I've Changed

Life is change. Everyone changes, even as adults. People gradually shift their attitudes on a wide variety of topics, often in response to changes in their experiences and circumstances. Usually these changes occur so slowly as to not be noticeable to those with whom the individuals interact regularly, or to the individuals themselves.

Yet, sometimes, people have experiences that change them more rapidly, or in ways that never would have been expected. Moving overseas is just such an experience. I feel much like the same person who first moved to Egypt six and a half years ago, but I’m not. Here are a few of the ways that living overseas has changed me:

I’m More Aware of Culture and Cultural Differences

Not too long ago, a friend here in Kosovo arranged for our family to visit a local Albanian family in their home. Throughout the evening, I plied my American friend with questions about appropriate behavior—is it insulting that we’re enjoying the outdoors rather than the “guest room?” Our hosts seem desperate for us to sit down; should we sit on the blanket they spread on the ground even if we’re more comfortable standing? Should I—and my husband—ask about the extended family, including wives, mothers, and sisters, or should we—he, in particular—not show interest in the female relatives? Is this one of those cultures where I’ll insult my hostess’s cooking if I don’t eat everything on my plate, or is it one in which eating all my food implies that they didn’t give me enough? Is it ok to provide milk for my daughter to drink, or should I allow her to drink the fizzy juice-ish soda? How do I signal that I’m done with the after-dinner tea, or would it be rude to signal such a thing in any way?

When I lived in the United States, in the culture of my birth, not a single one of those questions would have occurred to me. Culture is something that we absorb without noticing it, and we continue not to notice it unless something happens to draw it to our attention—usually an encounter with a culture that is different from our own.

I’m No Longer a Proponent of English-Only Business Practices

On Facebook, a friend posted an account of a personal experience in which she had to “press 1 for English” at an ATM, and she was offended that she had to choose English, rather than the machine’s software assuming she understood it. Before I lived overseas, I would have agreed with her frustration. I was a big proponent of the idea that foreigners in the United States should learn English, and that when we call various institutions, go to an ATM, or engage in other such scripted activities, the assumption should be that we speak English. Now, my initial reaction to complaints of that nature is sympathy—not for the inconvenienced English-speaker, but for the individual whose native language is not English, who needs to obtain information and instructions in a language he can understand, and whose ability to do so could be threatened by proponents of English-only business practices. My Facebook response conveys my opinion on this issue pretty well, I think:

And yet, when we were in Egypt, I really appreciated the "Press 2 for English" option. I'm inclined not to mind giving the same courtesies to non- or limited-English speakers in the United States that I've enjoyed as a limited-Arabic speaker in Egypt, a non-Khmer speaker in Cambodia, and a non-Albanian, non-Serbian speaker in Kosovo … It's much more efficient for everyone involved—incuding that native speaker in line behind the foreigner who's taking forever because he doesn't understand anything on the screen—to have the ability to choose the language right at the beginning. It takes 1 second of your time to push that button for English. As someone who has desperately needed that button before, I sympathize with those who need it in the U.S.

I Notice and Am Angered Annoyed By Unwarranted Exaggeration

I’ve lived in a country that was an effective dictatorship—I’m no fan of President Obama, but don’t tell me he’s a dictator. I’ve lived in countries where corruption is just the way things get done—certain parts of America have more corruption than others, but rule of law is the norm; don’t tell me that America runs on corruption. I’ve lived in countries where the poor have multiple generations living in one-room houses with dirt floors, no electricity, and no plumbing, and where allowing any one person to eat his fill means that another family member dies of starvation—don’t tell me that a person with a comfortable home, plenty of food, and cable TV is poor. I’ve lived in countries where the lucky children attend trade schools rather than so-called “academic” ones (that don’t actually teach anything), so that they can earn enough money to keep their younger siblings from starving while learning a skill that will enable them to make a decent (for their country) living as an adult—don’t tell me that these kids are slaves because they’re being paid less than you would accept for similar work. I’ve lived in a country where people may be killed for becoming Christians—don’t tell me you’re being persecuted when your employer wants you to work on Sunday or when the decorations at City Hall say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

My Foreign Policy Opinions Have Changed

When I lived in the United States, it was easy to decide what the official foreign policy of the United States of America should be: whatever was in our best interest, period, no further questions asked. It all seemed so clear cut. However, when I started paying attention, which for me was when I moved overseas, I began to see more shades of grey than black and white. I still believe that American interests should dictate American policies, but it isn’t always clear what those interests are or how best to advance them. Many fiscal conservatives—including me at times—reflexively oppose foreign aid, for example. However, I’ve learned that sometimes foreign aid is exactly what is needed to shift the attitudes of a population toward American interests, so that they are more likely to assist us in accomplishing our goals in the future. Don’t get me wrong; I have no problem making foreign aid conditional on the policies of the assisted government, such that governments that oppose U. S. interests find themselves with less—or no—aid, but even there, the situation often calls for more subtlety than I once appreciated. I’ve realized that it’s easy for those of us with only headline-level information to think we know the best course of action, but once we get into the details, it isn’t so easy to make sense of the complexities and apparent paradoxes, and the best decision becomes less obvious.

