I am floating on my back in the ocean. (You can tell this is a dream, because in real life I’m a pretty poor swimmer.) I close my eyes for a few minutes, and when I wake up, the current has carried me somewhere I do not recognise. The shore […]
Because Elliot is at a school which is about half Indian-background kids, I am having a chance to learn more about the Wahindi at school functions. I was at a parent consultation the other day where it was clear that my concerns were vastly different to the other parents. (No […]
For all my talk about cultural differences in parenting just being different, without attaching judgemental labels, it breaks my heart to see the way kids react when they see a picture book. Last month was the commencement service for the university and a number of children from the neighbourhood attended. […]
“You can’t use compost on such small trees,” our gardener said. “It’s too strong for anything but the bananas.” “Nonsense,” we thought, “you can use compost on anything!” This little interaction is laden with cultural baggage.
Instead of learning about babies in Tanzania at the baby clinics yesterday, I learnt a lot about Tanzanian culture and myself. For a start, I learnt the difference between wazungu treatment and wageni treatment. The first is for white people and it’s about making Tanzania look good to westerners; the […]
