Celebrations

I have not been feeling well. I really wanted to tell you earlier about all the important things that happened the last few weeks. That we have a new King. That Linde turned four and started primary school. That we, the Dutch expat community in Singapore, celebrated for days, clad in orange, showing the locals just how crazy we can be. That we watched the coronation in a champagne bar downtown, that served free hutspot (potato and carrot stew) as a barsnack. That the kids emptied their piggy bank to raid the kids free market at the Hollandse Club. That our new tv communicates with the computer, and showed the coronation again, on Sunday morning, on the big screen, and together with the kids we again admired beautiful Queen Maxima, in royal blue, with the three little princesses. Real princesses, with blond tresses, but miles away from the plastic Disney variety, with plump cheeks, yawns, and so much more real and perfect in all their imperfections.

So much festivity yet I, since I was not feeling well, could not really join in, not as much as I would have liked. Off course, feeling off is never an excuse for the mother of a little girl that turns four and needs a party. Nor for that of a five year old who has been promised that his mama will help out at the school with the old fashioned Dutch games. Nor the two year old who wants it all.

So I organised the party, where the children made their own crowns, decorated cupcakes, dressed up as little princes and princesses, played, played and played, sang Happy Birthday in two languages, and ate home baked strawberry cake. We went to shop for Linde’s present, her new bicycle without stabilisers, and there were tears because, mean, mean mummy did not want to buy the Disney princess one. It was just one princess too far.

At the new school there was a party too, where queen Linde sat in the circle on her blue throne, demure and a little shy, the red paper crown with the big cardboard 4 perched on her blonde hair. Treats were handed round, the same popcorn bags we made for the farewell party at the preschool the week before, and no, I was not allowed to pick her up. Her majesty would take the bus home. When asked how it was, this second day at school, she answered it was fun. Pressed for details she shouted, I told you it was fun, and ran up the stairs to fetch her new princess dress.

When I saw my consultant, at the private Singaporean hospital that looks more like an expensive hotel, and told him the recovery after my surgery took so much longer than expected, he was not surprised. Rest, he recommended. So now I am resting, that is, lying on my bed resting all of my body but the tips of my fingers tapping away. The parties are over. The princess is back at school. The queen will take her beauty sleep now.

Running the Wall

Today I share with you a story that is not my own, but that of my friend Joyce. With a group of friends she will brave one of the great challenges of Asia: the Great Wall of China Marathon. And she asks for your help. Because they do not only run for themselves, they run for charity. They 'Run for Rett'

Please read Joyce's story below and help, if you can, her niece Chelsea and girls like her who suffer from Rett Syndrome, a rare disease affecting little girls all over the world.

Great Wall Charity Challenge: ‘Run for Rett’

On May 18th 2013, Nienke, Jetteke, Anneloes, Jolanda, Judith, Saskia, Peronne and Joyce, all Dutch expats in Singapore, will be running the full, half and quarter marathon on the Great Wall of China. A physical challenge for all of us. 

We started training together in August last year, just for fun, because we wanted to enter the Run for Hope (3,5 or 10 km) in November. Some of us had never ran before, most of us had a little or more experience.

During training we discovered not only that running was good exercise, it also was 'gezellig' (that weird Dutch word for ‘fun’) to train together. To give us goal to run for, we decided to go to Beijing for the Great Wall marathon. We did not exactly know what we were getting ourselves into. The Great Wall Run does not only mean running a long distance, it also means climbing approximately 2600 steps. For Anneloes, the only one who is doing the full marathon, it means climbing almost 5200 steps!

This means we need two kinds of training: Running and climbing steps. On Monday nights we run in the Botanic Gardens, and on Friday mornings we practice climbing steps. We go to Kent Ridge Park, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Labrador Park, Mount Faber Park, or just go to a high building to run up the staircase.

Is that fun? Not always, it is hard work and it can be boring. But putting on some music whilst working out, doing it together with friends, and having a goal to work towards really helps. Your body needs quite a lot of training to get used to running long distances, and if you keep going and build it up carefully, you will find you can do so much more than you thought.