I once had sympathy for American isolationists who wanted to let the rest of the world deal with their own problems. Now I recognize that the problems of the rest of the world often are our problems, though they may not be knocking on our doors just yet. (Think Ebola—what if we’d helped contain this outbreak when and where it started, rather than waiting until it came to the United States? It would have been a lot easier to deal with it then.)

I Have a Heightened Appreciation for the United States—Warts and All

Some of the above sections may make it sound like I have lost sympathy or understanding for my fellow Americans, or like I have lost my perception of the United States as an exceptional nation, or that I have lost the ability to recognize flaws that exist in my own country. None of those is the case. The good in America is there, and the bad in America is there, and living overseas, where I can see the good and the bad in other places, has given me the eyes to see both more clearly.

I have a much greater appreciation for those things that make our nation great. The United States was established on the freedom of the governed to choose their leaders, and despite the bellyaching of both political parties at various times in our history, that foundation is not and has not been in jeopardy. Our educational system puts to shame the educational systems of so many of the world’s nations. Our economy, even in the tough times, allows us to enjoy prosperity to a degree of which most of the world’s citizens can only dream. And despite the fact that our medical care is not provided for free as so many would prefer (I wouldn’t prefer, but that’s neither here nor there), the quality of the medical care available in American hospitals—even those with less than stellar reputations—is head and shoulders above the care available throughout most of the rest of the world.

As for America’s warts—I recognize those, too. I recognize that our culture is such that it makes childbearing and rearing more difficult than it needs to be; that community is lacking in most American cities, towns, and neighborhoods; that our prosperity has led to a materialism that cannot and should not be sustained; that the stereotype of the arrogant American exists for a very good and very regrettable reason—that too many Americans overseas expect the world to adapt to them, rather than recognizing their obligation to adapt to the world. There is corruption; there is political overreach; there are things that can and should be done better.

I know that when I go back home, when I visit my family, even when my friends and family see my Facebook posts or read this blog, they see that I have changed. I have become more complex in some of my attitudes, more simple in others. I have become more liberal in some ways, and more conservative in others. I’m pretty sure that not everyone likes all the changes—and frankly, I’m not always sure that I do, either. But overall, I have to say … I like who I’ve become in the last six years. I like that I’m willing to challenge ideas that I used to accept unthinkingly. I like that my default response to inflammatory headlines now is to dig deeper and try to find out what’s really happening. I like that I look for commonalities and try to understand individuals as individuals, no matter their nationality. Others may not need to leave the country of their births in order to experience these changes, but I did. And I’m glad I did.

Time for Trivia!

We have reached that point in the Foreign Service cycle once again—we are pretty certain where we’re going next, and we’re ready to share that information with the world. Last time, we made the announcement via a “Where Are We Going?” trivia game with a prize. We thought it was fun. We hope you did, too, because we’re doing it again!

The game will work the same way it did last time. Over the course of 10 days, I’ll post 10 clues. You can submit your guesses via comment or email (reflectionsqa AT gmail DOT com) –don’t worry; comments are under moderation, so your guess won’t be visible to others. Guesses should include both city and country, and your guess should include your email address (don't worry; I won't give, sell, or spam your email address). Everyone is eligible to enter, even those few who already know where we’re going, but extra entries are available for those whom we have not told. The sooner you submit the correct answer, the more entries you receive in the drawing for the prize. You can submit more than one guess, but only your last one will count.

I do request that families decide whether they will submit one family entry or individual entries for each person. If you choose to submit a family entry, then by all means, discuss the clues and come up with the best guess you can as a family! But if your family submits guesses under multiple names—mom, dad, each child—then I ask that the family not work together and, most especially, not coordinate guesses, as that would be unfair to individuals and smaller families. In other words, don’t decide as a family that your top four guesses are Countries A, B, C, and D, and then have mom, dad, and two kids each submit a guess for a different one of those so that one of you is bound to be right. By the same token, please don't come to a single decision as a family and then submit it under four different names to increase your chances of winning. Of course I can’t enforce this request, but I do ask that you behave honorably.

