Learning a new culture, by studying a language.

  This post was written as part of the Intercultural Blog Carnival that will take place on April 17. The aim is to provide advice and support for those just settling in a new country. This post is a short, general version of a post I wrote on what helped me learn Dutch.
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I have lived and studied in 4 different countries (5 if you count my birthplace) and understand 6 languages (4 in which I am fluent, 2 which I can manage quite well). Moving around has made it clear to me that learning the local language is a crucial part of understanding the new culture: it's not just the words, it's the philosophy, the cosmovision, the way of seeing life that you slowly start to understand, all of which are incredibly helpful in the process of adapting to a new country. You will probably end up as a citizen of the world, because every time you take a little bit of every place with you, you understand better, you see how similar we are, and how different at the same time.

Sure, there are countries where you can manage to survive speaking only English. But I can only recommend making an effort and going the extra step, you will not regret it and the locals will appreciate it. Here are some ways in which to tackle language learning, aside from the obvious and unavoidable lessons, which are inevitably needed to master such basic things as grammar and spelling:

 -Go to the local library or bookshop and get a good thick dictionary. I find conjugation dictionaries particularly helpful, and pictionaries are a nice extra for your collection. Then go to the kids’ section. As a start, children books can be a great tool. Try reading those before moving to literature in the language of your new country. And speaking of literature, I am a strong advocate of, when at all possible, reading authors in their original language. At some point I was naive/arrogant enough to buy Goethe's Faust in German because I thought I was going to learn in 8 months. I still own the book, but needless to say I haven't read it. And if I weren't reading translated authors I would have missed geniuses like Milan Kundera or Leon Tolstoi. At the moment, I am really curious to start reading Dostoievski.

-Get immersed in the culture. Watch TV. Listen to the radio. Read the newspapers. Visit museums and art galleries. Even seemingly "silly" stuff can help. Get a magazine subscription and try to read all of it, even if at the beginning all you do is look at the pictures. Search the TV guide and look for programs made for children, they tend to be simple and easily understandable. Find out your favourite music in the local language and try to write down the lyrics. If you have kids, learn children songs’ and sing along with them.

 -Don’t be shy and start talking. At first you’ll only be saying things like: “Thank you” and “Please”. Then, you will be able to ask for the bread exactly as you like it at the bakery and soon you will be talking to the people in your neighbourhood.

It might seem an overwhelming task, and it will for sure require time and effort. You will get frustrated. But slowly and surely you will start noticing progress and you will not regret it. Meeting new people, learning new cultures is an experience and an opportunity that, as an expat or traveler of the world you should not miss.

Ephemerous summer

And just out of the blue the sun decided to shine and warm us up. I am talking about 20ºC-celsius-degrees. The feeling was better than that of a holiday. Happiness was floating in the air. The boy and I went for a very long walk, there was light until 21h. I was wearing a sleeveless top and he kept looking at me like he had never seen me before. He says the sun changes me, that I was made for it. That I looked better, that I was glowing. I certainly was ecstatic to finally be able to take away the million layers of sweaters I have to wear or else I freeze.

Oh N-acetyl-methoxytryptamine, I love how you make us feel. Arguably the most primitive part of our brain, the pineal gland, evolutionary speaking as old as the lamprey eels (a group of jawless fish), is still going strong, still has strong effects over us.

Photo from Reuters via The telegraph.

And finally, finally, some flowers are starting to bloom and I saw some buds showing their faces at the end of long branches. A ladybug decided to sit in my hands for more than 25 minutes. I am not exaggerating. She stayed in my hand while I walked, she strolled over my hand, and then finally, she flew away. I am taking her as a definite sign. I might have given her a name. You can take this as proof that I am completely losing my mind.

I do recall, when I first arrived in Switzerland, how much it amused me the way this Europeans were obsessed with the sun, like ring-tailed lemurs, the sun worshippers, running, heading out, when according to me it was not even warm at all. Now I understand. Now I'm just like them, wearing my summer clothes as soon as I can, because it might be my last chance. Was it warm in your corner of the World? How did you enjoy the weather? *

** Second image: Melatonin's functions summarized adapted from Hardeland, R., Cardinali, D., Srinivasan, V., Spence, D., Brown, G., & Pandi-Perumal, S. (2011). Melatonin—A pleiotropic, orchestrating regulator molecule Progress in Neurobiology, 93 (3), 350-384 DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2010.12.004 via Ego Sum Daniel

A day in Sneek

Last Tuesday I was in Friesland for the first time in my life. I think other than Volendam it's the further North I have ever been. Going there was a last minute decision... a friend was staying over with us, the boy came home at 13h, and said: -"Hey, I have to visit a project in Friesland, I am driving there right now, wanna come?"- Of course we weren't going to miss the chance. It was a busy day, as in, it was Free Cone day and I was determined to get my free ice-cream. That meant on the way back we had to race to Leiden to get there on time (the Ben & Jerry's people were kind of late, so we made it). I do not regret making the detour to Leiden because, double bonus, we found out about Happietaria, a temporary restaurant that is raising funds to bring water and sanitation to Afghanistan. I think we will be going there sometime soon.