Next to the physical challenge, our run has a purpose attached to it: we intend to raise a vast amount of money for little girls with Rett Syndrome. Joyce's niece, Chelsea (16 years old), suffers from Rett Syndrome and is pictured below.

Rett Syndrome is a rare but devastating neurological syndrome that strikes at random in early childhood, primarily affecting girls. The symptoms of Rett are severe, including autism, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's, epilepsy and anxiety disorders... all that in one little girl. Rett Syndrome Research Trust (RSRT) funds research to find a cure for Rett.

Amazing results have been achieved already. Rett syndrome has been proven reversible in the lab. Funding research for Rett will also provide us with invaluable information about more common disorders like autism, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis, which could be helping millions of sufferers all over the world. All funds raised by us go directly to RSRT, as the running team covers it’s own expenses.

And we need your support! We are proud that Nike will sponsor our shirts, and that we have found companies that are supporting us (like Flow traders, Finder Financials, Van Oordt, and more to follow). The Chinese press is being contacted to cover this run for promotion and awareness campaigns on Rett Syndrome.

If you would like to donate to our cause, please visit our firstgiving page to make your contribution. Alternatively, you can donate the money on RSRT’s website https://secure.rsrt.org by referring to ‘China marathon’ under the heading ‘dedication’. Please note that payments can be made in US dollars only. 

For more information about Rett Syndrome and the work of RSRT, please visit www.rsrt.org

The help

Life in Singapore comes with benefits. Help. Cheap, all day, domestic help. The comfortable-off Singaporean housewife does not have to get distracted by laundry, mopping floors or getting groceries. She has time for the more important things in life. Like having coffee, with friends.

Whilst the kids relieve the small wooden shop in the corner of the living room of its wares, drive around the baby pram, or push over stacks of Duplo bricks, I pour another round of ice tea for their mothers. One of my friends wipes the sweat of her forehead. It is hot today. I hand around my homemade Dutch ‘ontbijtkoek,’ and my Australian, British and Indian friends taste and approve. We talk about baking. Cooking. And, before long, the help.

My Australian friend is looking for a new one. Her third. Why is she so unlucky? Either they cannot clean, don’t listen, or can’t control the kids. My other, Indian, friend, tells about her new helper, who worked for another Indian family for six years and promised to know all the ins and outs of complex Indian food. When my friend asked her to roll chapatti’s, the Philippina girl rolled her eyes. Where was the electric chapatti maker? The girl had no idea how to cook the vegetarian dishes my friend favoured, and she was considering a cooking course.
Cooking courses for helpers abound in Singapore, to teach Chinese, Western, Korean or Japanese food, to any employer’s fancy.

My British friend sighs. There won’t be a course in the world to help my helper, she says with a shake of her head, she managed to burn boiled eggs. We all nod, ready to carry on, share more stories, but my friend cries, no, really, literally. The girl let the eggs boil for hours, until the water was gone and the pot black with soot. 
But, my friend shrugs, she is great with the kids.

Complaining about the help. I have heard worse, far worse. These conversations can make me feel uncomfortable, but are also just so human, showing clearly the old, colonial inequalities in this otherwise so modern city. The girls, usually from poor and remote villages in the Philippines or Indonesia, don’t always have much in common with their Chinese, Indian and Western employers.

I try not to, not to complain. But I am only human too, the weather is hot and the ice tea cool. My complaint? My Indah is too good a cook. And she enjoys it too. I had resolved to do this myself, really I had. But the tropical heat makes lazy and tired. The afternoons are full of football, ballet and swimming lessons, and cooking time for dinner inconveniently coincides with bath and bedtime. So when Indah asks, with hope in her keen eyes, what she can cook tonight I let her, save in the knowledge that it will be good and tasty and requires no effort on my side. Not even the dishes after.

Every recipe I give her she will copy, faultlessly, better than I, who can stick to no command, ever could. Even my ‘why not something with aubergine and ginger’ gets tasty results.

