“Home isn't a place, its a feeling”

“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.” 

― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care


I am lucky.

I am lucky, because I have more than one place I can really call home.
I am lucky because I have people in many places I can call family.
I am lucky because I have friends, some since my tender childhood and some that came later in my life that never left my side, wherever we are in the World.
I am lucky I grew up in a beautiful countryside my children are able to experience every year.

Charles, my eldest friend and I, in my parent's garden.

When I moved to the Philippines, it was a natural move. I felt it was the next step I had to take. It was not hard, not heartbreaking, not challenging. Just natural.
I was not escaping a hard past, a relationship or a terrible country.
I was exploring and taking a step towards my independence and most importantly, I was making my own choice.
My parents raised us to be free to choose what we wanted to be (even though now, they may have doubts it was ever a good idea: it was, really).

Once I moved here, I never thought I could feel the need of coming back home.
I am happy here, I built my life here, grew my family here.
And even if I loved my country for the beauty of it, I left a country that was going through an economic crisis and where opportunities for people my age were not really great.

Playing at the park in France

I was never homesick. Just extremely happy to go home every year and enjoy great time with family and friends, amazing food and beautiful road trips. I was enjoying being a tourist in my birth country.

I felt like I had the best of both Worlds.
And I still do.

Once I gave birth to Alia though, things started to shift very slowly.
I rediscovered France with another eye.
I started feeling a pinch of homesickness every time I would think about something I used to do or eat at her age and how I wanted her to experience it.

Daddy Yo, Alia and Gaia in Anilao

The first two years of Alia's life, we kept going to France and visit only for a month. But when Daddy Yo went to work abroad for the first time, Alia and my pregnant self went to visit my parents. I was planning on staying a month but when complications with my pregnancy came, I had to extend another month. When it was time to go home, I realised it was the first time since I left my birth country that I stayed such a long period there. And on top of that, we did not travel around like the other years, we mainly stayed in the home I grew up in. It gave me a great amount of time to see friends and hang out with family.


When Daddy Yo went to work abroad for the second year, I thought: I really enjoyed being in France for two full months! Usually, we were only staying 4 weeks, travelled around for 2 full weeks and had very little time to see all the people we wanted to see. We would manage to squeeze in one dinner or lunch with every person we wanted to spend time with, which was not enough to really get to enjoy their presence and catch up with them.

So that second year, I decided to stay two months again. And the end of these two months came so quickly. Of course, it was awesome as we were going to visit Daddy Yo where he was working, so it was one more family adventure. But, all these trips and plane alone with two children wore me out. I went home exhausted and kept on being sick. Dengue virus was the last warning my body was giving me to make me understand I was tired and needed a little rest.

Playing in a wooden playground near a pond in France

This year, we took the decision to only go to France. No visit to Daddy Yo, which was a big and hard decision but a wiser one. And I asked my parents if they minded adopting me and the two girls for three long months. It felt amazing to be there. My mom was freshly retired so I had extra hands to help. My sister and I never had such a great bonding and she spent some great time with her two nieces. We got to spend so much time with my family and I got to spend much time with childhood friends, old and new friends. I even received, over a weekend, one of my very best friend who was visiting her in-laws from Australia. I have not seen her for 9 years and our children (who are the exact same age) met for the first time. They instantly became such amazing friends, it was heartwarming to see!


We had the opportunity to enroll Alia to kindergarden for the two last months of school year, so she could have activities and improve her french. Schools in France are free and mandatory so any child with a French citizenship is welcome anytime to join a new school. It has been a great experience for her! She is now speaking fluently in french to me, had a great time visiting the farm, playing with kids of the village where we live, getting to know the customs in France.

First day of school with warm clothes, new language, new classmates: Fun time!

School fair in Alia's school

I also spent some quality time with some very dear family members who are sick.
I may live on the beach and enjoy life where I am, but as an immigrant living far away from my own country, I am missing things out. This includes being present for your loved ones when they are going through hard time, sickness, problems, depression, or are just getting old. And it sometimes feels so heavy and challenging. I do sometimes feel like I am not fulfilling my role of friend, grand-daughter, cousin, niece...

 



We got to enjoy quality food, organic vegetables, good quality meat, amazing cheese. Food that I am not scared of putting in my daughter's body thinking of all the hidden antibiotics and GMO that might make them pubescent too early. Alia and Gaia took some poney lessons, rode the carousel endlessly, ran in the fields, went to the cinema to see beautiful indie children movies, visited a farm, baked with my sister, made a fire in the chimney when it was cold, jumped in the inflatable pool when it was hot, ran around and played with friends, mowed the lawn with their grand-dad, gardened and planted and watered flowers (and picked a lot on the way), played piano, learned how to behave in a restaurant, enjoyed food, food and more food, had a road trip in Switzerland to visit more family...