For my Facebook and forum friends, please note that guesses submitted on my timeline or in any public forum will not count. You can comment here, email me, or send me a private message.

This competition is open to everyone. The prize is a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com, to be delivered by email. For that reason, your entry must contain a valid email address. The game starts today, 9 April, with the first clue (below). The final entry will be posted on 18 April, and the drawing for the winner will occur on 19 April. The winner will be notified by email and posted on the blog (I will not share the email address).

As with last time, here’s a “free” clue: Although guesses must include both city and country, that’s not too difficult to do, since we’ll be living in the capital city. If you figure out the country, the city is easy, and vice versa.

Now, without further ado, here is your first clue:

We won’t be adding a new continent to our list this time.

Two Months

Hmm. Apparently it’s been over 2 months since I published a blog post. That may be a new record for me. There probably are a few reasons why it’s been so long, but the top two come to mind pretty easily.

The first is that it’s just so easy to live here. My most prolific blog-writing times are right after I move to a new post, as I process all the newness of the place. I did write several posts soon after we arrived here, but I don’t think it was as many as I usually write early on at a new post. Frankly, after living in Egypt and Cambodia, Kosovo just doesn’t feel “foreign” enough to inspire those getting-adjusted posts! My neighborhood feels American, the supermarket feels American (though I don’t use Google Translate nearly as much—read: ever—at American grocery stores), I no longer am a minority in terms of race, and to top it all off, I settled in socially much more quickly here, due to a great embassy community and quick contact with my traditionally sought-out group, the missionaries. So I just don’t have the amount of processing and adjusting to do here as I did in either of our last two posts.

The second quick and easy reason why I haven’t posted in so long is that I’ve felt very busy. Homeschooling only takes up 30 or so minutes each day, but somehow it feels like it takes much more time than that. And—at the risk of sounding elitist—it has been an adjustment for me to be cleaning my own house again. We were able to hire an absolutely wonderful full-time housekeeper in Cambodia for a price that inspired her to do a happy dance in my kitchen and that also was lower than we would have had to pay for a one-morning-a-week cleaning service in the States; domestic help here also is less expensive than in the States, but it’s significantly more expensive than in Cambodia, and we decided that it made more sense for me to clean the house myself here. But it does seem to take a lot more time than it really should, probably because I never really have focused a lot of effort on learning to be an efficient housekeeper. It’s past time to change that. In addition to teaching Alexa and cleaning the house, the active social scene here has contributed (in a good way) to my feeling of busy-ness.

As if all of that weren’t enough—and it shouldn’t be, though it is—I’ve also been spending a good bit of time looking up recipes online. I’m contemplating a major change in my diet and have started taking small steps in that direction. I don’t buy into the pseudo-religious idea that our distant ancestors’ diet was perfect and that all modern innovation in food production results in poison, but I am beginning to be convinced that there is more about our food that matters than calorie count and whether it’s a protein, carb, or fat. It was an easy sell that whole, minimally processed foods are healthier than foods that are highly processed, added to and subtracted from. After all, it’s pretty intuitive that a whole apple provides more nutritional value, with fewer calories, than a similar volume of apple juice or applesauce that has had sugar and preservatives added and fiber removed; it’s also easy to see that refined sugar offers little to no value in exchange for quite a few calories. It was a harder sell, but I’m beginning to come around to the idea we may be better off limiting or avoiding specific other foods as well, in particular grains. The jury is still out, but I have been looking up paleo recipes—these recipes always avoid grains, legumes, and highly processed foods. They usually avoid dairy as well. I’ve found lots of good recipes and have started limiting grains—I’ve found that a couple of days without grains results in me feeling more tired but still better overall, with less stomach discomfort. (Every website I’ve read has said that it’s normal to feel tired and even headachy when switching away from a grain-based diet, as the body adjusts to getting more of its calories from fats than from carbs.) I’ve never had major issues with my stomach, but I have felt mild to moderate discomfort so often that it’s come to be normal, not even something I notice or complain about, but I do notice its absence when I avoid grains. I’m not ready to take the plunge into a completely paleo (or primal, if you prefer) lifestyle, but I’m gradually moving more in that direction. To be honest, I probably won’t ever go fully paleo, but since I do seem to feel better with fewer grains, that’s what I’m going with for now.

