The children literature (kinderboeken) museum in The Hague

 A couple of weeks ago, on the last week before I started working, we went to the Kinderboekenmuseum in The Hague* with Yu's best baby friends. It is such an amazing place. On the second floor, the section of the museum 'ABC met de dieren mee' is particularly great for toddlers and children up to 6 years old.

 Babies and small children follow the letters of the alphabet, through tunnels, holes and hidden paths that take them to rooms dedicated to characters of their favorite children classics, many of them Dutch (Nijntje, Pim en Pom, Kleine Ezel, Vos en Haas, Dikkie Dik, Kikker) but some others known internationally (The hungry Caterpillar, Elmer).

Babies can literally follow the path of the hungry caterpillar as he eats his way to become a butterfly. Elmer is a very big puzzle made of colorful wooden tiles. There is a frozen sea where icebergs represent letters and sentences and stories can be built.

The Nijntje room has a table where you can draw her with the aid of stencils engraved on the wood itself, a slide takes you inside her corner; there is a bookshelf and puppets at the cave of Vos en Haas. 

Yu liked it so much that we went there once again, as the first time was so fun, but also so overwhelming that we did not have the chance to explore all the rooms. Both of the times she had a blast. If you are visiting The Hague and you are traveling with small children, you should not miss this place, particularly if you are experiencing typical Dutch weather (gray, windy and rainy).

*(Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5, very close to the train station Den Haag Centraal).

What's up with all the added sugar in infant cereals?

The other day, as I was walking through the aisles in a Mexican supermarket, trying to find a baby-cereal to mix with baby Y's fruit I was shocked at the lack of "healthy"options. By healthy I mean free of added sugar. But there I was, reading the labels of the major brands offered for infants: Gerber , Nestum (Nestlé) and Cerelac. I almost lost my sight and I could not believe what I read, but regardless of the fact that the packagings claimed the cereals contained: "no artificial flavours or preservatives"and looked very natural if you were to believe the impression they made, with the brown and beige rustic looking bag, every one of these cereals contained circa 5 grams * of sugar in a 15 gram portion of cereal. What!!! That is 33 % of sugar content. Or, if you want to imagine it in a more graphic way, that is 1 spoon of sugar, per 3 spoons of cereal. I just can not believe this is even allowed by authorities (though I am hardly surprised) but I am even more shocked at the lack of an alternative. **

I am with Jamie Oliver, disappointed, outraged, shocked. I feel,like him, that most of America*** "has been raped by multinantional corporations as they dominate the market with unhealthy products." Coca-Cola products are one thing, and a whole other subject, but these are babies we are talking about. This is the sugar lobbies working hard to perpetuate our sweet teeth, getting us hooked at the earliest possible stages. Again, like Jamie said: "Sugar's definitely the next evil. It's the next tobacco, without doubt". It can potentially "destroy lives, by causing obesity and illness". 

The problem is not sugar per-se, as it is all about learning balance, self-control, and of course, enjoying the pleasures of life (This blog is after all called Poppies and Ice Cream. I love ice-cream. Both the boy and I were nicknamed Cookie Monsters, enough said). The problem is highly-processed products, devoid of the fiber, minerals and other nutrients they originally contained. The problem perhaps most importantly, is the way those products act in our primate brains, the reactions they trigger. Evolution has not caught up with the abundance of food available to to those in most Western societies and so when our bodies find a product so sweet, so highly concentrated in glucose (or other sachharides) they say: "jackpot!", our survival instincts turn up to the max and go into a 'let's-store-all-of this energy-in-preparation-for-those-days-where-food-sources-might-become-scarce' mode. And scarily, our taste buds and brains get used to this highly stimulating products and won't be satisfied with anything else, generating addiction, and a neurological reaction that has been compared to the high of certain drugs. ****

I wish this was not the case. I wish information could be available to everyone. I wish parents were at least offered a choice. It makes me so sad, particularly knowing the alarmingly increasing rates of obesity in Mexico.

*4.8 gr in 15 gr. to be precise

**Unless of course you do what I did, buying regular oatmeal and grinding it in a food processor.

*** (America, the continent)

**** Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent excessive sugar intake. Nicole M. Avena, Pedro Rada, Bartley G, Hoebel. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2008; 32(1): 20-39. 

World Prematurity Day

When our dear daughter was born 6 weeks early, it took us completely by surprise. The hospital bag wasn't ready, we hadn't yet put on the plastic mattress protector on our bed, my mom still had to arrive and I had big plans for washing her clothes and preparing all kinds of food to be frozen. She didn't have socks or a towel and we had no diapers.