    

                                                        

I was also in France during a very painful time for all of us. Terror attacks.
The past ones that happened, I was in the Philippines. I felt lonely. It was just an awful event that had happened in the news for most people around me. And even if I could talk about it with Daddy Yo or a few other people, it kept on following me every second of the day for weeks.
It happened in my streets, to my friends, friends of my friends. I was far away. I could not hug them. I could not join the protests and the walks and reflect on what happened in the streets of the district I called home for 6 years in Paris.

A fire in the chimney to warm our hearts and soul

When the attacks happened on July 14th and a few days after again, it felt horrific and scary. But as weird as it sounds, I was surrounded by people who would talk about it and share my feelings. It did not drive me as crazy as the attacks of November and January 2015 because I could unload what I felt with people who felt the same way. I was there and I could share my pain. And my pain was lighter just by sharing it.

Yes, I have the best of both Worlds. And I want to keep it this way.
But it can also be challenging to jump from one World to another.
This is when you realise you can also be homesick for people.

The beautiful Eiffel Tower a few days after the attack in Nice, France.

Hiraeth

I come from everywhere and nowhere.

I call home a few places: Chartres, Paris, Boracay. And Algeria. But not the country of today; the one who used to be, long time ago, who is not anymore. The one I never knew and will never know.

According to Geiriadur, Welsh-English / English-Welsh dictionnary, "Hiraeth is a Welsh word for which there is no direct English translation. The University of Wales, Lampeter attempts to define it as homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past."

This is a concept hard to grasp yet a fascinating word all together.

How can one long for a home that was never home? A time one never knew?

It is hard to explain yet very real. I know this feeling well, actually. How peculiar it sounds, thinking about it.

My family is pretty big. And by this, I mean my direct and extended family. Yes, in my family, extended family IS family. Grand children of cousins are cousins. Great great uncles are uncles. Third degrees cousins are the same as first degree cousins. And some of my family members were patient and brave enough to research on the roots of our family and managed to go back as early as the 15th century.

And there we were, jews from Andalousia who went through the expulsion of all Jews of Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.

My family escaped to North Africa and settled in what is known now as the country of Algeria. 

They spent five century there. During the 20th century, France colonised Algeria and my great uncles fought for this foreign country during the First World War. My grand father was born way after them as my Great grand father had about 13 children (the last one was born when he was more than 70 years old).

The book "80 letters from Abraham Ben Meir to his
five sons mobilized during the war, 1914-1918."
by Andre Chouraqui. 

My grand father left his country to study and become a doctor in France. The second World War came and my grand-father worked in the French villages to help people. He met my grand-mother, a catholic young woman, daughter of a steel worker. She never really went out of her village, was years younger than him but was bolt enough to marry a Jew at the nose of the Nazi. 

Fortunately, a relative of my grand-father told him he was in a list of Jews supposed to be arrested. He had to plan a quick escape back to his home country. My grand-mother, young and very adventurous, followed him in the Free Zone in South of France, crossed the Mediterranean Sea and ended up in Oran, Algeria. 

Oran before 1962

Three children were born there. My mother was the youngest. They had a beautiful childhood. The sea was breathtakingly beautiful, they were living all together with their cousins, grand-mother, uncles and aunts. The sundays on the beach, grilling fish with the family. The seeds of fruits they were using to play marbles.

But when my mom was 4 years-old, the Algerian War started against the French. Nasty, scary. Every day, the impacts of bullets in the walls, the death threats in the street, the killings in front of anyone, anxiously waiting for my grand-father when the curfew started but he was still taking care of patients, the bombs. This one bomb that exploded right next to my mom while she was biking, throwing her on the ground while my grand-father ran to check if she was still alive.

Oran, 1962

When my mom was 12, they had to leave the country. The War was still going on and it was not safe enough to stay any longer as the Jews were attacked as well. As France colonised Algeria as early as 1830, my mom was born officially French. The easiest solution for them was to move to France. My mom was the first one to leave, joining my uncle who was married to a Swiss woman. She left everything behind, in the middle of the night. She could not bring her teddy bear, nor say goodbye to her friends. She left behind her mother, father, sister and brother who were older and had things to fix before leaving. 

