In Bombay

So much has happenend, I've been so so busy...I know I need to upload some pictures...anyhow, we had a lovely Christmas party at home on Dec. 19th. The last guests left at 5:30 ish in the morning! It was a killer...I'm not used to going to bed that late (early, shall I say).

We left for Lugano, Switzerland, with a full car, a 4 year old hoping Santa would know where she will be staying at a a dog on Monday. En route, we stopped to the post office and the car broke down...a problem with the battery...we left a little later than expected and made it ok. Bhavishya was thrilled to see her Grandparents and they spoilt her rotten (as usual) and guess what...Santa came. Will post a small video soon.

We were supposed to arrive late on Friday night in Bombay, however due to the snow in Lugano, the airport was closed...we arrived with a 24 hour delay (sighhhh) but we are all fine.

Miss B was very funny at the airport...she got very exited and kept saying:

"Maman regarde, une dame indienne, et encore une et encore une...il y a beaucoup de dame indienne!" (Mama look an Indian woman, another one and here again another one...there are lots of Indian women)she recognised the sari's and bindi's.

She is just adorable and seems to enjoy herself a lot, she is thrilled to spend some time with Uncle Sunnil (her God Father) and Titi (Gitu)...

I need to dash...I need to get ready, we are having Anju, look after the children and we are off to 2 bars and a restaurent! Mark and I are thrilled...no arguments as to whom will be driving (or drinking).

More tomorrow - I hope!

Tata

Just because...

Berry : Le bonheur (Carnet de route n°2)
envoyé par CasaDeBerry

Our forthcoming trip to India

As most of you know, we are due to be in India on boxing day. Our Dear Friends Gitu & Sunnil are organising it.

This is the email Gitu sent to us today:

Dear all

Just dreadful what has happened in Bombay. Everyone that we know is fine thank god.

Hope you are all not freaked out. If it was going to happen then better now. Very low chance of it happening again in a month and the security will be hightened.

Having grown up in Lagos and London we tend to be quite fatalistic about things like this - its the luck of the draw.

Speak soon,
G

We are delighted and relieved all is ok with their family and friends. I guess we all tend to forget how Londoners suffered terrorism with the IRA for 20 years! Italy did in the 70s and 80s with the red brigades; Milan was a "war Zone"... Spain still have big problems with ETA...

Mumbai

Our thoughts and prayers are with our dear friends, Sunnil & Gitu as well as Malini and Manik's families and friends during this most difficult time.

A Great song to be shared

Herbie Hancock, christina Aguilera - a song for you [live @ ellen degeneres]

Enjoy!

Introducing our family / Je vous présente notre petite famille

Pour ceux qui ne nous connaissent pas encore / Pour ceux qui ne nous connaissent pas encore:

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.

Bhavishya's new room II

Pour faire plaisir à Mimi...des photos plus grandes. As per Mimi's request, bigger photos:




J'aimerai trouver encore trouver une petite lumière pour ce coin / I'd like to find a fun little light for this corner

We are spending New Year's eve in India / On fête le Nouvel An en Inde

I am slowly getting busy organising our trip to India (we are going with Bhavishya's God Father, Sunnil, his sister and 7 other friends...we'll be 11 adults and 7 kids). With Mark travelling so much, it is not easy finding a day where I can "steal" his passport to have our visa's issued. Well, after consulting his diary, Wednesday is the day I shall take my car to Brussels. It a 2 1/2 hour drive if not stuck in trafic. The problem is I need to leave, all the documents in the morning and I will need to pick them up at 5:00PM so I will be stuck in trafic jams both in the morning and in the evening. The +++ is that I shall be doing xmas shopping the rest of the day and I might have lunch with a girl friend.

Tout doucement j'organise notre voyage en Inde (nous partons avec le parrain de Bhavishya, Sunnil, sa soeur ainsi que 7 autres amis - nous serons 11 adultes et 7 enfants). Etant donné que Mark voyage tellement ces temps, il m'est difficile de trouver un jour ou je peux m'accaparer de son passport pour faire faire son visa. Bref, après consulté son agenda, mercredi sera le jour oÙ j'irai à Bruxelles. C'est à 2 h 30 de chez nous si on ne se prend pas les bouchons. Le pb est que je laisse les passports et les autres doc, le matin et je dois revenir chercher le tout vers les 17h00, je serai donc dans les bouchons le matin et le soir! (soupirs). Le + est que je ferai mon shopping de Noël à Bruxelles en attendant 17h 00 et j'irai probablement déjeuner avec une amie.

I've created a closed blog for Bhavishya. if you are interested reading about our trip, please let me know, I'll send you the link.

J'ai crée un blog fermé pour Bhavishya. Si vous désirez lire les péripéties de notre Princesse, veuillez me laisser un commentaire. Je vous donnerai le liens.

Bhavishya's "new room"

Well it is not really a "new room", I changed around her furniture, organised her toys and books and finally mooved the white bookcases that were in our room (which I have owned since my student years...Thanks to Ikea). I just could not stand them anymore in our room...they just did not fit in.


