Lock Up That Refrigerator! Lock Those Kitchen Cupboards!

Locking refrigerator provides solutions!

Do you have a maid, or unwanted extended-family member in your home, who is taking advantage of you bysneaking into the refrigerator (or kitchen cupboards) and eating up your family’s long-saved, or expensive stocked-up treats, without asking?

Here is the Middle Eastern solution–buy a locking refrigerator, and keep your cupboards locked.

Locking Kitchen Cupboards

Of course, if you have a kitchen maid doing the cooking, and she is the one doing the sneaky eating of special treats, then you’re out of luck.  Some expats have the additional problem of all the leftovers “disappearing,” doubling the food bill, and leaving you without food when you are expecting it.  Some Middle Easterners have told me that locking cupboards and refrigerators keep children’s eating under control, as well.

That said, many more ordinary refrigerators (without locks) are for sale than those with locks.  So while locking refrigerators are available, they don’t seem to be the bestsellers.

–Expat 21

Comparing Costs of Health Care Treatments in America, Britain, and France

I became an expat because my foreign husband wanted to move back to his home country in the Middle East.  He tried life in America for two years, and decided he preferred life back in his home country.

However, at the time in 1991, I was pregnant with my first child.  I lived in Denver, Colorado, in the United States.  At that time, we did not have any health insurance.  The cost at then of about ten prenatal visits over the course of the pregnancy, and one night uncomplicated delivery in the hospital in Denver was about $10,000.  So, we decided to move to the Middle East to have the baby.  Here, at that time, the cost for each specialist visit was about $10, and THREE nights in the hospital (and a vaccum extraction) was $500.

Swedish Hospital in Denver, Colorado

In the intervening years, I’ve seen many Americans all have their babies here, while most of my British acquaintances fly back to Britain where they can have their babies for free, using the National Health Service.

Recently one of my British friends suffered a broken arm in France from accidentally falling down some stairs.  She said the treatment was expensive in France at 2230 Euros.  The exact treatment was an operation to put in three pins and set the fracture, plus two nights in the hospital.

An American doctor friend of mine in Denver wrote back to me and said the same treatment in Denver would now be about $30,000 (that’s right, THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS…).

I find it amazing that so many Americans wonder WHY we need health care reform, and why there are so many more uninsured than before?  Minimal insurance is now $600 for a family of four with no pre-existing or unusual conditions…PER MONTH (according to my doctor friend in Denver), and that is with a pretty high deductible, and no/little prescription drug coverage.  I was one of those uninsured, before leaving America in 1993….it is one of the reasons I left when I did.  The country I live in now has a completely private system, just like the United States, but at least it’s still affordable.

I shared this information and the story of my friend who fell down the stairs with two British friends of mine, and here was there reaction:

First Friend:  Phew!!!! I think that if the UK population knew anything about this, then they wouldn’t complain at all about the National Health Service!

Second Friend:  Crazy prices in the US !   Just a broken bone could wipe out your savings ??? Very scary.

–Expat 21

Arabian Nights’ Teenage Parties in the Middle East

My daughter (age 15) was invited to a birthday party for a girl who was turning 14. This party was for two full days, including the night in between. The kids were invited for 10:30 in the morning; the party lasting all day, with a sleepover, and continuing all through the second day, with my daughter arriving home at about 6:00 the second evening.

Most kids were taken and brought back by family chauffeurs, most of whom drive black oversize four-wheel-drive vehicles. My daughter went with another friend from our neighborhood who was also invited, driven there and back by his chauffeur. (The photos in this post are actual pictures of where the party took place.)

The birthday girl’s parents own a small hotel, where the party was held the first day and night.  The kids had the total run of the place, from what my daughter tells me.

My daughter called me on the phone to say, “Mom, this is nicer than any hotel we’ve ever stayed in!”   Our family has had the opportunity to stay in some nice hotels.  She even described the breakfast spread as as even more impressive than some five-star hotel breakfast spreads.

