It is finally here, my favorite time of year! I love the whole feeling of Christmas, the decorations, family time and the festivities. This is the kind of Christmas that I have only ever been used to and when I moved away it was hard. For three years, I didn’t do anything, my ex wasn’t big on the holidays so I would just let it go. Where I was, in France was a little underwhelming with Christmas decorations, there were a few houses with lights but most of the people didn’t do much.
Then we moved to Hamburg and the Christmas season quickly turned into my favorite again. Every town had a Christmas Market set up with stalls of little things you can buy, like sculpted candles, puppets, toys and of course the traditional Christmas foods like; Glühwein which is essentially red wine heated with spices, lemon and sugar, Lebkuchen are biscuits which are similar to gingerbread and they are very good and during these markets I can always find a Dutch stall that sells Poffertjes which are mini pancakes covered in butter and powdered sugar and I always looked forward to those. During this time of year, I would always make sure that I would take the routes to work that would allow me to walk through as many as I could. I would start in Bergedorf then go to the Hauptbahnhof and then end in Wandsbek. Over there you can feel the Christmas Spirit and it was all around you. Walking through the markets when I was missing home was always nice. Everyone was happy no matter how cold it was, just spending time with family and friends was what mattered and I enjoyed seeing that.
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Since Thanksgiving is only a few days away, I figured it would be fitting to write about it. Thanksgiving is the day where you are supposed to spend time with loved ones, eating and drinking and being thankful for the things in your life. I must say, it is a holiday that I personally always took for granted. Growing up it was just an excuse to have off from school, sleep in and over indulge on the best food of the entire year. It never really hit me that I liked this holiday until I left home. Not only was I in a place where people bash this holiday but I also had a mother in law who was British and she too would always talk poorly about this holiday every year saying she didn’t understand it. To an extent, sure I get it. It is a day where you are supposed to be thankful for what you have, but instead it turned into a money-making holiday. Everyone needs the best and biggest turkey or the best pies instead of just keeping things simple. I get this side of the argument but at the same time I am guilty because I part take in this holiday too and I do enjoy it. There were a few years where I didn’t do anything for Thanksgiving. One year while I was living in Hamburg and my in-laws moved there as well, we went to an American Club Thanksgiving Dinner. When I heard I was going I was very excited, I couldn’t wait to get a taste of home. But as I was there, it kind of made things harder. It was great meeting new people and hearing their stories of how they got there but at the same time I missed my family. And the food there just didn’t compare to what I was used to, my dad is a wonderful cook. By the time I left I was definitely more homesick. If someone now were to ask me what is the point of this holiday, I would still give them the same answer. But I think it’s important to keep an open mind because everyone has their own way of interpreting what this holiday is about. Some may loose the whole idea all together but I think a lot of us still try to keep the basic outlook. Over the past year, on the news and social media, the Police have been getting a lot of negative press because of how they have handled certain situations. And also, because of this, racism has been tied in as well. The men and women that join this field have dedicated their lives to protect us but even I find myself upset with how some events are handled. Maybe the fact that I am older and not oblivious to things anymore plays into that. Or maybe living in different countries and seeing how their system functions plays into my thoughts now? Regardless, I do think that this is an issue in our country and some things need to change. But hey, we now have a President who loves violence, so this most likely will never change. One of the biggest issues that I have with our system is how forceful they are in some cases. There have been countless times where an innocent person was shot dead and that is the main issue I do have. When did it become okay to shoot someone? What about using a Taser or another method that could stun the person instead of ending their life. I also don’t only want to focus on people being killed by our police, but also dogs have been as well. In the video I posted, there are some stats about our system that I think are a bit mind blowing. “Fatal Shots by US Police Since 2013: More than 575 people wielding blades, other weapons but not a gun.” “Fatal Shots by British Police Since 2013: 1 person wielding a knife.” I just think that says a lot. While I was living in Europe, I did notice some things that were different over there that I personally liked. For one, instead of the police pulling you over for speeding, they set up cameras throughout the country and if you are speeding it takes a picture of the car and license plate and you get the ticket in the mail. This saves the police their resources by keeping their cops around for more important issues by having technology take care of this task for them. I don’t understand why we haven’t implemented this more, I was a fan. I did feel like the police were spending time looking out for citizens and I appreciated that. I also think another thing that plays into this issue is that fact that the individuals who are going through training in Europe spend a lot more time in school and out in the field with close supervision and this can take up to two years. Over here it only lasts on average for 19 weeks. At the end of the day, who would you want looking after your community? Someone who was only in training for a few weeks or someone who spent a few years, showing dedication and got a lot more training at the end of it? I know which one I would choose. Maybe, hopefully, one day we can implement some of their ways into our system. If we can learn that violence isn’t the only way to handle a situation, I think it would not only benefit them in the way citizens think of them but maybe people will then ‘follow’ them and hopefully some things can calm down. While I was living abroad I made a friend in France named Akima and she had a very interesting life that I wanted to get to know more about. She is from Morocco and decided to leave her home when she turned 18. Growing up, she lived a life that I never really put much thought into, like how your life is effected by your culture and the place you were born, until I got to know more about her situation, especially being a women in that society.
