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 […]
Here’s a situation to break the heart of a mama of a TCK. These are beautiful pictures of Elliot with other Tanzanian children his age. What’s not to love? Let me tell you what I see when I look at these pictures. I see a child who is in his […]
Elliot changed nursery schools recently. At first we were motivated pragmatically: because of our religious and cultural background, we would be unlikely to get him into the primary school we wanted (read: affordable without being an hour away from home) unless he was already in the nursery school. But then, […]
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 […]
Elliot has started preschool at an English-medium school where there seems to be a whole lot of Swahili going on. We’re not sure of the exact balance or how much he’ll pick up of what. Since he started 2 or 3 weeks ago, we have been puzzling over the words […]
Twice in the preceding weeks, Elliot had come home from school talking about people hitting. We hadn’t wanted to alarm him or make a big deal, so we’d made very casual inquiries. Who was doing the hitting? Why? He replied, ‘They were hitting to make the children share.’ Sounds like […]
It was Elliot’s fourth day of going to school. For the first time, he didn’t cry when I dropped him off: just held out his arms to the teacher with a little wobble of his lip. When I came to pick him up, they told me hadn’t cried the whole […]