All of those things and the ones I don't remember ended up being secondary and not very important (except for my mom, who was able to change her flight and arrive 3 weeks earlier than planned).

But the excellent medical care baby Y. received during the first three weeks of her life was crucial and we will forever be grateful for every neonatologist, pediatrician, nurse, lactation expert and staff member of the hospital where she was born. The support we received, the patience when answering to my endless questions, the knowledge and savoir-faire when it came to her first days is something we can never thank them enough for.

Today is World Prematurity Day. I thought I would share some information, only raising awareness will more babies be saved.

 

For some reason I can not set the infographics to appear larger, but if you follow these links you will be able to read them:  National Premmie Foundation and BioMedCentral

Londoners (and Peace camp at Parliament Square)

 I just very recently finished reading: "Londoners: The days and Nights of London Now -as told by those who love it, hate it, live it, left it and long for it" by Craig Taylor. It is written as a set of stories of all kinds of people, rich and poor, native and immigrant, women and men, talking about London. People who work at pubs, or in the stock market; a young man who started living in the city amongst the homeless and had to sleep at a park. The girl whose voice you hear announcing your next stop at the underground station. Those who came to the city from far and close... As with people, I guess, some stories were very easy to read and relate to, and I found others more difficult. But it really gives a perspective of the life of the city. One of my favorite stories was that of Barbara Tucker, protester at Parliament Square. Brian Haw started a peace camp at the famous square, just outside Westminster Abbey in 2001, exposing the consequences of the UK and US foreign policy. He became a symbol of the anti-war movement, and the camp lasted for 12 years of peaceful protest. "Protesters had planted crops in the square, including lettuce and carrots. There was a kitchen with drinking water in the Peace Camp". I just learnt that, sadly,  the last tents were removed this May, so I consider myself lucky that we actually saw the camp on its last months this January. Here's an excerpt of her story, from the book:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barbara Tucker / Protester.

"I always say, every single building around here should be covered with the truth. It should be all over the place, you know? Then they'd soon stop, wouldn't they? Because what I've noticed is, they don't mind doing what they're doing, but they really don't do shame. What they're doing is really shameful. It beggars belief. You have to share that truth. The dynamic is brilliant here, because the global community of people come past, and we're giving them the opportunity to learn as much as they want. Not only to give you information , but to show you that yes, you can challenge your government. Yes, you can say no. The people who are suffering and dying will never be forgotten. while we're here. You know? And if that was happening to your family member, you'd want somebody to speak out about wouldn't you, really? 

I say to people, 'Welcome to Westminster Village. The only thing we do well is making a killing out of the suffering of others'. I've been arrested thirty-nine times in five years. I've learnt that if you cannot stand your ground in a public space to tell the truth without violence, you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. It's those in the government who duck and dive, and run and hide behind their gate, the weapons, the cheap sound bites in the TV studios and the corrupt courts. Some nights when they have a late night getting out I stand here with the loudspeaker and I say to them, as my little bedtime story: you are going to spend the rest of your miserable lives looking over your shoulders, checking your holiday itineraries, cos' whether it's ten years, twenty years or thirty years from now, you know, people will hunt you down, bring you to justice- we're not saying we're going to murder you or slaughter you, but we'll bring you to justice and change the systems that have allowed this to happen where human life is not protected. It's my little bedtime story. It's like, go to sleep with that one.

I've got 'Arrest war criminals' or 'Stop killing children' or other banners. They've got big tough machine guns. Protecting what? It just wakes up people. (...) We are in the belly of the beast, really. We're surrounded. I say to people who pass by, I say on the loudspeaker, as long as this country will want to occupy other countries, then we're occupying Westminster Village. We will occupy your minds, your time, your money, to remind the thousands of people that work in Westminster, that all you do is perpetuate the lies of this government that lead to the suffering of innocent civilians. And that when 90 per cent of the casualties of these legal wars are affecting civilians, it can't be war.

(...) 