Growing up she always had to cater to the men her in household and the men that came in as guests. She told me that she always felt like she wasn’t treated fairly for being a women. The women do everything in the household for the men, like cook, clean and make sure the guests that were men were well taken care of. If the men had women come to their home the women also had to help out with making sure the men got what they wanted. She told me that the men would like to smoke when they all got together but it was forbidden for women to do the same thing. So, they weren’t even allowed in the room when the men were smoking and this bothered her. After years of being treated this way, she felt like more of a slave than a child so she decided to leave and moved to the south of France so she could be free of that life. But that came at a cost. When she moved it was a struggle for her, a new country and the culture was very different. Also, after she left she lost contact with her family. They banished her because of the decision she had made. Even though she doesn’t talk to her family she says, she still thinks to this day that she made the best decision. While she was in the south of France, she met her current boyfriend and has been with him for eight years now. They eventually moved to Jussey, which is in the North West, where his family resides and it is the town where I met them. After a few years together they had their first child, a girl who they both adore deeply. And a few years after that she had her second and this time it was a boy. Now that children are involved with her life, she says that it makes it that much harder for her to not be in contact with her family. She would love for them to meet them but they don’t show any interest. She told me that even though her family still want nothing to do with her life now, she still is happy with how things turned out because now her children don’t have to go through what she did growing up. She wants them to be able to live their lives the way they would like and to enjoy being young. I completely respect her for how strong she has been, because I know first-hand that it isn’t easy to live in a new country and making new friends is always hard. Even though she finds some positives in leaving she still thinks about her family often and it is hard for her as I can imagine. She misses her siblings, mom and dad and home cooked meals. She also just misses the feeling of being “home”, which I understand whole heartedly. It’s hard when you are happy where you are residing but there isn’t a thing that can replace that feeling of “home”. “It’s where all of your childhood memories are and it’s where you grew up to become the person that you are now”, she said. Knowing what she has gone through in her life, I applaud her. Like I said before I never really put much thought into what it would be like being raised in Morocco. To me, I find it upsetting that the women are treated the way that they are. I find that the woman do so much for the men but yet they are treated so poorly. Why is it okay to just essentially walk all over women when they take care of their men and bring their children into this world? That, I can truly never understand. After talking to her about these things my mindset of what life is like over there is different. Before I just thought it would be nice over there, just because of the weather and the history that surrounds the time but, I left this conversation feeling sad for the women there but at the same time curious of what it would like to be living that kind of life style. Even after living in different countries, it opened up my eyes to the idea that there is different lifestyles and cultures no matter where you are in the world. Luckily, Europe is similar enough to America in the way that you can go out and make a life for yourself no matter what your race, gender or nationality is. But at the same time, I would like to go and see that part of the world. America keeps you distracted where you don’t even have the time to think about these things and why would you when you are so busy? But how is that going to improve who you are as a person? I think one of the most important things in life is to take a moment and think about what else is going on in the world. There are children starving, women being taken advantage of because that is the norm in their culture, wildlife starting to cease to exist and so many other things that make up this world. It is a shame to me that people just don’t seem to put the thought or care into how the rest of the world is instead of just educating themselves. |