She spent a trimester in Geneva at her cousins' before meeting her parents in Paris, their new home. Since then, our family is in France. I am part of the first generation of our family, born in France. And my children are already born some place else.

But to go back to this word, "hiraeth". I always felt my roots were in Algeria. I always felt part of me was so strongly North African. During family meetings, we will always talk about Oran, Ain Temouchent, Tlemcen, the towns and villages in Algeria where we are from. We would always cook the food from there. 

A beach in Ain Temouchent

Since many years, it's an untold custom in the family to try and find the perfect recipe of this orange pie my mom, uncle and aunt were eating when they were small, the one Madame Pedro was baking. None of us ever tried the original, but we talk about it almost like our own childhood memory. We heard them talk about their childhood so much, the fond memories, that this is also part of us. We miss it as much as they do. 

And it is sad because it is not a safe place anymore for us to go and visit. But it is home. My great grand-father, Abraham Baba Ben Meyer, old man with a white Sarwel and a headwrap like the Ottoman time, is buried there. As my great-grand-mother, Ramona.

This man on the photo, Baba, even my mom never met him. He was born in 1848 and died in 1929. He was speaking Judeo-arabic, a dead language today. But we talk about him as if we all knew him. And I carry this place and this people in me. 

Baba is inside each of us, standing proudly. He had a dozen of children, 54 grand-children, more than a hundred great-grand children. We stopped counting. 

My children are far from Andalousia, Algeria and France. They are born in yet another continent. But I do hope they will carry Baba inside them as much as we all do in this side of the family. Because it is home to me.

 

For you, the woman who does not want to have children

During a nice sunset session with dear friends, we started sharing about this subject as one of us was in that case. She is the woman who doesn't plan on having kids. No yet after the sentence. It is just not in her plan. Nor the one of her longtime boyfriend.

I really wanted to write about the subject until I tumbled upon that read. 

And I had to share it instead, as I won't be able to tell it better than her.

To The Women Who Choose Not To Have Kids


DEC. 21, 2013 By ABBY ROSMARIN

To the women who choose not to have kids, I have one thing to say: thank you.

You probably don’t hear it enough. In fact, you probably don’t hear it at all. What you do hear is an array of pro-childbearing responses, such as, “You’ll change your mind someday,” or, “Doesn’t your mother want grandkids?” or, “You’ll never find a husband if you never want to have kids.”


All things considered, “thank you” is probably on the opposite end of what you hear.


But seriously: thank you. Thank you for recognizing that childrearing isn’t for you and being true to who you are. It doesn’t mean you hate kids. It just means that raising one is not part of your path in life.

Thank you for not succumbing to the societal pressures. I’ve known far too many parents who had kids because that’s what was expected of them. Working in childcare, you see more of this type than you wish to see. The resentment is almost palpable. They love their children — at least, they have no choice but to love their children — but every single movement seems to scream, “I wasn’t meant for this.” I’ve known too many people who grew up with at least one parent who harbored that resentment, who let that resentment dictate how they parented. I’ve seen how that influenced the way these former children are now as adults, or even as parents themselves.

Thank you for not trying to compromise who you are in an effort to keep a partner around. Thank you for being honest and open and refusing to apologize for who you are. Everyone has different values. Everyone wants something different in life. It takes a lot of guts and confidence to say, “This is what I want in life. It’s not the orthodox way, but it’s my way.”

Thank you for not trying to silence that feeling in your gut as a means to validate your life. There are too many people in this world who cannot figure out their path — or have stumbled while walking down said path — and decided that maybe having a child could provide that meaning and definition instead. You understand that down this path lies vicarious living and hurt emotions and you recognize that there are so many other ways to find love and meaning and joy in your life.

Raising children is a difficult, onerous, frustrating, and disappointing gig. It’s tough enough for those who want it. It is a rewarding and loving gig as well, but it’s not something one should go into while focusing only on reward and love and societal acceptance. In this day and age, with a booming population in almost every country, it makes no sense to pressure every person to have a baby. But we’re sticklers to tradition, ritualistic to a fault.

So thank you. It’s not easy to stand firm with your belief. Honestly, truly, and genuinely: thank you. 

You can read her post, following this link :


http://thoughtcatalog.com/abby-rosmarin/2013/12/to-the-women-who-choose-not-to-have-kids/

Now, enjoy this time to travel, love and life your way.

It's been too long, my friends.

It's been five months since my last post.

Five long months filled with craziness and business (as in busy!).

Five months when we finally finished building our nest, moved in, went to France to visit my family, Alia grew up too fast, started a new job, survived the biggest typhoon that ever made landfall. 