We are best when we work and learn together, combining her Asian experience and excellent chopping skills with my western and technical food knowledge. She chops, she suggests, I google and I mix, all the flavours of the globe. Together we create real fusion food. We are a good team, my Indonesian helper and me. 

Indah's fish in kechap

2 large white, soft fish fillets (we use Pangasius)

5 cm ginger

2 cloves garlic

1 large onion

red chilli to taste

sweet Kechap Manis (indonesian soy sauce)

Slice the onion in thin rings and chop the ginger and garlic fine. For heat you can use either the larger, milder red chilli's, which add both flavour and colour, but if you like a bit more of a punch you can also add some of the smaller, but hotter, thai chilli's. 

Heat some oil in a wok, and fry the onion, garlic, ginger and chili for a minute or so.  Then add the fish, and fry briefly. Add the soy sauce generously, around 3 to 4 table spoons should do it. Fry until the fish is tender, and add a few tablespoons of water if the dish threatens to get too dry.  

The most beautiful playground

We felt it was time to immerse our young children in a dose of Asian culture, and booked five days in Cambodia to see the famous temples of Angkor Wat. Later, not until we were packing, we leafed through our guidebook, noticing that April is known as the ’killer’ month, with temperatures easily topping the forties.

A touch of heat won’t scare us, and we take off early, having been up since five anyway, thanks to Jasmijn, our lively two year old. The early morning air is cool and sweet. Mr Ouch, our trusty tuk tuk driver awaits, to chart us around in his cart. The tuk tuk has two red benches, behind a small motorcycle. With the hot wind in our hair, red dust everywhere, we attempt to keep small hands and penguins on board all week.

Over a wide bridge we enter Angkor Wat, and its beautiful park, through impressively ornate gates. Tijm scrambles onto a pile of sandstone blocks. ‘Come on Linde, let’s climb!’
The temples, with their galleries, steps and towers are great for clambering and roaming. The most beautiful playground in the world.

We all climb higher, winding up to the towers, and around every corner it gets even more beautiful. We admire bas-reliefs and statues, carved in sandstone almost a millennium ago. Dancers with elegantly curved fingers, grimacing lions, enigmatically smiling Buddha’s. I point at at immensly steep stairs, leading to the top of this part Buddhist, part Hindu temple. So steep children are not allowed to climb, and I read aloud from the guidebook; that they are so steep, because the road to god is hard to follow. 

‘Why is the road to god so hard?’ asks Tijm.
I sigh and think. ‘Because you get to god by being good,’ I suggest, ‘and because for most people it is easier to be naughty.’
Tijm nods, and I am happy he asks no further. Not today. Not on this inspiring site.

The next day, at a side temple of the Bayon in the Angkor Thom complex, we see more stairs, equally steep but not so long. No sign or fence is to be seen, and Tijm just has to go up. Linde follows, and when she returns Jasmijn, only just two, sings ‘now me too, daddy.’
When she is safely back on solid ground a group of Korean tourists applaud her, Jasmijn posing proud for their flashing Ipads. The Koreans laugh, but don’t dare mount themselves.

Tijm and Linde have moved on, on top of a pile of rocks. 
I run, before accidents happen, to the kids or the thousand-year-old building.
‘Come on, mama,’ Tijm shouts, ‘I am at level three already.’
Not long after we all reached level thirteen and it is game over. The most beautiful game we ever played.

We see more temples, many more, every morning until the heat gets too much and Mr Ouch tuk tuks us back to our hotel with the little pool in the courtyard. There we wait out the heat of midday, until it is time for a quiet tuk tuk ride and sample Cambodian cuisine.

After much more climbing, over tree roots and stones, sauntering, dangling from lianas, it is not until the last day they sigh, please, no more temples. Enough.
Too tired to walk in the heat our tuk tuk drives us around for a final tour, round and round, until we saw it all.

Then we are back at Siem Reap airport for the flight home. We saw so much. We climbed so high. The best part of the holiday? 
The kids exclaim, unanimously: The tuk tuk, off course.




