by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Jun 11, 2014 | 2014, Brazil, Cultural Differences, Culture, Eye on Culture, India, Purnima, Sports, The Alchemist, World Interviews
Every four years, a large part of the world’s attention descends on one nation – for World Cup Football. Tomorrow, the FIFA World Cup actually starts, and as you all know, the first match is in Sao Paulo, where Brazil takes on Croatia. I was on the phone with fellow World Moms Blog editor, Jennifer Burden, and she asked me if India is excited for the World Cup.
My own family has World Cup fever, inspired by my recent trip to Brazil to report on world poverty and environmental issues, but when I think of the whole of India excited about something sport-related, it is really only cricket that comes to mind!
People in India will watch the World Cup games, but it won’t compare to our country’s level of excitement over cricket.
When it comes to sports, India is a cricket-crazy nation.
INDIA.IS.A.COMPLETE.CRICKET-CRAZY.NATION!
Men, women and kids all watch and/or play and/or have favorites and/or conduct mass prayers and/or do just crazy things for the sake of cricket. There is really no end to it!
Sachin Tendulkar, a cricket player, is like a God to everyone in India. And there is absolutely no limits to what people would do for cricket. It is not just a game. Cricket has a very special life and a very special relationship with this country. It cannot even be explained, however, living in India during the cricket season would say it all.
Let me entertain you with a few crazy things that go on in India around cricket…
People color themselves with the tricolor Indian flag. The tricolor theme is not just clothes and caps, but you can find it also in the school premises, in apartments (flats) — theentire nation in is the colors of the Indian flag for the cricket. The celebrations are as intense, if not more, (ok, I have to be honest- it is the most celebrated event) than even Diwali or the Independence Day.
Check out this picture of a school in Western India where the school children are rooting for the Indian cricket team.
And then people just form throngs everywhere during the actual time the game is telecast. Office-goers, housewives, school-children, get together wherever there is a TV and watch. Homeless people watch cricket on the TV sitting on the streets across an electronics shop (or TV shop). No, they aren’t driven away. Because it is cricket season.
Shopkeepers let the customers watch the match from the shop indefinitely
There are common TV viewing holes in villages like the local tea-stalls, community centers, even movie theaters at times, a common TV in the square of the slum. Oh, there is no end to this kind of thing. These pictures to do the job of explaining the craziness cricket causes for the people of India and the rest of sub-continent countries (Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh).
A tea stall hosting the TV viewing of the cricket match to a gathered crowd of the villagers
The slum dwellers watching the cricket match from a local TV-hole in the slums.
This is a mall in Kolkatta where the finals of the match between India and Sri Lanka is viewed.
This is a movies theater in Karachi, Pakistan where cricket is telecast during the cricket season.
So, now coming back to the FIFA World Cup to be held in Brazil, all that I would say is that, the temperature is slightly lukewarm in comparison to the fever of the cricket playing nation.
Yes, we do talk a lot about it. But I guess that is about it. And, perhaps, some real football fans would watch it because they are really that – football fans.
By the way, did you catch Brazilian World Mom, Eco Ziva’s, post on the World Cup this week?
So what happens in your country? Is it a football-crazy country too? Or does your country live for some other sport?
Photo credit to the author, The Daily Mail and The Atlantic.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog written by Purnima Ramakrishnan, our Senior Editor from India.
by Melanie Oda (Japan) | Jun 5, 2014 | 2014, Japan, Parent Care, School
I have vague memories of the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) in the US, where I grew up. I remember the occasional school-wide meeting being held in the evening and a fall festival here, or there, involving baked goods. I’m not sure how much of my non-memory is due to just being an average kid (that is, extremely self-involved and just not noticing what the grown-ups were doing) or if the whole thing was just lower key.
Or, perhaps, my parents had some choice in the matter.
At any rate, PTA membership in Japan is by default. They take the fees out of your bank account right along with school supplies and school lunch payments. (Lunches her are amazing, by the way. A topic for another post.) I don’t know if it’s possible to opt out, or not. I certainly don’t know anyone who has tried!