Following the sleepover, the kids spent the entire next day at a water park. Here are some photos:

The water park features ten hectares of manicured gardens, and five restaurants and snack bars.

The park also features a pirate ship for children to climb on.

Wow, would I ever have LOVED to have gone to a party like this as a teenager!

I explained to my Middle Eastern husband that a party like this would be unheard of in America. Nearly every party in the Middle East lasts at least an entire day, or an entire night. Sometimes they last two or three days.  I explained to my husband that a birthday party might normally last three or four hours. Even for a slumber party, kids might arrive at 5:00 pm and be gone by 11:00 am the next morning.

I asked my husband why he thought every party in the Middle East went on for hours and hours. He replied, “People don’t have anything else to do.” More likely, they have servants and maids to take care of all the work people are doing in America, which is WHY they have so much free time on their hands. The particular parents who gave this party are actually European, but it was an extraordinary party by anyone’s standards. More like a party I would have expected in Hollywood……I just hope my daughter realizes how fortunate she is! She had a wonderful time.

I wonder how many other expats have experienced parties like this in the Middle East, or in other parts of the world?

–Expat 21

Each State Feels Like a Different Country, to Expats

The United States,  As Countries of Equal Population (from StrangeMaps.wordpress.com)

The moment I saw this map at Strange Maps, I recalled that this was exactly how my Middle Eastern husband felt during the two years he lived in the United States.  He said that with each state having its own laws, it’s own drivers’ licences, and its own driving rules and regulations, he felt like he was crossing a country border every time he crossed a state border!

Strange Maps is a fun and interesting website I visit regularly.  You can find all sorts of interesting and unusual maps here that look at things in a new and different way.

–Expat 21

What to Look For In an Overseas American or British School

One of many parents’ biggest worries when being sent to an overseas post is taking care of their children’s schooling.  A recent article in the Financial Times on How to Find An Expat School That Makes the Grade highlights the problem, but falls short in telling parents what to look for, or what to do if they can’t find a decent school.

You can never be sure, as a parent,  of what you are going to get until your children are actually enrolled in the school.  There are bound to be unexpected unpleasant surprises, no matter where you go.  Even if the school is what you hope for academically, it might not be socially, or administratively.  

While it’s recommended that you go overseas to visit the school in advance, and talk with other parents who have had children in the school, it is nearly impossible for most people to do any such thing in advance.  If you are lucky, you might be able to contact some people through email, or though such sources as the ExpatFocus Forum on your particular country, at ExpatFocus.com.  

In any case, if the school has problems, it is going to be difficult to find anyone who will tell you so.  Teachers would be afraid to say anything negative to anyone they didn’t know well for fear of losing their jobs; current parents are afraid to talk to strangers for fear of repercussions on their own child; and administrators want to present the rosiest picture possible.  The only people likely to tell you the truth are former employees or former parents.  But they are hard to find, having moved away, and seldom being on current chatboard forums.

So, what is a parent to do?

Find out about the funding of the school.  This will give you an indication if it is likely to be a typical American or British school.  If the school is private, or unaccredited, that does not mean anything is wrong with it, but private schools are more likely to have unique quirks, meaning “their own ways of doing things.”  Schools which are either accredited or having a significant portion of their funding coming from either the American or British governments will be most likely to be more similar to actual schools in the home country, as well as a much higher percentage of children from the home countries, with parents either in military or diplomatic positions.  However, they will be significantly more expensive (and sometimes fall into part of an employee’s “overseas comensation package”).  

 

If you have the luxury of choosing between schools in a certain city, and neither school is accredited, what should you look for?  I recommend going for the most “stable” school–that is, the one with the lowest rate of administrative/teacher turnover.  This should be relatively easy to find out about, by asking questions such as, “What are the ages of the teachers, and what nationalities are they?  How long have those particular teachers been there?” Most people, no matter what their experience has been are perfectly willing to share this type of information.  

