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Text Box: Surreal 04/11/09 Life is so different here than back in Portland that at times it's hard to figure out what “normal” even is anymore. At times I just shake my head in bemusement. For example, some recent memories: Playing cricket in a jungle clearing outside the city, with wide-eyed Lao kids as teammates and our Australian co-worker as everyone's teacher (cricket's big over there, apparently). Paying almost $13 for a bottle of Shout stain-remover in a desperate attempt to get laundry clean. With no hot water unless we bring it in by the bucket, it's been a challenge. Hearing our daughter speak English with an Indian accent picked up from her teacher at school. Offering to help our neighbors move since they had nothing to move with but a wooden cart, only to discover that we weren't moving household goods, but pieces of their house. They were building their own stilt house out of scrap lumber and metal near the rice fields a few miles from where we live. Standing in the dusty lane alongside our neighborhood open-air market, clutching bags of fruit and my son while discussing principles of Word interpretation on a cell phone with a co-worker. Teaching barefoot. Knowing our kids can say hello in three or more languages, but when someone offers to shake hands they’re confused. Being able to read a script that looks like this: ¢º®Ã¥¹ì¾¨Å, but having to resort to charades or wander around aimlessly in stores to find an object as simple as a screw. Dreaming that I'm trying to speak Lao but Spanish keeps coming out, then waking up and doing the same thing. Learning to live with over-the-counter access to most medicines but no doctors to advise us how to use them (thank God for the Internet!). Realizing our kids have more stamps in their passports than some backpackers. Watching fish swim across my driveway after a heavy rain. Watching Judah chewing on a tasty morsel he’d begged for many times before on trips to the market: a deep-fried chicken foot. (Another favorite delicacy of his is fish eyeballs. And recently he told me that black ants taste better than red ones. His favorite food though - thanks to a recent trip to Mexico - is fried grasshoppers.) Waking up freezing cold in the middle of the night and discovering that our new a/c had dropped the temperature in our bedroom to a frigid 77 °F. (I turned it up a couple of degrees, crawled gratefully back under my comforter, and went to sleep.) Feeling vaguely impolite if I wear shorts in public, eat my pizza with my fingers, or show up to a party on time. Going to zoos and exhibits and watching the Lao eagerly snapping photos - of my kids. You Know You’re Raising Kids Overseas When… 04/10/09 A comment someone made the other day got me thinking about the unique aspects of raising kids outside our home countries. So here are some of my thoughts, along with a few that others have emailed me since I first posted this note on Facebook: You know you're raising kids overseas when… 1. Your children don’t know your brothers or sisters, but they have at least 50 Uncles and Aunts who are no relation to them at all. 2. Your kids can translate between American, British, and Australian English. 3. When you say, “We’re going home,” your kids ask, “Which one?” 4. It’s 27 C outside but your kids want a jacket. 5. Hundreds of total strangers have photos of your children on their mobile phone. 6. When you’re in a restaurant and the server doesn’t try to pick up your toddler and carry him around, you’re surprised (and a bit disappointed since now you have to watch him yourself). 7. Your children know exactly how to behave when the customs official looks in your car at the border. 8.Your kids flew before they could walk. 9. Your kids can greet strangers appropriately in multiple languages and cultures, but they’re not sure how to relate to their cousins. 10. One of the first phrases you learn to say is, “Can you split that onto 2 plates?” 11. You wish strollers came in 4-wheel drive models. 12. You know that the best toys are twigs, rocks, and cardboard boxes. 13. Finding your children in a crowd is easy: they’re at the center of it. 14. Your kids think change is normal and normal is boring. 15. You teach geography by saying, “And Uncle John lives there, and the Johnsons are from there…” 16. The thought of sending your children on an unescorted plane trip doesn’t scare you nearly as badly as putting them back into your home country’s public school system. 17. You realize one day that your definition of “home” isn’t even on the same continent as your children’s definition. 18. Your kids have more stamps in their passport than most backpackers. 19. Your baby's never sat in a baby swing, but he loves the hammock. 20. You're too busy to write notes like these. 21. Your kids think another plane ride or border crossing is routine but the sight of a park with real grass makes them ecstatic. And from others: 22. Your kids would rather drink Pepsi from a bag than a bottle,. 23. Your kids can sing the water buffalo song and mean it. 24. You had to get new pages in your child's passport before he turned five. 25. You put your children to bed at 9 pm and your neighbor marvels at how early it is. 26. Your children are as comfortable with adults as they are with their peers and don't like always having to be separated to be with their own age group. 27. When visiting the US, your kids look at their grandparents' back yard and exclaim, "Oh look, a whole park just for me!"

2009

You Know You’re Raising Kids Overseas When...

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Driving in Laos, Part III

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There’s a Big Difference Between “Mostly Dead” and “All Dead”

Driving in Laos, Part I

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