daily life

May the Force Be With You

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

So, I let my preschoolers watch a PG-13 movie. I know, bad mommy. In my defense, it was Star Wars (that makes it OK, doesn’t it?). It was also Tony’s custom version, expurgated for three- and six-year-old eyes. And, we LIVE on the planet of Tatooine. Besides, the damage had already been done six years ago when Axa saw it multiple times in the theater as a baby in the Philippines.

Bizarrely enough, Star Wars is something my children can really relate to. As we were preparing to come to Tunisia in the wake of the revolution, I cast about for a way to explain the events to them without overwhelming or frightening them.… Read more

Female and Foreign in the Middle East

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Today I had been planning to write a funny, lighthearted, slightly mushy late-Valentine’s Day post about my most useful accoutrement these days: my husband. I’ve been noticing lately that the difference between walking around as a single young woman in the Middle East and walking around on the arm of your husband is pretty significant. I have to say that I vastly prefer the latter. But my playful mood evaporated when Bridget’s blog alerted me to something truly stomach-churning that happened last week.

If you are female and foreign in the Middle East, regular harassment by the opposite gender is a fact of life.… Read more

Adapting to Tunisian Food

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Tunisian cuisine can be more or less described in one word: harissa. The basic ingredients of harissa are dried hot chili peppers rehydrated in oil, to which various seasonings, including garlic, cumin, salt, etc., can optionally be added. Wiktionary remarks helpfully that harissa is “used both as a condiment and an ingredient,” which pretty much says it all. Tunisians are fond of a soup that seems to consist entirely of watered-down harissa. If you don’t stop them, they will spread it liberally on any of their myriad types of sandwiches. Axa even claims to have seen someone putting it on pizza.… Read more

A few of my favorite things . . . about Tunisia

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The beach. Yes, I’ve mentioned it before, but I just can’t get enough of it. Today we walked out to the beach nearest our new house (after several wrong turns and a minor detour through somebody’s olive grove). The water was so still it looked like a huge, shining lake lapping gently on the sand. The beach was utterly empty, except for someone walking toward us in the distance, who eventually turned out to be two someones: a man and his camel. We took a rain-check for the camel ride.

The call to prayer. A lovely, haunting thing, somewhere between a chant and a melody, reminding me to take a moment to be with God.… Read more

Teaching Children a Foreign Language

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Someone wrote me this week asking how I teach my children Italian. Even before we moved abroad, I had given this question a lot of thought. Our Casteluzzo Academy curriculum (at our homeschool), includes some very ambitious language goals. But what really matters with language study for children are the little everyday details. Here are 10 tips on how to make the most of language learning whether your children are seventeen months or seventeen years old.

1. Start right away. It is never to early to learn a foreign language. My children are three and five, and we’ve been exposing them to foreign languages since birth.… Read more

Light My Fire . . . Kindle It, That Is

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Yes, my #1 favorite Christmas present finally arrived today! Thank you to my in-laws for the funds, and Tina and Robert for getting it over the Atlantic for me. As an inveterate bookworm, I have been contemplating getting a Kindle for years. At first, I was one of those people who just couldn’t stomach the idea of replacing a real book with an electronic device. I loved the classic Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk visits the eccentric with the real, old-fashioned library. It makes me feel at home to have shelves and shelves full of books, preferably nice, heavy hard-bound ones.… Read more

A Dream If Ever There Were One

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas break. Mine was a little complicated, for reasons which I will hopefully be able to elucidate during the next week or two. In the meantime, though, I’ll tell you about our magical Christmas Eve, which we spent in a quaint mountain village a century or two ago. We had been planning to attend this event for nearly three years, ever since we had to leave Italy just as the holidays were approaching. In the end, it was even more fascinating than we had imagined.

Although the snow had all but melted in the rain down in our own little valley town, as we wound up the mountain road, we began to see frosted trees and snowy slopes.… Read more

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Last night was our church Christmas party. The whole thing was a little surreal. It was originally my idea, but it didn’t turn out quite as planned. Since I am the branch music chairperson, a few months ago I realized I should probably plan a few special musical numbers for the church service the week before Christmas. My husband is in the branch presidency, so I asked him what the President had in mind. He responded that the President didn’t have anything in mind yet, so I should put something together and present it for his approval. Because our branch is small, and we don’t have a choir or a lot of extra time and resources after we barely manage to accomplish the essentials, I went online and got the simplest Christmas Sacrament Meeting Program I could find.… Read more

The Sneakiest Parents on the Block

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Last night we perpetuated a brilliant scheme. Our babysitter couldn’t come until 9:00 p.m., which is a very normal time to go out in Italy, but is also an hour past our family’s bedtime. Yes, Tony and I usually go to bed at the same time as our children. Pathetic, I know, especially in Italy. But we do get up a lot earlier than they do, at least. Our children love babysitters, and get very excited about the prospect of one coming, which excitement often culminates in running through the house, hiding under beds, and erupting in sudden peals of hysterical laughter.… Read more

The Sun Egg

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Overheard in my living room last week:

Dominique (to Axa): You’re the women who did not kill her baby.
Axa: Yes, I’m not the harlot.

Before I am accused of a shocking parenting lapse, I would like to point out that this is a Biblical allusion. Bonus points to you if you can guess the story.

Dominique also has his own way of coping with the winter weather. He announced a few days ago that from now on, we will read the same story at nap time every day. His chosen story is called The Sun Egg. It is a Swedish fairy tale about a forest elf who discovers a beautiful brightly-colored sphere in the forest.… Read more