One reason for staff turnover can be adminsitrative problems.  Other schools which have lots of staff turnover tend to have young teachers who are mostly looking for an expat experience and are somewhat less dedicated and invested in the school, although there are certainly exceptions.  On the other hand, it is generally FAR better to have expat native-speaking English teachers, even with high turnover,  than to have mostly foreign nationals trying to teach English (which does take place in some countries).  Having many teachers from the expat country itself (except if they are teaching that country’s language) is a red flag, in my opinion. This is the one time it might be better to go immediately with a correspondence-school package.

The other time a correspondence-school package might be useful is if for some reason you do not want your child growing up having country nationals as friends, or being influenced by their mores, ideas, or religion (although religion is generally expressly kept out of American and British schools).  

So, let’s assume you are a parent with no “overseas compensation package” which includes education, and are moving to a city where the only American or British school is private.  If it is the only school in town (if you are lucky enough to have one in English at all in your city or town) it’s definitely worth taking a chance on.  Try to give it a year for your child to adjust and make friends.  Go in to see all of his teachers personally (but not the first two weeks of school), so that they at least know who you are, and feel that you are interested and approachable.  Do whatever you can to help your child make friends.  A child with friends will be able to weather whatever comes.  (I speak as both a parent and an educator.)  

IF something goes terribly wrong that either you or your child cannot tolerate the school, know that there ARE other options.  Those options don’t have to fall entirely on YOU.  Now there are some excellent correspondence courses from fully accredited institutions where instructors are available every day over the internet.  They are also fairly priced, and less expensive than most overseas schools.  I personally know of several students who are using them and doing quite well.  The main thing your child will miss if you use this sort of program is the companionship of other children.

A tutor living in the expat location, but from the home country, can often be found to help the child pick up nuances that are important in the home-country education (such as thinking and writing skills) that may not be covered sufficiently in an overseas school.  Sometimes parents can provide the same input, but often when a parent tries to tutor their own child, the parent-child relationship gets in the way.  I certainly had this problem with my own child.

   

Lastly, remember that an opportunity to live in an overseas location is often quite an education in itself.  Even though your children will not be learning identical things as in the home country, they will be learning valuable things and life lessons.

–Expat 21

The “Prophet’s Birthday” 365 Days a Year?

King’s Palace in Bangkok (Photo by Claudia Stucki)

Years ago I visited Thailand with a friend.  We were walking around, and one Muslim shop owner called us in, saying,” Oh, come in and be my first customers of the day!  Since it’s the Prophet’s birthday, I’ll give you a special discount.”

We didn’t buy anything, but the next day we were walking in a similar part of town and another shopkeeper called us in, telling us the same thing, that this next day was the Prophet’s birthday.  We concluded that they must just tell people that every single day, and that it must not be true at all.

Muslim Mosque in Bangkok (Photo by Stuart G. Towns)

Fast forward to many years later, when I’m now living in North Africa.  Now I know that for all Muslim religious holidays, they are celebrated for TWO DAYS.  So THAT is why we heard this on two successive days!  We certainly were ignorant back in those days in Thailand.

Expat 21

Handwritten Cookbook Solution — Arabic with English Numbers and Titles

Home-written cookbook, with English titles and numbers on right, with matching Arabic titles with same number on left

I was lucky enough to have one maid who spoke French, who could read and write (in Arabic), and who stuck with me for six years.  After she was with me for a few months, I began to teach her to cook some of the recipes my family enjoys.

Since she didn’t know how to cook at all when she came to me, first I taught her how to measure using American measures (European recipes are completely different in that all ingredients are measured by weight, not by volume, and you have to have a metric scale to weigh everything).  I taught her our American ways to measure cold butter by displacement of water,  to measure sugar packed down, while measuring flour fluffed up or sifted.