If we're going to have a normal world, let's bring people together. Because they try and portray it, 'Maad people over there', because that's the game, isn't it really. 'They're mad over there'. Let's make it as hard for you to go over there and discover that actually it's quite interesting, you know, who's doing what. I'd love to see this open, you know, as a sort of people's square. It's got to be kept open for everyone. What's the point of having a square if there's no access to it? It's got to be the people's square you know. It should remain with the people for ever. "

Serve the city Den Haag

 I am always in awe at Fiona's kindness and wise words. She is a living example of how to make a difference in your community, an expert at showing how little gestures, like simple company, massaging someone's hands or bringing cake or flowers to a friend at a random moment can make a huge difference. We never know what each of us is going through at any given moment and the little things can bright up anyone's gloomy day. When she wrote about an oganization called "Serve the City" I knew I had to find it. And I did. Last weekend we joined one of their programmed activities, helping out at Sacrament's Church. Since January, about 25 asylum seekers, mostly Iraqi Kurds, are staying at the Sacrament Church in The Hague. The Ministry of Security and Justice confirms that these refugees would not be forced to leave the country.

 The tasks consisted in helping these men and women with a couple of handyman jobs to make the lives of them easier in the church. I never realized, but a church can be a very very cold place. At this moment, there is a common area that is well warmed (where they have a TV and even a playstation), but most of the people are sleeping in the main hall. At this moment they are building some rooms with simple insulation so that they can be warm at night. I brought 2 boxes of muffins (that everybody loved, I was glad to see) and as soon as we arrived we found ways in which to make ourselves helpful.

Churches can be very dark places. As soon as we got there, the boy, electrical engineer that he is, took his Voltmeter out, opened the electricity boxes and figured out if all was working. Then, with some other people involved in lighting up the place, he worked in setting up a connection to light at least half of the church.

I was worried I was not going to be able to do anything, as I am not handy at all and DIY-ing is not something I am good at. But we quickly found out that the kitchen was disaster area: all the cabinets were mixed, dusty, and it seemed everything had just been thrown in at random. So, together with another girl,  we took everything out, washed dishes, cleaned the cabinets and organized it in a logical manner. It does not seem like a lot, but it took us some 4 hours. The rest of the time was spent sharing lunch that some other volunteers had brought with the refugees and talking about their countries, what they miss, their dreams.

The boy, who takes every project as a challenge, and as soon as something needs to be fixed absolutely has to solve it, is already figuring out how to help out to optimize the lighting (on the other side). It felt good to be able to help, if on rather small ways, to their comfort.  And it all made me think on how arbitrary borders are, as men have been migrating since the dawn of times, and everyone should be free to move as they please, more so when faced to war or other situations that I can not even begin to imagine. It made me think of how, in the middle ages,  churches actually used to be places of refuge for people on long journeys.

Blog crush: Sarah Britton of My new roots

 I have a long, pending post on how we have been trying to eat healthier, on the things we have been doing for that purpose (like trying to minimize sugar and meat, and completely avoiding fish). I am thinking, now that I finally finished reading "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer, I should really put all my ideas in one place. It is a complicated and confusing topic because it is very personal and I do not like the preachy, radical, absolute tone *some* vegans adopt. Then, I do really feel like I want to talk about it, but if I do I am afraid of becoming like that. So when I found Sarah Britton's blog, 'My new roots', I knew I was in good company, just read how she describes herself:

<<A lot of people want to know “what I am” – vegetarian, vegan, raw foodist, fruitarian, macrobiotic…guess what? I am a person who eats! My food philosophy is this: I hate labels. They stink. They force a person to define themselves with very rigid terms, and beat themselves up if they suddenly eat something that doesn’t fit that definition. I know I never want to have to label what “kind” of diet I subscribe to. Being dogmatic about anything, for me, just doesn’t work. Being flexible does. I eat almost entirely organic food. My diet consists mainly (like, 99%) of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds. I probably eat an egg once every couple weeks if the mood strikes me, and sometimes I will enjoy some goat or sheep dairy in very small amounts. You’ll even catch me nibbling on a freshly caught fish once or twice a year at our summerhouse (if I know where it came from, who caught it, and that it was killed humanely, I’m game. Why not? There is nothing like a fish straight out of the ocean!) The only label I’ll slap on myself is “whole-food-lover”. Nothing makes me feel better, think better, and look better than whole foods! And the big bonus? I never count calories or worry about my weight because I know that if I eat this way, my body will be in a perfect state of balance and health, naturally.>>
 
 Her TED talk, one change, is really inspiring. And I absolutely love her blog because she actually explains all the nutritional benefits of the ingredients and foods she uses on her recipes from a scientific point of view (she is not only a chef, but a certified nutritionist). Her happy, poppy personality is contagious and she really makes you want to make those little changes. Right now. Today. Which is why, for those of you in The Netherlands, I was super excited to find out she will be coming to give some classes in April. 