I also have spent some time recently looking at options for Alexa’s PreK curriculum next year. (I’m considering this year preschool, next year PreK, and the following kindergarten.) I like Sonlight’s P4/5 package as a base curriculum, but even if I add the kindergarten language arts to it, I think the phonics instruction will be too much review and not enough new material for her. So I’m considering purchasing a separate program to teach her to read, possibly All About Reading, or for a more economical option, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons or The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Lessons. We’ll probably use Handwriting Without Tears PreK. I haven’t gotten around to looking at the math options yet, but we'll almost certainly work through some of the Mathematical Reasoning workbooks that are included in Timberdoodle's preschool and PreK curricula; we'll probably start those sometime this spring.

That’s most of what’s been filling my time lately and why I haven’t been posting much. I’m not sure when I’ll start having more time again—or inspiration—so I apologize now if it’s another two months before I post again.

Still Here

It’s been two weeks since I last published anything. That’s not a long time when you look at my posting history—I may post every day at some times, but it’s also not all that unusual for me to go a month without posting anything. I think it just feels like longer than usual to me because I actually do have several blog posts in my head—one even written down—and because of why I haven’t written or posted them.

My last post was published just a few days after the arrival of our HHE. I spent the next week in a flurry of boxes, paper, packing tape, knives … unpacking at a feverish pace, hoping to have it all done, organized, and put away before we go to the States for home leave later this summer. I made great progress that week, getting most of the house into a livable state, though most of the drawers are stuffed with items that don’t belong there, the closets are empty or have a few random items that may or may not stay there long term, the cats’ room is still an obstacle course of random objects that I swear reach out to grab my feet as I walk by, and the basement is still full of full boxes. That’s not counting the living room, which stayed full of boxes until just a few days ago, when the newly-ordered cables and connectors and other electronic components arrived so that it made sense for Jeff to take the pieces of our home entertainment system out of their protective boxes and start setting them up. (There are still a couple of boxes in there, and we’re still using the smaller TV that eventually will go into the playroom, as I think we’re still waiting on some more components to arrive before Jeff can get it fully operational … and we need the guy who keeps postponing to come install the AFN satellite dish already.) So that week was very busy, to say the least.

Saturday was busy, too, though not with unpacking. One of Jeff’s coworkers had left for R&R in the States, and unlike our other offices, this office is staffed with exactly as many people as are required to get the job done—no extras, no room for someone to leave for a while and everyone else to be a little busy but ok until the missing coworker comes back, no margin. Everyone is needed at all times. When one goes away, a temporary replacement (known as a TDYer, or "Temporary Duty-er") needs to come in, or it’s complete insanity for whoever’s still there. So one had left, and one had come in. And of course, although we can’t really help that the TDYer stays in a hotel alone, without his family, and eats most dinners alone, without his family, we can at least offer him a chance to spend some time in our home and eat a home-cooked meal with our family on the weekend. (We would have welcomed him during the week, too, but he was working later, and with a little one, holding dinner is not an option.) So Saturday I made a supermarket run, tried with predictably limited success to make our “just moving in” house look a little less “just moving in,” and then cooked dinner for the first time in a week—we’d been ordering all week so that I didn’t have to reserve any of my time or energy for cooking, as Jeff had been unable to take time off work to help with the unpacking, and we both wanted all my efforts there.

Sunday the bottom fell out from under me. I’d been fighting off some minor cold symptoms all week—“I do NOT have time to be sick; you’ll just have to get over it,” I told my body—and my body decided it was time to show me who was boss. Overnight, my minor cold became a not-major-but-I-need-to-rest cold. One more night and there were silent tears streaming down my face as I sat in a chair, contemplating the energy required to get up and walk across the room to the table where Alexa was eating breakfast and considering how I was going to find the energy to care for her while Jeff went in to the office—no margin there means no ability to just call in and say that he’s staying home today to care for his daughter and his sick wife. There were a few things he absolutely had to get done that day, and he promised to come home as early as he could.

Monday morning was spent on the couch, trying to stay awake while I allowed Alexa to simultaneously watch Netflix cartoons on the TV and play Curious George, Mickey Mouse, Angry Birds, Singing Monsters, or any other game she wanted on Daddy’s iPad. Jeff came home around noon, and I stumbled my way through Alexa’s naptime routine, then stumbled up the stairs to my own bed, leaving the afternoon’s contingent of plumbers (who needed to fix leaky pipes and a disconnected dryer vent) for Jeff to handle. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Jeff stayed home in the mornings to let me sleep—the best medicine ever invented for what by then was a raging chest cold—then went to work after I’d woken up and showered, usually just in time for me to put Alexa down for a nap and then expend what little energy I had unpacking a box or two, doing a load of laundry, and finally collapsing in front of the computer for a daily email/Facebook/blog check. Thursday was harder, as Jeff had to spend the whole day in the office and theoretically I was recovered enough to get up early. By Friday I was feeling much better, though I still tired easily and I still cough as if I have the plague.

