Expat Trouble

In Indonesia, my four-year-old expat daughter is outraged and in tears, suffering from a culture crisis. Is it funny?

I stare at my funky self in the mirror. What to do? Screaming is hard work, so I decide to be Zen about it. It is what it is. Hair will grow back.

Here she was, a lapsed Lutheran female in a smelly animal market trying to buy a sheep from a long-robed male Muslim trader. Oh, the things you learn!

Straight out if the movies: Four good-looking, rugged guys on camels with meters of cloth wrapped around their heads to protect against sand and sun — dusty, dirty and starving. Dutch and American, they show their true colors when looking for food.

A loud barrage of furious words slammed me in the back. It was shocking! The language being unknown to me, I did not understand what precisely was being hurled at me. However, since the vitriol originated from the toilet lady’s oral cavity, the message was clear.