Next, I had to read recipe books in English, and explain in French, a second language for me.  Neither of us spoke French very well, but we had to use it as our only lingua franca.   So she would listen in French, write it in Arabic, and read back to me what she had written by speaking in French.  Then I would teach her each recipe which generally took about three times or more to get right.  Over a period of years, we wrote several cookbooks like this, with English titles by number on the right-hand side, and corresponding Arabic titles by same number on the left.  (Books in Arabic start at what is the back in English, and go the opposite direction, so that what would be the beginning of our books is the end of Arabic books.)

So, before leaving the house, eventually I could tell her, “Please make sixteen, twenty-seven, and eight for tonight.”  Then I’d come home to find everything prepared at dinner time.   The recipes included Thai, Mexican, Chinese, European, and standard American cuisine.

English recipies explained to a maid in French, and translated from French into Arabic by the maid

Inside the books, the recipes are marked with a number and title, in the same order they are written in the table of contents.

My recent maids I can’t even communicate with, as I don’t speak Arabic (except for a few words, and yes, I have tried to learn many times), and they don’t speak French.

Comments?

Eileen

Third-World Carrots

All of the carrots I've found in my 17 years of living as an expat have "woody" centers (yellowish inside), which have to be cut out individually, as with the two at the bottom of the picture. As you can see, even the small slender carrots have the same problem!

When I moved to North Africa from America, I was was absolutely shocked at the carrots that are here.  I found everyone hollowing out the centers, and thought, “What is this?”

Since that time, I’ve wondered if we have improved varieties of carrots in America, while the Old World is still using old-fashioned carrots.  Does anyone out there know the answer to this?

A pretty color contrast when I cut into this carrot! (It was bright green inside for the first inch.)

Domestic carrots apparently originated in Central Asia  in the area of Afghanistan about five thousand years ago, and were mostly  purple.  About one thousand years ago, a yellow mutant appeared in the area of Turkey, and spread westward.  The orange carrot of today was refined by Dutch breeders in the 1500’s.   It spread to England in the 1700’s, and the Spanish transported it to the New World.  The orange carrots were sweeter and cooked better, and soon, the other older varieties of carrots were dropped.

Color Variety in Carrots (Photo from The Carot Museum)

So, does anyone know if our woody-center carrots are due to being a certain variety, or is it farmers not watering or growing them correctly?  Does anyone know?

Expat 21

(Photos) The FINEST Third-World Craftsmanship

Faucet mounted in unusable position

On thing many expats have to put up with in third-world countries is shoddy workmanship.  But it’s worse than that; it’s as if the people doing the work don’t even have a BRAIN!  See the example below, all from Egypt:

Balcony is missing a sliding door

More than one person must not have had a brain to install the following:

Try getting your money out of this ATM, which is too high to use!

Is this next one for real?

Can two people use these at once?

Did workmen think people might get lonely?

Are these for visiting?

Look at this painted line!

Was the driver high on alcohol or drugs?

And, an eternal frustration:

Many things that are SUPPOSED to work, just DON'T!

None of these photos were my own, they came to me in an email forward.

Posted by Paloma Pentarian

WHY Americans Celebrated George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s Birthdays

George Washington, 1782 Painting

When I was a child growing up in America, I always wondered why we celebrated president’s birthdays.  When I was little we did not have Presidents’ Day (third Monday in February).  Instead we had two days– George Washington’s Birthday (February 22), and also Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12).  It was only after living abroad for a few years that I figured it out why it is that we would celebrate their birthdays at all (aside from their being our two greatest presidents).

Abraham Lincoln

I’ve learned that it is the custom in most countries which have a monarch to have the king’s birthday off as a national holiday.  In my new country, I found that when the king died, and his son took over as king, of course the day of the king’s birthday (the day of the national holiday) changed to the birthday of the new king.

It is only from understanding this that I see why it probably seemed normal to our ancestors to have a day off for a great leader’s birthday.

Expat 21