The PTA at my children’s school is arranged like a pyramid, and at the top are the officers. Beneath them are the leaders of the four councils: class representatives, safety, and … well, in Japanese they call it “public information”, the group that makes the quarterly newsletter, along with the nomination committee. (These are the guys that try to suck you into being an officer for the next school year). Underneath that are the representatives from each class, and beneath all that is everyone else.
You are expected to serve on one of these councils at least once for each child.
This year, I ended up being the class rep for the first grade.
- Our job is to organize a school lunch “tasting day,” when parents can have lunch at school. But not with their child, in the Home EC room. (Both my daughter and I were disappointed by that.)
- Arrange and execute the washing of all the schools curtains. Twice. (I didn’t realize I should be washing my curtains at home twice a year….oops.)
- Collect and prepare for posting “bell marks,” the Japanese version of “Boxtops for Education,” collecting proofs of purchases that can be exchanged for school supplies.
- And lastly, mending the white smocks that children wear when distributing school lunches (in Japan, the children help prepare the lunch.)
Whew, that was quite a list!
Of course, all of these jobs require multiple letters sent home, which we prepare, and monthly meetings because … well, because this is Japan, perhaps.
Every family without fail is to volunteer for one of the tasks, either washing curtains, helping organize the bell marks, or mending the smocks.
When my oldest child started school, I was really surprised that the PTA were in charge of things that were so nitty-gritty.
I’m pretty sure, for example, the my mother never washed school curtains in her washing machine and then hauled them back to school to hang them up, still wet, after cleaning the school’s curtains rails.
So it makes me wonder …
What is PTA like in your country? Do you have to participate? What kind of things do you do?
This is an original post by our World Mom Melanie Oda from Japan.
Photo credit to the author.
If you ask Melanie Oda where she is from, she will answer "Georgia." (Unless you ask her in Japanese. Then she will say "America.") It sounds nice, and it's a one-word answer, which is what most people expect. The truth is more complex. She moved around several small towns in the south growing up. Such is life when your father is a Southern Baptist preacher of the hellfire and brimstone variety.
She came to Japan in 2000 as an assistant language teacher, and has never managed to leave. She currently resides in Yokohama, on the outskirts of Tokyo (but please don't tell anyone she described it that way! Citizens of Yokohama have a lot of pride). No one is more surprised to find her here, married to a Japanese man and with two bilingual children (aged four and seven), than herself. And possibly her mother.
You can read more about her misadventures in Asia on her blog, HamakkoMommy.
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by Dee Harlow (Laos) | May 29, 2014 | Awareness, Breastfeeding, Food, Health, Humanitarian, Laos, Maternal Health, Millennium Development Goals, Nutrition, Uncategorized, World Voice, Younger Children
While I still have the opportunity to write another post for the WMB community before leaving Laos later this year, I feel compelled to tell you about child nutrition and the problem of stunting in Laos because stunting is a seemingly invisible problem that can go unnoticed unless special attention is drawn to highlight the issue.
Ethnically, most Southeast Asian people are shorter and have a smaller frames than most other races throughout the world. This fact makes it easy to say that Lao babies and children tend to be small or smaller because of their race.
Yet at first glance Lao children appear to be healthy (and super cute), a closer look and personal interaction will almost always reveal that the children are a few years older than what you had first assumed. I recently met an adorable girl in a northern village at a school where I delivered books by boat since there is no road access to her village. Upon speaking with her (in Lao) I was impressed by how well behaved, articulate and “mature” she was for what I assumed to be a 6-year old. (I have two 4-year old twins so I was instantly optimistic about their potential in just two short years to be as well behaved as this girl.) She turned out to be 10-years old. This has happened time and time again to me, to my colleagues, and to many newcomers to Laos.
Lao children are among the most undernourished in Southeast Asia with 44% stunting of children under 5-years old. It is the single largest contributor to infant and child mortality in the country with 59% of all child deaths related to nutritional deficiencies. Chronic malnutrition predisposes children to higher morbidity and mortality, lower educational attainment, and reduced workforce productivity.
For a country experiencing rapid economic growth and increasing income disparities, fierce external human resource competition puts the country at risk of leaving a majority of the Lao population behind others who will be more able to keep apace. Stunting is a problem that needs be addressed for the immediate wellbeing of Lao children and to be resolved for the future potential of the Lao people.