There is so much to say. But I'm gonna make it short as I don't want to write a 3 volume book for the first time in so many months.

Finally being Home is the best feeling in the World. 

It was a long and hard process. And doing that on top of having a baby was crazy. Add the first year marriage and two massive and crazy puppies on top and you have the craziest year. 

But now, taking the time to fill it up with memories and decorating it is an incredibly nice feeling. 

It's like having a white canvas and infinite colors. And having an unlimited amount of time to do what you want and create your space.

We are almost done with our living room and are working on our room. 

Being able to welcome friends for dinner, organize play dates, hang out at home for days and build Alia a proper play ground is great. Even if Alia's favorite activity right now is to draw on the walls! Well, we have a left-handed artist in the house!

Alia had a blast in France and we had our first no-kids-three-days-date in Rotterdam.

 

She got to spend quality time with her grand-parents, play with her cousins, pick strawberries and raspberries in the farm, eat some freshly cooked food from Lola with the vegetables of the garden, help her Tatay and Lolo gardening, run after the hens and pick up the eggs in the morning, have her first dental check up from Lola with her cousin, swim in the lac of Annecy, meet some family in Alsace even I never met, play a lot with her ninong Lapin and tito Sushi (I think she got some artistic tips from them as they both are amazing artists), run and run and run in the garden of my parent's house.

Alia helping Daddy Yo gardening and proud

Daddy Yo, looking at his baby becoming a 

Mountaineer like him.

Daddy Yo and I had a blast as well. 

We got to make a sweet escape of three days in Rotterdam to visit an extraordinaire friend of us, dancer at Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson the Immortal Tour. The city was really cool, the people are amazing, Pom's family was so welcoming and made us feel like we knew them forever. Plus, I got to go to a club for the first time in a hundred years (there is only beach clubs in Boracay) and got to drink and party without thinking about going home to feed Alia. I got to go home at 3am and sleep until 11am. This was a really cool feeling but being apart from Alia was still a major thing. Won't happen too often...

I got to see my family, enjoy my cousins, spend my birthday in a beautiful house above the lac of Annecy with childhood friends, have barbecue with friends, share love and good news and beautiful vibes.

The highlight of my birthday celebration was when my Tita Catherine brought me with her for a tour of aerobatics. She is a aerobatics World Champion! Daddy Yo had his turn the first year we visited France together and this time was mine. What a crazy, breathtaking, brain shaking experience. I¨felt like I lost all bearings. Nothing was like it was supposed to be. After some loopings and tumblings in the air, it took a soda, a hot bath and a good night of sleep to feel normal again!

Getting ready for the big moment

Now, Alia is all grown up. 

She is talking more and more. She now has words in English, French and  Tagalog. She is mixing it all and start creating pluri lingual sentences. 

After a few month of tantrums due to language frustration, she is learning how to use her words more and more. It gets funnier and easier for us to communicate.

When my parents came to visit the Philippines last month, we had an awesome time visiting Baguio again and shopping for the house. But when we went home to Boracay, we had to anxiously prepare for the biggest and stronger Typhoon that ever made a landfall. That was scary but we survived. Boracay was so blessed and lucky. The eye of the Typhoon was supposed to be on us and wash us away with 7 meter waves. 

But it came earlier than expected, on low tide, which saved us from a water surge. And just before landing on us, the eye veered left, the rain calmed down and Yolanda Typhoon spared us and our beautiful Island. You cannot imagine the joy we all felt when we realized the damages we had were nothing compared to what we were expecting. And you cannot imagine the shock we all had when we realized many places of our beautiful country were devastated, flat, washed away. The number of dead kept on rising and the few images we got to see (whenever one of us could find a place on the Island that had electricity) were unspeakable. 

With a group of friends, we felt we could not stay without doing anything. It was only normal for us to hold hands and help our countrymen. Many groups in Boracay and around the Philippines got organized and started some actions. Here, you can find every details of how we, in our little way, are helping and how you can help: https://www.facebook.com/?q=#/LifeAfterYolanda?ref=br_tf

Daddy Yo is the best with tripod and composition!
Notice the twin outfit of Alia and I.. :)

❝To have another language is to possess a second soul.❞

"One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way." Frank Smith

Since we decided to have Alia, we knew a great challenge was lying in front of us.

Being from different countries, therefore, speaking different languages would be a part of it.

But we decided to turn this into a benefit for her future.

Since she was born, I am only speaking to her in French.

