Well, I've been checking my garden but I can't get a picture of it because by the time I get home each day, it's dusk and raining, or about to rain. However, the garden looks good. A few weeds have sprung up but nothing major so I'm sure it can wait until Saturday. I'll get a good before and after picture of it then.
Also, I'm experimenting in sprouting some tomato seeds in cotton (remember those kindergarten projects with the frijol in a piece of damp cotton???). I read that they "take" better if you put them in a warm place - like on top of the fridge - so that's what I'm going to do. I'll post a picture of those little planters on Saturday.
Meanwhile, just a word of thanks to some people who inadvertantly provided input for an intercultural seminar I was asked to help out with yesterday. I was the "expert" as the German woman who led it introduced me. The seminar was for some Mexicans who are going to be living in the US for 3 years. They came with their families to this session to learn about the history, customs, people, lifestyle, etc. of the US. Pretty ambitious for a 10-hour session. I was supposed to give some info on the do's and don'ts, as well as the holidays and their significance. So I looked up a lot of stuff in Wikipedia and found such interesting things! Like the original history of American Labor Day - which is not the same date as Labor Day around the world. Read up on it here. It will surprise you. Ditto with Martin Luther King Jr. , Presidents Day, Veteran's day, and on down the line! Really spent some fun time reading up on all those things. I also found an expat forum that was fun to surf, and also took a survey from ale's blog - where she talked about 5 things she likes and 5 she doesn't like about the US, and also some observations from the girl from Villahermosa who lives in UK - about sneezing - that was so true!!!! And also, some wonderful comments from fned about what it means to be an expat, and how it contributes to your growth... I'm telling you I arrived with enough things to talk about, read about and mull over to last us for a week at that seminar. I even had a short clip from YOUtube showing Shirley Temple doing a dance with Bill "BoJangles" in her Littlest Rebel film (re: Civil War history, American public movie-going during Depression)...
And then it turned out we didn't use any of it!!!! The lead speaker needed to finish with her topics, which included the dates I'd looked up, so I did get to use some of that info. Then there were the issues of drivers licenses and universities, where she would turn to me to corroborate things, or to give my "expert" opinion about these and other such situations that came up. I didn't feel comfortable being put in that role since I haven't really lived in the States for so long, so when I got to talk about something, I ended up asking the participants what they thought about things (some of them had already been to the States a few times) and they all participated quite well! So much so, that there was no time to get to all those other subjects!!! But thanks anyway to those bloggers I mentioned... and keep blogging!
2 comments:
Hey mom, how did the weekend go for the tomatoes? Got some weeding done?
That's so neat that you got invited to speak as an "expert" in an expat seminar. I'm sure you could give so much great advice on the issue. It's true that a lot of mexicans have already been to the US and that life in Mexico is getting more and more similar to life in the states in regards to shopping, eating and working patterns.
But I still think that any expat experience is one where you're bound to find yourself in situations where your culture and your values might collide with those of your adopted country. Very few people can properly prepare you for this but any help you can get before hand is bound to come in handy!!
Fned.
Thanks for the input fned! About weeding, yes I did, though it wasn't exactly necessary. I also took a couple of before/after pictures and one with a zoom-in on what just might be a tiny tomato plant coming up.
As to what you say about expat experiences, it's true that you go through all sorts of stages, but I think the one factor that makes a big difference as to how it will affect you is related to how integrated you are in the new country, i.e. your affinity with or rejection of the native people and life in general there. The more integrated you are, the more satisfying and insightful the experience will be. I guess that's obvious, huh?
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