And now I assume you want to see pictures? Check out my Facebook page!

A hare and a hundred eggs

In contrast to Christmas, which is widely embraced by Singaporeans, who will take any excuse for a shopping spree, Easter has never really made it big in Asia.
Yes, the expat shops stock up on chocolate eggs and bunny’s, and the popularity of Easter brunch, brunch being another favourite local activity, is on the rise. But that's about it.
In the international expat community Easter traditions vary widely. Last year I tried to explain our Dutch ones to a friend.

‘Painting eggs?’ my British girlfriend asks, intrigued. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Simple,’ I tell her, ‘you boil the eggs. And then you paint them. With water based paint, or felt tip pens. Or you boil them in special Easter egg paint.’
She shakes her head. ‘And what do you do with these eggs?’
‘On Sunday morning the Easter Bunny comes, or, actually, as we call it, the Easter Hare. It just sounds better.
I let her taste the sound of the word, ‘Paashaas’.

She smiles, and I continue, ‘He will hide the eggs, in the garden, or inside if it rains.’
Now she nods, understanding, Easter eggs hunts she knows. But the eggs are made of chocolate. Not of egg.
‘And what do you do with them, after?’
‘Well, you eat them, off course.’
‘Cold, hard boiled, and hidden eggs?’
She shudders. ‘You eat them?’
‘Sure. For breakfast. Or as a snack. For tea. Before dinner, or after. Late night. Whenever you feel like one. When we come back from a long walk on Easter Sunday we will all dash for the eggs. We eat them straight, out of our hands, with a pinch of salt.’
‘All hard boiled?’
‘Hard or soft,’ I explain, ‘my mother would colour code the eggs whilst boiling, and put details on a list. Yellow for soft, blue for hard, orange half soft, red half hard. And so on.’
She is flabbergasted. ‘And so on? How many do you eat?’
I hesitate. ‘Well. When I was young we used to paint a hundred. At least, often more. After Easter Monday breakfast they’d all be gone.’
With eyes wide-open she stares at me, stunned into silence.
‘But we had visitors too,’ I add. ‘Family. We always argued as the eggs were finished way too soon. And because your little brother would eat your favourite egg, the one you made an extra effort on, first.’
‘Wow.’
My friend is, suitably impressed.
I nod. I wonder, shall I admit my family is slightly eccentric, a bit mad. Shall I admit that not all Dutch families dye and eat a hundred eggs for Easter? That a dozen is the average?

‘To be honest,’ I start.
Across the room screaming starts. We sigh. We wander over, to where her daughter and my son roll in a violent embrace. When they are pulled apart, reprimanded and kissed, we get back to our tea. And our talk.

‘What were we talking about?’ she asks.
‘Easter,’ I say.
‘Ah yes. Have you finished your Easter Bonnets yet for the pre-school parade?’
Now it is my turn to look blank. For what on earth is an Easter Bonnet?

In the distance

We had a Dutch visitor, pale from winter. Sun was needed so we went to the beach. On the way, in the car, small drops splattered our windscreen. Staring at the sky we spied a touch of blue. We carried on.

To show our visitor, who only had one day, Singapore at a glance, we took the cable cars. The rain kept on dropping but in the distance blue kept gleaming so we parked the car, unloaded kids, towels, buckets and spades and divided ourselves under two big umbrella’s. Over Mount Faber’s ridge we walked to the cable car station. Tijm and Linde jumped in every muddy puddle. Only Jasmijn stayed dry under her buggy’s cover.

High and dry in the little eggs we admired the view. We saw the pointy skyline of Singapore’s Central Business District, with papa’s office on the sixtieth floor of the tallest tower. Deep below us the dark green of Mount Faber Park, with its scattering of black and white house where mama would love to live. Further on we count countless row of high-rise buildings. And more, as Singapore reaches for the sky. We saw the container port, with its cranes, where containers are stacked like flats in the HDB buildings.