* this is not a sponsored post, I just really felt compelled to share this goodness. I think it is information everyone should have available.

Istanbul, the city of cats.

On the first night that we spent walking in the small streets of the old Istanbul, Sultanahmet, we were greeted by numerous cuddly locals that would come to our feet and begged to be petted. We realized the next day, as we walked through other neighborhoods in the city, that cats were waiting for us in every corner, even inside the monuments. There was one in Haghia Sophia who started doing that bread-kneading movement on my lap as soon as I kneeled to caress it. Another one in the large patio of the Blue Mosque was the main star, getting all the attention while basking in the sun.

 At some point, when I was so out of breath because I couldn't take the overwhelming heat any longer, we decided to rest a bit inside the Sirkeci train station. There, waiting for us, and actually laying on a seat was another feline, carefully grooming himself. As soon as he was finished, and noticing that I was not moving, he slowly pressed against me, as a test, I assume, after which it came to lay on my lap and slept there for a while, purring like a train while I petted him. I didn't want to leave.

There was even a cat in one of the many Turkish ceramic and souvenir shops, comfortably laying in a hand-painted plate, and I am certain, increasing the sales of the shop, just by being cute. We passed said shop several times and he was always there, laying here or there. It struck me how much the Turkish actually love these cats. You can see little bowls of water and food left for them in the street and, something rare in stray cats, they looked unusually healthy (shiny hair, bright eyes) and were hyper sociable, as in, they seeked human contact and would follow you around.

 I can not stress enough the importance of sterilizing pets, and for anyone who is in doubt, a visit to the local animal shelter should do the trick. However these cats just seemed loved by the society as a whole. It was a sight that made me happy.

Mara Hoffman and cultural appropriation.

I have been pondering whether or not to write about this for more than a few days, in fact, ever since I saw this beautiful dress on a pinterest board. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that this was something that had to be talked about. After a few mouse clicks I found out that the designer behind the pretty dress was Mara Hoffman and that there is in fact a whole line of clothing with these patterns:  swimsuits, bikinis, coverups, pants...

As a Mexican, I recognized these designs straight away: they come from traditional embroidery works, handmade by the Otomi people, in the small town of Tenango de Doria, Hidalgo (which is also why these textiles are also sometimes referred to as Tenangos). The origin of this specific tradition is neatly summarized in this article, from where I took this excerpt:


"Many motifs common to tenangos are believed to be inspired by the ancient wall paintings found in nearby caves. There are also similarities between tenango embroidered patterns—such as the depiction of plants, animals and natural forces—and the designs found in the cut-bark paper craft known as amate, practiced by Otomí shamans for thousands of years."

The truth is, these textiles represent not only expert craftmanship, but are also a means of cultural expression, a reflection of their particular cosmovision that goes back to times immemorial. We are facing an art form in its own right:

"Tenangos evoke a spirit of magical realism, merging the real and the mythical. They provide a link to their storied past and a gateway to the future, providing a sense of cultural identity and a means of trading on the international stage. Like the collective memory of the Otomí, tenangos, in fiber and filament, preserve and perpetuate the history of the region and the traditions of the Otomí people."

Image by Teyacapan via here

Which is why I was enraged, and could not believe what I was reading when I saw the description of these garments in Mara Hoffman's website simply as: "colorful exotic animal print" or "colorful embroidered animal print". WTF !!! Where is the credit? Is this plain old plagiarism? I understand that fashion can be art, and that in art, inspiration comes from everywhere. But when that is the case, you should name your sources. As it seems, the patterns were just taken, calcated, directly copied. A matter of cultural appropriation in any case:

"cultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. It describes acculturation or assimilation, but can imply a negative view towards acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture.It can include the introduction of forms of dress or personal adornment, music and art, religion, language, or social behavior. These elements, once removed from their indigenous cultural contexts, can take on meanings that are significantly divergent from, or merely less nuanced than, those they originally held."

I can only hope that the designer will try and mend this, by giving proper credit and perhaps, more importantly, by contributing to the communities from which she stole took her ideas.

 Post edit This same plagiarism was done by Anthropologie, with  their Vanessa Virginia Folk Art Dress (that was soon removed from retail).

Most recently, the Spanish brand Mango also stole took these patterns for a pullover that they simply called "Jersey bordado floral" (no longer available, either).