Sneek is famous for its watergate, and is part of the 11 states that take part in the mythic ice skating race linking different cities that has not taken place in I don't know how many years... because the canals just don't freeze anymore. 

"Sneek was founded in the 10th century on a sandy peninsula at the crossing site of dike with an important waterway (called the Magna Fossa in old documents). This waterway was dug when the former Middelzee silted up. The dike can still be traced in the current street pattern and street names like "Hemdijk", "Oude Dijk" and "Oosterdijk". Sneek received several city rights in the 13th century, which became official in 1456. Sneek was now one of the eleven Frisian cities. This was also the beginning of a period of blooming trade for the city that would last until about 1550. In 1492 construction of a moat and wall around the city began. In those days Sneek was the only walled city in Friesland. The waterpoort and the bolwerk remain today." (From our friend, the wikipedia). 

What have you been up to? Any exciting plans for the weekend?

The crowd waiting for free ice-cream. We tried the new flavor: Peanut butter me up, with raspberries, choc and peanuts.

Fiadoe. Surinamese rum-and-raisin rolls.

This is a recipe that the boy had been begging me to make for ages, except I was not able to really find a recipe I understood or trusted. However, knowing how I love to bake, the other day my mother in law brought me  a cookbook (De surinaamse keuken by Ilse Marie Dorff) that used to belong to the boy's grandma and showed me the recipe. It was a good exercise, trying to understand it (it was all written in "creols" style, that is: -'add a little bit of that, and do this until it resembles such and such'- What? I need precision). But I decided to experiment and the rolls did not come out bad at all. So I am sharing here the recipe with the slight modifications I made. There was an ingredient, succade, that I was not able to get hold off, so I just used orange zest instead. And I did not have rum, so I used cognac.

 Ingredients
7 gr (1 envelope) dry yeast
3 tbsp. sugar
250 ml. lukewarm milk
4 eggs
vanilla essence
250 gr. butter, softened (I left it out the whole day).
500 gr. flour

For the filling
150 gr. sugar
cinammmon, powdered ginger and nutmeg
250 gr. raisins, soaked in rum
The zest of 2 oranges
100 gr. finely chopped almonds

What to do
Mix the flour with the dry yeast. Beat the eggs with a drizzle of vanilla essence and the sugar (3 tbsp)  until obtaining a thick mixture. Add 2 tablespoons of butter. While mixing (I used the kitchenaid with the hook attachment at this point, but this is totally doable by hand) start adding the flour, little by little, alternating with the lukewarm milk as moisture requires, to form a dough. You know it's ready when the dough starts separating from the bowl (or from your hands), but it is quite a sticky dough. I did not need all the 250 ml of milk, it was more like... 200 ml?

Let the dough rise for about 1 hour in a warm place (until it doubles its size). I usually cover it with plastic foil or a damp cloth. In the meantime, for the filling mix the sugar, cinammon, powdered ginger, orange zest and almonds. Flour and grease a springform pan (I used a 10 inch / 27 cm pan). When the dough is ready preheat the oven to 220º C. Flour your hands and working surface and roll the dough (it might need a little bit of kneading, but it should be easy to handle if there is just enough flour around). Cut a circle of dough  the size of the bottom of your pan and cover it. Roll out the rest of the dough to a large square, spread butter all over it, then sprinkle some filling and raisins over it. Roll the square in spiral and cut little slices of it. Arrange the rolls in the spring form (if you have some extra rolls you could just bake them individually in a muffin pan).

 Let the rolls rise for another 20-30 min. Add a little bit of butter on top of each roll, and bake for 40-50 min. And that's it, you are ready to enjoy. If you'd like, at this point you can glaze your rolls (I would use a mix of powder sugar and orange juice) or soak them in syrup (rum infused syrup if you are being naughty).

Joy in the little things

In case you missed it, today I was honored to be a guest post at A practical wedding, writing about my journey these last 3 and a half years: life changes, unemployment, subfertility, and slowly, learning to find the joy in the little things. Here it is...

Public service announcement: Go get Ice-cream

In case you did not know... it is that time of the year. The day where you can get free ice-cream at Ben & Jerry's worldwide. If you are in the Netherlands click here to see in a map where you can get your free ice-cream (per province). The Ben & Jerry's at Amsterdam Centraal train station (on track 2a) has a shop that will be open. Otherwise, for the rest of the world,  here you can get more information. And, I absolutely love this video about the story of such a joyous day!