No, we’re not moving – yet. It’s just another instance of my tendency to obscure words and their meaning in a rather pathetic attempt to be funny.

This blog has now been made smart-phone friendly, thanks to the plugin WPtouch iPhone Theme.

This WordPress plugin formats your site with a mobile theme for the Apple iPhone, iPod touch, Google Android, Palm Pre and other touch-based smartphones.

So go on, open up http://third-culture-kid.com in your favourite 3G- or WiFi-capable touch-based gadget. And let me know how you go – I’ve tested this on my iPhone, and am curious to know how it works on other phones.

Enjoy!

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Heidi Sand-Hart’s book ‘Home Keeps Moving’ is now available!

See Heidi’s blog for details on how to purchase.

I’ve just ordered a copy through amazon.co.uk, and am really looking forward to its arrival!

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Introducing Heidi Sand-Hart and her soon-to-be-released book ‘Home Keeps Moving‘!

The book will be available from July 23rd on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.

You can order a signed copy directly through Heidi (at amazon.co.uk) or at homekeepsmoving@gmail.com (if you have paypal).

I’m going to buy this one the moment it hits the stores!

‘Home Keeps Moving‘ is published by McDougal, and follows Heidi and her missionary family on their many moves through the eyes of a Third Culture Kid (TCK) and the unique phenomena of having four very different home countries to relate to. It tells the true story of being catapulted from continent to continent constantly: leaving friends and starting all over again, her unquenchable search for a home and sense of belonging in this world, her desire for a life-partner with the odds all but against her due to constantly relocating (even into adulthood). You will laugh and cry along with Heidi as she recounts hilarious and heart-breaking tales from her childhood as West blends with East. That is the true beauty of Heidi’s upbringing, it crossed borders and defied logic but she lacked for nothing.

‘Home Keeps Moving’ tackles subjects such as Confused Loyalties, Swimming in Two cultural oceans, Home, Grief, Education, Social Pressures, Religion, Expectation, Re-Entry, Delayed Adolescent Rebellion, and Relationships.

To read Heidi’s blog, visit http://homekeepsmoving.blogspot.com.

Note: All the information above is taken either from Heidi’s blog, or her publisher’s website.

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I am on a journey – to integrate myself.

It includes a journey of grieving.

Now I am grieving for my memories.

Where do you get your memories from? Mine are from what’s left in my head, and photographs. My Nigerian diaries, such as they were, fell victim to luggage limitations. As did many other tactile things we could have brought away. What survived were clothes, documents, music, and some books. I guess it was quite a lot, really. And my mum did manage to fit some expensive kitchen equipment in. You know, the sort of things one buys on never-to-be-repeated journeys to Europe, and will not be able to source ‘back home’.

Today I have with me but a handful of things that are from my African childhood. Whatever was I brought away from Nigeria has, by necessity, been whittled away in successive moves.

It’s the life of an expat – or a refugee. The constant juggling of luggage priorities. Money over weight. Weight over money. Money generally wins.

A life of repetitive moving requires that one empty oneself of memories to make room for the huge learning curve around the corner.

Fortunately my father was a keen photographer. My memories would be in worse shape if it wasn’t for the hundreds of photographs that have followed our wanderings.

But I still regret the loss of those diaries.

Oh, and Whiskers. The cat with the gammy leg. Called Lucky at first because I didn’t know of any other name that a cat could be called. Lucky-Whiskers.

I think I started censoring what I wrote in my diaries when I caught my mother sneaking a peek. Poor mum, she was doing it with the best intentions. I was being bullied at school, and wasn’t forthcoming with the details – but my diary had them all. My mum made the bullying stop somehow.

I was quite insensitive to Lucky-Whiskers. He was canny and knew when meat came home from the butcher. My mum would start sharpening her knife, and Whiskers would go ballistic at the thought of meat trimmings for him. I would tease him horribly, running with those trimmings from one door of the house to the other, calling him. And from outside Whiskers would also run from one door to the other, miaowing loudly, demanding that treat. I’d stop when the guilts hit. And give him the meat.

Poor Whiskers. I don’t think I knew how to love pets. He was an outside cat. I can’t recall if we ever, in spite of my family’s fear of germs, got to the point of cuddling. I do remember him curling around my legs purring, so perhaps we did.

That memory impinges on my sense of who I am.

The only writing of mine that has survived the Nigerian years is a highly-plagiarized, full-length children’s book I wrote about five kids, a dog, and their adventures. As were many kids of my age, I was an Enid Blyton fan. I wrote the book as a birthday present for my sister. She has it now, still preserved, bless her! It’s all hand-written, with strips of sticky-tape covering the jacket in an attempt to mimic those shiny laminates that real books were covered with.

Lucky-Whiskers could never have come with us. It was a wonder that we ever had him in the first place. My parents’ maxim was that we couldn’t have pets when we were in Nigeria because, when we left, our pets would have to stay behind. But eventually, kindhearted souls, they succumbed. I can’t recall how Lucky-Whiskers came to be with us. Perhaps a kitten from a neighbour’s cat. He was white with grey patches.

Regarding those diaries. There was stuff in them that would probably make a decent conservative Sri Lankan mother’s hair curl. I convinced myself that some memories in them, like the bullying, were best forgotten. I was after a fresh start.

It’s only now I realize what’s lost.

I did ask if we could take Lucky-Whiskers home. But transporting him would have been well-nigh impossible, requiring huge resources that a poor expat family didn’t possess. Lucky-Whiskers was taken over by a neighbour.

I can’t recall saying goodbye. But I know I did.

This had to happen. I was going home to begin the life that had been interrupted by our Nigerian sojourn. I can’t recall if I cried or not. Perhaps I hadn’t learned to care. Or perhaps, even then, I’d learned some of the uselessness of caring.

I’m glad Lucky-Whiskers was a cat. They look at you with those remote eyes, and you know they’re going to be okay.

There is a single sun-kissed memory I have of the Nigerian goodbye. It happened after we left the school compound where we’d lived for eight-ish years, and drove beside it on the highway. I said to myself, ‘I’ll never see this place again’. I looked long across the sports fields at the school buildings where my classmates were hidden away, preparing for exams.

And told myself I was being melodramatic.

I feel sorry for my parents. We, and the other expats with us, had minimum knowledge of the intricacies of the TCK dance, and very little support in it. I think we acted authentically and to the best that we could out of that limited knowledge.

If only I’d understood then that the Nigerian time was not a mere interruption in life.

If only…

If only I’d kept my diaries.

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Extracts from two blog articles of mine have been published in the online magazine i-studentadvisor.com. I am deeply grateful to its editor, Felicity Pont.

You can view the extracts online at http://www.i-studentadvisor.com/isa/2010/usa/10/usa-2010.html?startpage=72.

i-studentadvisor.com | Guide to studying in the USA Region X | Volume 6

The original articles are ‘How I became a Third Culture Kid’ and ‘A faux-pas by any other name’.

i-studentadvisor.com has published a few articles on the topic of Third Culture Kids. One such article is by Ruth E. Van Reken, “The ‘Hidden Diversity’ of Third Culture Kids”. As most of my readers may know, Ruth is co-author of THE TCK book ‘Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds’.

As the name implies, i-studentadvisor.com is set up for the support of the tertiary international student community. I’ve come across many thought-provoking articles while browsing through their various publications, and would encourage you to have a read for yourself.

On a related note: if you do use any of my articles, or link back to them, please let me know. Apart from the obvious ego-boost to myself, I’m curious to know how useful the ’stuff’ I write is.

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For over a year now I’ve been struggling to keep posting on this blog.

I convinced myself this was because I’d moved on from the need to post here. That I’d integrated myself to a point where navel-gazing at my TCKness was not required.

The truth is I’ve been struggling because I feel I can’t write positively about my TCK experiences. I have several unfinished drafts that I feel I cannot publish because they don’t have happy endings.

I’ve been grieving for my losses. Grief is messy. It takes time. And grief is definitely not the sort of stuff that I’ve been brought up to write about publicly. Perhaps grief over someone who died. Or a lost job. But not something as vague and… inward-looking as being a TCK. Also, one must endeavour to write up-beat, up-lifting ’stuff’ that, if one is a Christian, chirpily points others to God.

But it’s time to be honest. So… I’ve decided that I will publish depressing blog posts when I feel like doing so. Because perhaps, when the grieving is done – and I’m back chirpily writing that up-beat, up-lifting ’stuff’ – people can read my journey, from start to finish, and find hope. Because, inescapably, I believe that even down-at-mouth posts contain heavenly whispers.

Because I’m real, and God’s real, and He doesn’t run from honesty.

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I have finally signed up for Twitter! My Twitter persona is TCKMusing.

I was looking for a way to publish short, inane, unconsidered thoughts which weren’t suitable for a blog post. Twitter seems ideal.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to put more Twitter-y integrations into this blog – and vice-versa.

But for now, to read those inane thoughts, you must follow me on Twitter by clicking here

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77 Bombay Street are now on iTunes!

Download their albums here:
47 Millionaires – 77 Bombay Street (Swiss store only)
Dead Bird – 77 Bombay Street
Usa – 77 Bombay Street

You can also find 77 Bombay Street on Youtube and MySpace.

77 Bombay Street is a band of four brothers from Switzerland with a sound that reminds people of  The Beatles – but, as they point out themselves – with a fresh touch.

Check out their music and their story either at http://www.77bombaystreet.com or on their Facebook page.

Press image - 77 Bombay Street

The brothers come from an amazingly musical family who spent a couple of years in Australia, during which time I got to know them a little. I also got to collaborate musically with them a little – quite a privilege.

They have named their band after the address of where they lived in Adelaide.

And of course, being Swiss, and having spent some of their formative years in Australia, they are Third Culture Kids!

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I have the privilege of posting this article by my father-in-law who also happens to be a parent of Third Culture Kids. He asked if  he could contribute a post here, and I’m grateful for his input:

Thanks, Susie, for the opportunity to contribute to these discussions.

I greatly admire Susie for a number of reasons.  In the present context, I admire her for the contribution she has made to the discussion of this topic.  Secondly, I admire her for the way in which she has handled the transitions in her life – a child in Sri Lanka, growing years in Nigeria, mid-teens in Sri Lanka, the move as a young adult to Australia and, perhaps the most remarkable of all, becoming a part of the peculiar culture of the Haydon family.  She is well qualified to write on this topic.

(My comment: I really wanted to – and did, for a while – take the previous paragraph out, as praise like this makes me uncomfortable. But I’ve been asked by my husband to pay my father-in-law a compliment and leave it in – so I have.)

I want to contribute as a maker of TCKs, a Third Culture Parent.  When my wife Ruth and I were first called to missionary service in Zambia, on the one hand we were excited and aware of the privilege that the Lord was giving us.  On the other hand it was not an easy move to make.  We had grown up in a small country district and had travelled very little even within Australia.  How would we get on travelling half way across the world to a strange country with four kids in tow?  All we could do was trust that the God who was enabling some of our friends to do a similar thing would enable us to do it too.

And then there was the matter of our children’s education.  Our two eldest kids, then 8 and 6, would have to go to a boarding school 700 kilometres from where we would be living.  They would do two semesters of 15 weeks with a mid year break of 10 weeks.  I recall many sleepless nights working through the mixed emotions as I wrestled with this situation.  How well I can remember the build up of emotion as the time came to make the long journey, on often difficult roads, to bring them home at the end of term.  There was an even worse build up as the time to take them back to school drew near.

Eventually all our children attended boarding school.  We made sure that we took our annual holidays during the mid year break so that we were available to our kids for a whole month.  We have great memories of times spent in a special place at Mkushi and on safaris in game parks.

An up side to the boarding school situation was the friendships we formed with the teachers and other parents.  There was a real sense that the children’s education was a co-operative effort.

I don’t want to write a book, but I could give many more examples to show that TCK-makers do not take on that role without a great deal of thought and a fair amount of pain.

Of course, there are up sides to being a ‘TCP’.  One is that you move into the international community.  We worked and networked with people from Canada, South Africa, Sweden, the UK, the US and Zimbabwe.  Our experience of the world was enlarged by rubbing shoulders with people from so many cultures.

Our move to another country opened the door to world travel and a valuable spin off from knowing people in so many countries is that they take care of our accommodation when we visit them!

Another up side is the great privilege of entering into the culture/s of people among whom you go to live.  There was a great day when we were introduced by one of my Bible School students when we visited his church.  He said, “We no longer regard them as Europeans. They are Lambas.”  We knew that we had been accepted into the Lamba tribe.  Some twenty years later I was the coordinator/secretary of the Lenje Bible Translation Project.  On the day that we launched the first Lenje New Testament, the Administrative Committee of the project arranged a naming ceremony in which I was given my Lenje name.  We had been accepted into another tribe.  Two years after this we handed the work over to the local church association and left the country.  The eldest son of a prominent family in the Lamba tribe, whom we had known for nearly 30 years, came to farewell us.  He said, “Missionaries have come and gone, but this is different.  You are family.”  What a privilege to be accepted like that.

TCK-makers become Third Culture People themselves.  Just as TCKs have difficulty in working out where they belong, so do Third Culture Parents.  Where do I belong?  My passport says that I am an Australian.  I enjoy the easy living in this wonderful country where we have been given so much.  When I hear the song, “I still call Australia home,” I resonate with the sentiments expressed.  Then I see a film based in Africa, or watch a documentary on something in that great continent, and immediately I feel homesick.  While I am at home in many ways in the culture of the country of my birth, which itself has changed a great deal during my lifetime, is there not a part of me that is Lamba and a part of me that is Lenje?  Why is it that while enjoying many things Australian, I hanker after a culture where relationships, especially family relationships, are more important than making money, possessing things and becoming a celebrity?

One thing that has happened is that I now have an affinity and an empathy with those who migrate to our country, those who spend significant amounts of time in our country in the course of their employment and those who serve here in their countries’ embassies.  I have a greater understanding of the transitions of life and I try to use this knowledge in helping the new ones settle in.

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Brice Royer (of TCKID fame) posted this one on Facebook yesterday. It makes for interesting reading, and I like it. What do you think?

http://www.tckid.com/group/what-strengths-might-tcks-possess-and-how-can-we-develop-them