In the distance, behind the clouds, the sea and resort Island Sentosa gleamed in the sun. Behind that, oil tankers, refineries, pretty or not, they provide Singapore’s as well as our own livelihood. And that of our visitor.

We sailed over a mall, a cruise ship, and a theme park, where we saw dolphins jumping, and kids floating trough slides in bright rubber bands, and then we arrived at our destination. Far away we could still see the blue. But on Sentosa it rained too.

We passed the Merlion, half lion, half fish, the Gaudi fountain, until we reached the beach. Tijm and Linde by now wetter than the sea. In the distance, above the sea, the sky was blue.

At the beach club COASTES, that looks like it’s on the coast of the cold North Sea, but with better food, where Dutch, French and British expats roam, it was busy. In the spitting rain children swam, their parents in the sand, under their umbrellas. The terrace, that is, the covered part, was full. We found a dry spot and Tijm and Linde and Jasmijn exchanged their wet clothes for their dry swimwear. Not long after, those were wet too.

We had a coffee, some lime juice, and looked at the sky. In the distance it remained blue. Every one stared with us, thinking it would clear, thinking we’ll endure. Tijm, Linde, Jasmijn and papa dived in the waves. They were wet already and the sea was warm.

Now and again the sky brightened, but the sun never came. One by one the families left. When the thunder roared, the sea, and not much later the terrace, emptied. We ate some fries and gave in.

With Tijm in a towel and Linde in my pareo we took the monorail to the cable car station. It dribbled. In the distance blue gleamed.

In the bus

Every morning she packs her bag, sticks her water bottle inside, and hoists it on her back. Together with Tijm and Linde she climbs down the stairs, sits her bag by the fence and plays. Scooting, cycling, running or chatting we wait, every morning, with all the neighbours and their kids, for our respective school buses. When we see the orange-white-blue Dutch school bus appear around the corner Tijm and Linde get their bags, their cool boxes, their bus passes and they board. Jasmijn follows. The bus auntie laughs, sits her in a chair. We laugh too, we wave. And, before the bus takes off, we lift Jasmijn out.

She was not yet two, she couldn’t go. She was furious.

Her birthday arrives, Jasmijn turns two. Jasmijn starts pre-school, two mornings a week. I drop her off. The first morning she clutches my leg, firmly. But I stay, and Jasmijn starts a jigsaw, turning to me after each piece, checking I am still there. When the gym class starts she can no longer resist, she runs and climbs, ignoring me proudly. The next day she waves to me at drop-off, bye mama, and runs off to play. When I come to pick her up she is walking in line, with the other kids, on their way to the buses, and I whisk her off just in time. The week after again she is ready, by the bus.

Now she was two, but she still couldn’t go. She was furious.

I drop her off in the car. Such a little girl, in such a big bus. In the Netherlands kids will cycle to school from an early age, but school buses are unheard of. A child’s comfortable level of independence is relative to what it’s parents know and trust. But there is more. I want to be involved, see and feel the school, chat to teachers and other mums, the things I miss with my older kids. I love to have the time to myself, not to spend half the day in the car, collecting my kids at those inconveniently different hours. But still. So independent, so young? I am not sure.

Jasmijn is. Two year olds are so extremely intense. Intensely annoying. Intensely cute. So small, yet so grown-up. Talking is toddler babbling, from half words to whole sentences, sometimes clear, sometimes frustratingly incomprehensible. Even though we do not always understand, Jasmijn knows exactly what she wants. Not to wear a nappy. Not to wear dresses but shorts. Tijm’s penguin. To watch Pippi Longstocking. She points, she shouts, she shoves, one way or another she makes sure we know what she wants. Large drops will spill from her eyes if she does not get it. The house will fill with cries, ten, twenty minutes if she must. She wants it, and she wants it now.

She wants to take the bus. So we give in, and she may. I never saw a toddler so happy, so proud, to board a bus. She waves at us from her window seat, next to big brother and sister. Papa and I, we wave back, we wave at the bus that takes our children away. Five, three and only just two years old.