Choosing food, flats and family

Did I want my eggs free-range, organic, hand-reared, locally-reared, white, or off-white?  Did I want normal Weetabix or the premier version? Did I want strawberries from Belgium or England? I had no idea. In South Africa the only fruits we have been eating for the past three months have been apples and oranges: they are all that is in season.  Making a cup of South African tea typically involves a straightforward choice between the ‘normal’ brand and its herbal equivalent; yet in the UK, I now found an entire array of teabags laid out before me. I was getting a bit of a headache. 

We made a memorable outing with Granny to Cadbury’s Chocolate World and, in amongst the animated dancing eggs, learnt about the proliferation of different types and sizes of chocolate bar.  Yet all these different choices were just variations of the original Dairy Milk recipe. Along with the kids, I eagerly tucked into the ‘free’ cupfuls of that freshly melted chocolate but –very surprisingly- after only a few mouthfuls we couldn’t manage any more. 

We soon realised that what made us genuinely happier was our families and friends. Despite the many positive aspects to living abroad, the largest downside is clearly being thousands of miles away from those we have known and loved for years. It was only when we had three weeks in which to visit everyone that we realised what a lot of family members we had. 

The children had great fun exploring the new apartment where their child-free aunt and uncle were now living. They soon discovered the balcony, but Asim was not easily impressed. ‘Have you used it yet?’ he quizzed them. Aunty Kathryn had to admit that they had not yet done so: the balcony was a fairly narrow one, more for display really, and overlooked a busy road. Asim was adamant: ‘Well then, you will have to give it to the poor people. In fact, you must give your whole house to the poor people’. Amaani nodded vehemently in agreement.  They had clearly picked up on the Islamic principle that everything we have chosen to keep in our homes must be used and not hoarded, otherwise we should give it away. But giving away a whole apartment? Aunty Kathryn suggested that instead they should consider using the balcony. And so they did, pacing up and down until Asim was satisfied it had been sufficiently used to warrant retaining.

The children seized the opportunity to ask a variety of genealogical questions about the family they had ended up with. ‘If Daddy has lots of half-brothers, are the half-brothers all brothers to each other?’ ‘How can this boy be my uncle when he is still a child?’ ‘How can that couple have a baby if they are not married?’ (Safiyya discreetly told me she knew the answer to that one: despite not being married, the couple must have kissed.) And importantly: ‘Is Great-Great-Uncle Roland really aged eighty-six?’ When the children visited this particular relation themselves, of course his age was the first thing they insisted on checking with him. It turned out to be an unknown quantity. Asim was incredulous you would ever get so old that you would manage to forget how old you were.  

In amongst all the family visiting, we managed to catch up with plenty of friends too. By the end of it all, Amaani didn’t have a clue who was related to whom. ‘She’s in our family but not in our house’, said Amaani, attempting to describe a friend of ours and managing to encapsulate the concept of the extended family in the process.  If we were of Asian or Arab origin, perhaps I would have taught my children the extensive choice of words that exist in those rather more family-centred languages to describe an aunty: the appropriate terminology seems to vary depending on whether the aunt in question is my mother’s younger sister, my mother’s older sister, my brother’s wife, some such combination from my husband’s side, or simply a friend of the family. But we weren’t and I haven’t. The children were therefore forced to call almost every adult they met an aunty – unless of course they happened to be an uncle. 

As we joined a long queue to get on the plane back home, the attendant asked us why we hadn’t appeared during the pre-boarding slot, that quiet few minutes reserved for those with not-quiet children to find their seats well before child-free travellers. ‘Did you miss it?’ he queried. ‘No’ replied Amaani confidently: ‘I miss Nonna.’ ‘And I miss Granny,’ piped up Asim. ‘And Grandpa and Nonno and my cousins and all my aunts and uncles and especially Great-Great-Uncle Roland. Do you know he doesn’t know how old he is?’ The attendant chose to move swiftly on.