3 of the 4 kids were in school today. Freedom! I've been editing, encoding, and uploading videos all day.
My sister-in-law sent me these earrings for my birthday, and they just arrived today! I thought they were metal, but they are actually leather. If you look closely you'll see they are breastfeeding earrings.
There's a man who plays on a red piano on the Promenade des Anglais most summer evenings.
Ivy had me make masks for several of her school friends. We dropped them off today. They're so cute and colorful with reversible Indonesian batiks.
One of our friends gifted us an avocado seed sprouter, so we are now trying to grow a tree. I told my friend, "maybe I can bring my tree over to your tree so they can pollinate each other!" (Do avocado trees need to cross-pollinate? I thought I remembered reading that somewhere...)
We were watching a show with a Black character today. Ivy said, "You know the woman with the dark skin? If she were in the United States, the police might shoot her." Sad but true, even more so if she were male. It's interesting what children pick up on.
Nice is a diverse city, especially where we live. Our kids' school mates are from all over the world. 3/4 of Ivy's class speak another language at home. Nice is also a very conservative, racist city. We've witnessed first-hand how well we are treated--being white, blond-haired, and blue-eyed--compared to our friends who don't fit the "right" ethnic profile.
In France the racism has more to do with religion and ethnicity than with skin color, compared to the US. For example, I have a good friend who also has 4 children of the same ages. Lovely, well-mannered children. But she is Muslim and doesn't get the red carpet treatment that we do. My friend is paler than I am--no small feat, given I am of Scandinavian ancestry! But she wears the hijab and it clearly marks her as "other."
What's really shocking is that some people (usually of an older generation) assume we share in their racist sentiments. They'll come up to us on the tram or in the park and gush over our beautiful family, and then in the next sentence they'll bash on how Muslims or immigrants are taking over and they "don't even know their own country anymore." Eric likes to remind them that we are immigrants, too.
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