It was one of those events where we had enough cultural knowledge to misapply it. Our church was having a sports day on a public holiday. They said it would start in the morning, but what ever actually starts on time in Tanzania?! We figured we’d go around early afternoon […]
Estimated reading time: 1 minute
My friend I was showing me her photo album and she asked me if I thought she looked fatter in a picture from 3 years ago or now. What a question! I was stammering, feeling awkward as I tried to work out what to say. So I asked her, “What do […]
Estimated reading time: 1 minute
No, 2015 is not a typo, it’s just that things got seriously out of whack during our 12 months of transition. Here are five more stories that have especially stayed with me. (See the previous list here…) The Natural Way of Things (Charlotte Wood, 2015) This Stella Prize winner first […]
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
We were at our friends’ place and they also had some younger people over. It was 3pm, so lunch time, and I gave Callum some roasted (plantain) banana. All of a sudden I realised these young people were staring at me, and remarking to one another. They started looking jumpy, […]
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
We’re getting a pretty good feel for the rhythms of our church now. The service is meant to go from 10am until 12:30pm but it’s only finished on time once of the times we’ve been there. Everyone’s always quite concerned about that though, and there’s lots of talk of keeping […]
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
On Mondays over the next few weeks for something a bit more lighthearted I’ll be posting some very short anecdotes of cross-cultural moments from the last little while. Here’s the first one. Just before Elliot went on school holidays we were talking about playing soccer and he said, “Girls don’t play […]
Estimated reading time: 1 minute
I attended Adelaide Uni at the same time as Clementine Ford and I was both fascinated and terrified by her. So much of what she had to say matched the intuitions I had about feminism, but which I did not yet have the tools to own. And I was convinced […]
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes