I stare at my funky self in the mirror. What to do? Screaming is hard work, so I decide to be Zen about it.
Miss Footloose
Miss Footloose
I hail from the Netherlands and grew up eating lots of Gouda cheese, riding a bike to school, and not wearing wooden shoes. Having adventurous Dutch genes, I married an American Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, East Africa, in an odd if humorous 10-minute ceremony that fortunately has stuck so far. My man is a development economist and I follow him around the world and watch him toil running projects that assist business and agricultural enterprises in developing countries. I have cooked, shopped, mothered, traveled and written stories in Africa, Asia, Europe, the US and the Middle East. I'm an expat writer not living in paradise (like Peter Mayle or Frances Mayes). I do not drink wine from my own grapes or tend my own olive groves. I have, however, visited my butcher's bedroom in Palestine, eaten fertility sausage in Kenya, and almost landed in prison in Uganda.
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What’s up with the Dutch? Are my people a tribe of uncivil, ill-mannered jerks?
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Fortunately the turkey was not aware of the undignified manner in which he was prepared for the table.
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I’m having a bad expat day. My mind is blank, I can’t write, my Romanian language lesson is a disaster, and the taxi driver tries to kill me.
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Culinary crisis in an elegant restaurant in Rome: Not even a free lobster the size of a small dog could appease this miserable couple.