jealous of me. If I go to the dentist she tells everyone I am pregnant. Why would she do that?” Surrounded by petty gossip and jealousies, unable to really talk to a husband who is often traveling, she sits in the cool garden and mourns her fate. “I was only a teenager, so young, I knew nothing before we were married.” She has enjoyed her 3 months with her family in Nouakchott but her days are numbered—she must return just after Christmas. “Please, could you come visit me there?” she begs. The words spill out of her. I imagine that it is not easy to talk of her problems to her family; she is desperate for a confidante. Throughout the conversation, she blinks back tears.
It is nearly midnight; we leave our bottles on the table and walk back out to her beautiful new car. We drive home; she drops me off.
I return to my family; to my husband of 16 years whom I did marry for love and who still loves me, even more now than he did back in 1990 when we promised each other to be together forever. I return to my 3 sleeping children; Elliot with his wild curls and mischievous brown eyes, his love of medieval times and his sense of humour; Ilsa with long golden brown hair, artistic and creative, always with her nose in a book and a funny turn of phrase; Abel with his strawberry-blonde surfer’s shaggy hair, his tender deep blue eyes, his sweetness that always seeks to build others up, his bizarre sense of humour that keeps him acting out Looney Tunes and Calvin and Hobbes.
I feel so rich that I am almost embarrassed with it. Tears sting my eyes.
It’s easy at this time of year to feel discontent. I’ve been struggling with that myself; looking at pictures online of Christmas decorations in beautiful modern houses, snow outside. This year instead of our normal tiny sort-of-pine charlie-brown-style tree, I want a big one—not even fresh, just a big artificial one so we can hang all our ornaments. But that night I see clearly; trees and tinsel, snow and trimmings are so infinitesimal as to not even be worthy to be called the frosting on the cake.
I am so rich that all the world should envy me.