The Lao government is working closely with experts and development partners on how to tackle this important issue. It is not easy. Poor breast-feeding and weaning practices are widespread. Almost all mothers give food supplements (such as chewed glutinous rice), and pure water, to infants within a few weeks of birth. Harmful practices (such as discarding colostrum) and other food taboos for pregnant women reduce disease resistance for newborns and increase fetal undernutrition. Micronutrient deficiencies, inadequate intake of vitamin A, anemia and iodine deficiency, all further hinder child development.
The current health system is not only faced with challenges of delivering micronutrients, immunizations and necessary vitamins to the most vulnerable population, but they are additionally burdened by the daunting task of changing people’s behaviors to improve dietary habits, increase nutritional intake, and overcoming cultural belief and religious belief obstacles to improved nutrition status among rural and multi-ethnic communities. The task is daunting.
What is being done and what needs to be done?
There are some great organization here making slow but successful strides on a small-scale basis. UNICEF, WFP, IFAD, Save the Children, the Scale Up Nutrition initiative and others who are collaborating closely with government health officials, but resources are scarce, especially in an often overlooked country like Laos.
- We can channel financial support to these organizations for their work on nutrition in Laos.
- We can lobby our governments to increase foreign assistance resources to address the poor state of healthcare in Laos (e.g., Laos is not one of the United States’ ‘priority countries’ receiving Global Health Initiative (GHI) funding. Ask U.S. representatives, Why not?)
- We can voice our concern to private and public interests who are taking advantage of opportunities in Laos to improve their social welfare practices by investing in better healthcare in communities where they pursue their business interests.
- We can ask the question to anyone willing to listen about who should be accountable to improving the welfare of children beginning their lives under such great odds in Laos.
Hopefully someday, someone will listen and take action.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our mother of twins writer, Dee Harlow in Vientiane, Laos. You can always find her writing on her blog, Wanderlustress.
Photo credit attributed to the author.
One of Dee’s earliest memories was flying on a trans-Pacific flight from her birthplace in Bangkok, Thailand, to the United States when she was six years old. Ever since then, it has always felt natural for her to criss-cross the globe. So after growing up in the northeast of the US, her life, her work and her curiosity have taken her to over 32 countries. And it was in the 30th country while serving in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan that she met her husband. Together they embarked on a career in international humanitarian aid working in refugee camps in Darfur, Sudan, and the tsunami torn coast of Aceh, Indonesia.
Dee is now a full-time mother of three-year old twins and continues to criss-cross the globe every two years with her husband who is in the US Foreign Service. They currently live in Vientiane, Laos, and are loving it! You can read about their adventures at Wanderlustress.
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by Ms. V. (South Korea) | May 27, 2014 | 2014, Babies, Expat Life, Family, International, Korea, Multicultural, Parenting, Relocating, S. Korea, Siblings, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
Hello from Washington State!
I can hardly believe it’s already been three months since we arrived from Korea. We just unpacked our last boxes of books last week and are finally feeling a bit settled. The transition took much longer coming back than it did going.
Neither my spouse nor I was prepared for the culture shock we would experience returning to the country of our birth. Parenting in the States is a whole other ball game, and we are still getting our bearings.
We also underestimated how difficult it would be for our son, who had only been here once when he was 7 months old. Despite our best intentions and what we thought was good preparation, it was a hard landing for all of us.
Thankfully, things are starting to change and we’re all feeling comfortable and content and present. It’s been three months of feeling in between two places, with daily (and sometimes hourly) utterly heartbreaking questions from our little one about when we will be returning home to Seoul. And of course, now that we’re all settled, our baby is due to arrive any day, throwing all of our new comfortable routines out the window. Such is life, right? Constant change with all of us just trying to keep up with as much dignity and grace as we can muster.
I find myself filled with unanswerable questions about how life will be with a new baby. Will I have enough time with my firstborn? Will our relationship change? Will I ever have time for myself or my spouse or our relationship? Will my body recover? What will it feel like to be the mother of two? Am I ever going to find my parenting tribe here? And on and on and on.