As we are not many French speaking in the Island were I live, she needs to learn it from me since birth. I need to be consistent. I am singing french lullabies to her at nap time and I am looking for french books to read to her when she is going to bed at night.

Because she doesn’t live near my family, it is important for me that she doesn’t feel disconnected with her french roots. Speaking French will help her keep in touch with my parents, sister, relatives and her cousins when she grows up. Every time she sees them, it also help her make the connection. They speak French like her mommy!

It will also help her learn more about my culture and my country. Sharing books, poems and watching movies with her: it is like building our own little bubble where I can show her who I was, how I grew up, what music I liked to listen.

Some things cannot be translated.  

I want to open her window of opportunities: if she wants to study in France later, she is able to move there and keep up with her dreams.

Daddy Yo always speak to her in Tagalog.

I know some people want to teach their kids how to speak English first as it will help them be part of the Global World.

For me, Alia is Filipino as much as she is French. She needs to speak the langague of the country where she was born. Not learning Tagalog as one of her first language would be putting her at risk to be treated like a foreigner in her own country!

And what if she decided to pursue her studies or life here? 

Tagalog will not be taught to her later on, at school. She needs to be understood by anyone in the country where she lives. She needs to know where she comes from and understand the story of her country.

So far, the words she is saying are mainly English.

Most of our friends and all the kids around her speak English to Alia.

And she can hear Daddy Yo and I speaking English together.

She must know it is the fastest way to be understood by all.

But whenever I ask her to hold my hand in french, she gives me her hand. Whenever Daddy Yo ask her to come with him for shower, she goes straight to the bathroom.

A lot of people tell us Alia will be confused, delayed for talking.

Do not underestimate children’s brain! It’s like a sponge absorbing thousand of new things everyday.

Yes, she might mix languages up at first sometimes.

She might answer me in English when I speak French (like Alia’s godmother and her daughter when she was a little girl) but I will keep on speaking to her in French. Because all the languages she hears on a daily basis are printed in her mind.

And when she will be a little bigger and ready to use them, what an amazing advantage for her!!

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart." Nelson Mandela

Brownout means family time on the beach!

Once more, we don’t have a nanny anymore.

But since there is less wind so less work for Daddy Yo, it has been manageable. 

I started again training with my Dragon Boat team and we are getting ready for the competition at the end of the month. Daddy Yo is bonding with Alia every morning from her wake up time until I go home from the training around 9 :30. Sometimes, they surprise me on the beach and we go for a swim or a breakfast before going back home.

This summer is so hot, it’s quite hard being outside too long during the day.

Even in front of the fan, there are days when we are sweating just by blinking.

Yesterday was one of these days.

While Daddy Yo was resting, Alia and I hit the beach early morning and met some friends of us for a coffee. Kids were running on the beach and mommies were sipping on coconut juices. Perfect !

We went back home on time for lunch and before the heat hours.

Afternoon was spent playing and taking several quick showers trying to refresh a bit.

Around 4 :30pm : brownout. Yes, brownout, on top of this heat !

Daddy Yo had a jamming for a summer event on the beach and by 7pm, I would be alone at home with Alia. I like being alone from time to time in the evenings. I watch a french movie, surf the web and sleep early.

But with the heat and no power at home, that was another story. Alia was cranky because she was sweating and I could not imagine myself running after  and following her with a flashlight  around the house or using a fan to ventilate her until the power will be back.

I remember the time before Alia. Anytime there was a brownout, Daddy Yo and I would run to the beach and party or swim until the power was back. So what stopped us to do the same with Alia now?

We decided that, if by 7pm, the power was not back, we would accompagny Daddy Yo at his event, eat dinner on the beach with him and friends then go home when the power would be back again.

As we left the house, the breeze hit us.

Once in the tricycle, we picked up some of the bandmates of Daddy Yo and the drums then took the back road of the island. As we passed by the small street, we could see everybody hanging out with the neighbors, carrying the kids and babies, talking, seating, walking outside.

And that reminded me this is one of the reason why I fell in love with Boracay and the Philippines.

People will not stay home, complaining about the heat and the lack of power. They will just open their door and find another reason to hang out with their friends and family.

Just because of a brownout, my evening turned out  to be perfect. Alia got to dance to her daddy playing drums, I got to eat yummy morrocan food and spend time with friends and by 9pm, we were home with everything back to normal.

Alia did not sleep early like usual but she was happy and more relaxed in the breeze on the beach than under the heat at home.

And her eyes when she saw her dad jamming! It was priceless!!

Beauty and happiness is everywhere with positive thoughts!