Unfortunately, on Thursday, I started noticing symptoms in Alexa. It wasn’t too major at that point, but she was more tired and fussy than usual, she sounded congested, and her nose required wiping much more often than usual. When her nap was interrupted repeatedly by coughing, I got concerned about our lack of children’s medicine—we gave away what we had before we left Cambodia, as the expiration dates had passed or would pass soon; we intended to restock our supplies during home leave, and since Alexa had never required anything more than an acetaminophen, we felt pretty safe being supply-less for a couple of months … but on Thursday, I started missing those supplies. I contacted Jeff, and Jeff contacted the health unit in hopes of getting recommendations for locally available medicines that are safe and effective (medications overseas can be hit or miss). They did us one better, telling us to bring Alexa in so they could check her out, and then they’d give us what was necessary.

Accordingly, Alexa and I took a trip to the embassy late Thursday afternoon. Our practitioner checked Alexa’s ears and lungs (all clear), weighed her so that we could get accurate dosing information, and provided me with full-size bottles of children’s Claritin, a children’s decongestant, and a generic form of children’s Benadryl, with strict instructions to use the latter only if it got really bad. For good measure, she also gave us some fluoride tablets for Alexa and an expectorant for me … I think she wanted to listen to my lungs and check me out, too, after hearing my cough, but since I told her that I was recovering, she contented herself with giving me the meds.

Since then, things have just kind of drifted along. I’ve been doing what housework I feel capable of doing—meaning I cleaned the floors for the first time in two weeks, cleaned the bathrooms, did a little ironing, and unpacked a few boxes from the basement. Jeff has worked at work and worked at home, helping me in the basement and setting up the home entertainment system as much as he can without the remainder of the supplies—all the while trying to fight off what may be the beginnings of a bad cold of his own. Alexa definitely has a cold, which seems to be an annoyance to her during the day, when she tries to play normally, and a real problem during naptime and at night, when the congestion and coughing interrupt her sleep. We give her the antihistamine at night, as well as the fluoride she’ll be taking from here on out other than when we’re in the States, and we tried the decongestant once, but it seemed to make her hyper, so we’re trying not to give her that one again. We hosted our TDYer for ordered pizza and a movie Friday, and we made a trip to Camp Bondsteel to restock our frozen meat supplies on Saturday. Yesterday we just stayed home—we decided against spreading our germs at church.

This weekend I asked Jeff about his thoughts regarding preschool for Alexa; after all, she’ll turn three soon, and if we’re going to do preschool, it’s time to be thinking about it. We made a couple of decisions about that, which I’ll share in a separate blog post. I did write another blog post, on one of those afternoons when I was too tired to work but not too tired to type. I haven’t published it yet because I’m not completely sure about it … I’m not sure I’m happy with it, and even if I decide that I am, it touches on some issues that we may choose not to share on the blog. Nothing really personal—I think I’ve been more vulnerable and open here in that regard than we ever expected, but we’re ok with that—but more that the whole post is based on a comment made by someone else, and we aren’t sure if sharing that comment publicly could cause problems for that person or her family, and we can’t just ask her for reasons that I can’t get into. Jeff and I both are still thinking the whole issue through … and although I want to share the post, or rewrite until I’m happy with it and then share it, I have a feeling we may choose not to. I do have several other posts in my head, though, that I had hoped to share before we go on home leave. I’m beginning to doubt that I’ll write them in time, though, just as my dream of returning from home leave to a completely unpacked, organized, pictures-on-the-walls house is fading away.

So, we’re still here. Trying to get unpacked and settled. Fighting off, fighting through, or recovering from illnesses that are minor in the grand scheme of things but that feel like a pretty big deal at the time. Contemplating the sorry state of the house after two weeks of minimal to no cleaning, and trying to get up the energy to do something about that. Preparing for home leave, and for Alexa’s birthday celebration at the start of it, and for our Consumables packout at the end of it. Making and beginning to implement decisions about Alexa’s earliest formal education. Hoping to get blog posts written before they fade away into the shadows of missed opportunity.

I think I may get another post or two up before we go on home leave. Not everything I want to get written, but some of it. And you shouldn’t expect to see any new posts for several weeks once we go back to the States. But, when the posts stop, just be assured, we’re still here … other than the time when we’ll be in the U. S. But we’ll be back, and I’ll be back posting again.