If I’ve learned anything from the times I’ve lived abroad it’s that unknowns eventually become known and in the meantime, you just make it work. Life will be what it will be.
My husband’s paternity leave has already begun so this morning we all walked down to the Farmer’s Market. It’s one of those perfect Pacific Northwest days with sun and breeze and Mt. Rainier looming. As we drank our hibiscus tea and nibbled on some vegan tamales, all the while surrounded by the heady fragrance of freshly cut bouquets of lilacs, I felt completely at peace, perhaps since the first time since we’ve stepped off the plane.
You know what that means, right? Come on baby. We’re ready.
This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Ms. V. who we are happy to announce at the time of this posting has given birth to her families’ new addition. Both baby and mom are doing great!
Do you sometimes feel like as soon as you become settled in a routine in life, something inevitable changes creating a new variable?
*Photo uploaded from PotoBucket from Jawandapuck
Ms. V returned from a 3-year stint in Seoul, South Korea and is now living in the US in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her partner, their two kids, three ferocious felines, and a dog named Avon Barksdale. She grew up all over the US, mostly along the east coast, but lived in New York City longer than anywhere else, so considers NYC “home.” Her love of travel has taken her all over the world and to all but four of the 50 states.
Ms. V is contemplative and sacred activist, exploring the intersection of yoga, new monasticism, feminism and social change. She is the co-director and co-founder of Samdhana-Karana Yoga: A Healing Arts Center, a non-profit yoga studio and the spiritual director for Hab Community. While not marveling at her beautiful children, she enjoys reading, cooking, and has dreams of one day sleeping again.
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by Susan Koh | May 22, 2014 | 2014, Life Balance, Parenting, Singapore, Stress, Susan Koh, World Motherhood
As a mum, some days I need a reminder to have more joy in my life. Because if I were to describe how I feel these days, it’s exhausted, tired, cranky, stressed up with my tank running low on joy.
Sure motherhood is a joy. But there are days when it can be so tiring and testing that its sucks the life out of me. It doesn’t help that my four-year-old is somehow just like me, stubborn and obstinate so when I go tough on her, it does nothing but make her comply.
Just last night, I had to raise my voice when my little one still refused to sleep at 11pm. No wonder no amount of miracle eye cream is working at erasing my panda eyes.
The truth about Motherhood is that it’s a relentless giving of self.
Without starting a working mum versus stay at home mum war, we all have untold stories of how it can be a struggle to juggle work, home, marriage and the kids. And like what I tell many people, work simply never ends. After 9 hours of work at the office, I clock in another good 4-5 hours of work doing the cooking, washing, playing, teaching, reading, mothering in general. And while there can be sweet moments, such as when my daughter shows me a picture she’s drawn for me or tells me stories about what happened in school. There is also the nagging because she simply don’t care for bedtime or the mess she creates after playing, painting, and, yes, when she refuses to sleep …
Yes, that’s motherhood, and it probably will be like that for a good 5, 10 or 20 years of life …
But I know that this is not just the story of my life. It is the same story for most mums, regardless, if you have one child or three! Many, like me, are probably dealing with bedtime woes, battles, sibling rivalry and don’t even get me started about the dishes and laundry that are threatening to topple.
I know I’m not alone. You are not alone, too. Even on days when it feels like you’re dragging your feet to get around from being so sleep deprived and when the kids are banging on the toilet door and all you want to do is hide inside.
You. are. not. alone.
So here’s a reminder
- Take deep breaths
- Catch cat naps
- Ask for help
- Do something you enjoy
- Have less stress and more joy by focusing on the long-term
I know it’s hard, that’s why most of us get so caught up in the day to day madness. But after hearing stories from those with grown up children, I think there is a silver lining…
As for sleep. Who needs it anyway…
Okay, I take it back, I need my coffee now!
How do you deal with the stress of motherhood? What are your tips to stay joyful?
This is an original post by Susan Koh for World Moms Blog. She’s loves to travel and blogs passionately about parenting, marriage and relationship and leading a healthy life at www.ajugglingmom.com.
Photo credit to the author.
Susan is from Singapore. As a full-time working mom, she's still learning to perfect the art of juggling between career and family while leading a happy and fulfilled life. She can't get by a day without coffee and swears she's no bimbo even though she likes pink and Hello Kitty. She's loves to travel and blogs passionately about parenting, marriage and relationship and leading a healthy life at A Juggling Mom.
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by Ruth | May 15, 2014 | Motherhood, Parenting, Ruth Wong, Singapore
I am not sure about you, but I find motherhood challenging – more so than any job I’ve ever had.
In the early days, I was often worrying about not being a “good enough” mom or making terrible mistakes in my parenting.
As time goes by, I began to gain greater confidence with my role as a mom. What really helped me though, was finding my own mantras that enable me to focus on what’s important, keep me grounded and lessen the stress, and frustrations.
My mommy mantras
1. This is just a phase.
It is hard when we are going through them, but many of the challenges we face in bringing up our kids are just passing phases as part of their growing up. From breastfeeding, dealing with numerous waking up throughout the night, to the seemingly endless diaper-changing and toddler tantrums, I’ve come to realize, and take comfort in the knowledge that these trying times don’t last forever. It’s true when other moms tell me “This too will pass.”
2. I don’t need to compare or compete.
Motherhood is not a comparison game. Neither is it a competition. I keep reminding myself that while we encounter similar challenges as moms, we are ultimately different because of the unique combination of our personalities, social, cultural, and professional backgrounds. Comparing or competing with another will not make us better moms. What matters is that we give the best we can to our children. Keeping this thought in my mind really helps to remove unnecessary stress I might have placed upon myself.
The same thing goes with comparing kids. As hard as it is, we should really stop comparing our kids with other children or even among siblings. Each child is special and unique, and that’s what we should focus on. Look for the gifts and talents that lie in each one of them and help them to blossom into their best selves.
3. Focus on what’s done well.
Instead of feeling bad about our parenting misses, focus on what’s done right or done well and do more of them. When we focus on the negative, we feel stressed and discouraged. So instead of putting ourselves down, give ourselves a pat on the back and celebrate how far we’ve come as parents, and the good we’ve done. It will motivate us to do better.
4. Enjoy more, worry less.
I was on a flight to Hong Kong with my then one-and-a-half year-old son and chatted with a female passenger next to me who left me a piece of advice. “Enjoy your son,” said the mom of grown up kids. What? Enjoy my son? I was at a point where I was struggling as a mom and didn’t get it at first. But slowly, it dawned on me what a great piece of advice it was. Instead of getting frustrated by my boy’s mischief or worry about 101 things that may not even happen, I can choose to relax and focus more on enjoying the relationship with him. At the end of the day, it’s the relationships with our kids that matter.
5. My needs are as important as my family’s.
As moms and women, we tend to be sacrificial and put our needs last. No wonder we often feel exhausted and unappreciated. If our needs go unmet for too long, we may even begin to resent our kids and spouse.
Reminding myself to honor my needs and make time for myself to rest, to do things I enjoy and to pursue my dreams, I am ensuring that I stay sane, happy and fulfilled. Guess that’s one of the best gifts I can give my family.
How about you? What other mommy mantras do you live by?
This is an original World Moms Blog post by Ruth from Mommy Cafe of Singapore.
The image used in this post is credited to Sura Nualpradid and downloaded from freedigitalphotos.net
Ruth lives in Singapore, a tiny island 137 kilometres north of the equator. After graduating from university, she worked as a medical social worker for a few years before making a switch to HR and worked in various industries such as retail, banking and manufacturing. In spite of the invaluable skills and experiences she had gained during those years, she never felt truly happy or satisfied. It was only when she embarked on a journey to rediscover her strengths and passion that this part of her life was transformed. Today, Ruth is living her dreams as a writer. Ironically, she loves what she does so much that at one point, she even thought that becoming a mom would hinder her career. Thanks to her husband’s gentle persuasions, she now realises what joy she would have missed out had she not changed her mind. She is now a happy WAHM. Ruth launched MomME Circle, a resource site to support and inspire moms to create a life and business they love. She has a personal blog Mommy Café where she writes about her son's growing up and shares her interests such as food and photography.
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