I made Bhavishya close her eyes before she came in her room...she was so exited she could not stand in place any longer and boy, was she delighted...she discovered her toys as if they were new toys...Christmas in November! I should have thought about it beforehand...would have saved us some $$$ in December! HA!




Ce n'est pas vraiment une "nouvelle chambre", j'ai ré-organisé les jouets, les livres, j'ai changé les meubles d'emplacement et j'ai finalement déménagé les bibliothèques blanches (celles que mes parents m'ont achété chez Ikea alors que j'étais encore étudiante) qui étaient dans notre chambre...


J'ai demandé à Bhavishya de fermer les yeux avant qu'elle n'entre dans sa "nouvelle" chambre...elle ne tenait plus en place...elle était excitée comme une puce...elle découvrait ses jouets comme si ils étaient nouveaux

Are our friends on the other side of the pond racist?

The other night, Mark was telling me about an article Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent for the Times wrote on the November 10th's issue.

Did you know that there is inter-racial taboos in adoption in the UK? That in 2002 an Adoption and Children Act placed on social workers and authorities to "give significant consideration to culture and identity when looking for suitable parents."?

That the waiting period of white children to be adopted are significantly shorter than children of other ethnicities?

Here is the full article:

Barriers that prevent white couples from adopting black children would be
removed by David Cameron under reforms to stop ethnic minority children
languishing in the care system.
Black and Asian children wait on average three times longer than white children for an adoptive family. Critics say too many adoption agencies are hung up on race, and waste time trying to find perfect matches for children of increasingly complex ethnicity.
The Conservatives have been examining the situation in the United States, where
the law changed ten years ago to prevent adoption agencies from giving
weight to race when finding adoptive families. Within two years of the
change, one third of states said the wait for placements among ethnic
minority children had dropped. A more relaxed attitude towards
inter-racial adoption, which is now almost unheard of in Britain, would give
thousands of children a loving home that they are currently being denied,
the Conservatives say.
The move comes as new figures show a decline in the number of children being adopted from the care system. This year only 2,600 children have been adopted, down from 3,600 in 2004. Experts say the Government needs to take urgent action.
Although popular in the 1970s, inter-racial adoption is now virtually taboo. The 2002
Adoption and Children Act places a duty on local authorities to give “significant consideration” to culture and identity when looking for suitable parents. Many experts believe, however, that that is being interpreted too literally. The Conservatives say they would rewrite part of the law. Michael Gove, Shadow Education Secretary, who was adopted, will head a Tory policy review into adoption, starting with inter-racial matching.
“If we can get more ethnic minority families to come forward, which ensures black children can be matched with black parents, that is fantastic. Our concern is some of the agencies allow the best to be the enemy of the good when it comes to judgments
over who is best placed to adopt children,” he told The Times.
“Being adopted myself, I firmly believe it is better to have children out of care and adopted. The longer they are in care, the more difficult it is for them, and to find adoptive families.” However, Sue Cotton, head of adoption services at the charity Action for Children, who has led efforts to find more ethnic minority families to adopt children, disagreed. “Any change in the law would be quite difficult if it denied the importance of racial identity.” she said.
“You have to balance that against the overall needs of the child. Where a significant
attachment has already been formed with a carer, for example, you would have to
look at that. But we have to learn from adults who went through it, and they say even where the adoption was successful in all other ways, a significant part of their identity is missing.” Research from Julia Feast, an expert in adoption, found 71 per cent of children in inter-racial adoptions said they always “felt different” from the rest of their family, compared with 48 per cent in same-race placements.

When you scroll down the page, there is a box called "Have your say"...interesting...

I should be most interested to hear what your views are regarding this article.

3:15 PM Edit:

On this link another article in the Times on line dated November 9, 2008 "Case study: ‘He knew he didn’t quite fit in’ ". Read this:

...“He had found it hard to adjust to the foster family. His first language is Gujarati, so they struggled to understand him. That meant a huge change in his behaviour when he came here, and we could speak to him. The second thing we noticed was how much he enjoyed our food. The foster parents had really tried and bought the food he knew. But they hadn’t been very good at cooking it and he didn’t know how to eat it"....

and then comes this:

..."But the most important thing is that he totally blends in with the entire extended family. “He doesn’t look any different from anyone...".

Here is my question again...is this racism or what???

Thanksgiving I

Invites our out:

Now I need to think of the menu...what are you all doing for Thanksgiving?

A Darling little Devil / Un adorable petit Diable

Aujourd'hui à l'école les enfants fêtent Halloween. Today the kids celebrate Halloween in School.


J'ai cru comprendre que le menu du jour à la cantine sera diabolique ;-)

Happy Diwali!

Photo by: keya_arati'

I got this sweet message from a friend of ours! Heartwarming!

To all our friends and family....some we see and talk to often, while some
of you we have not seen in ages....... know that you are all never far from
our thoughts......

These warm wishes come from our HOME and HEARTS to your HOME and HEARTS....

HAPPY DIWALI and May LORD SHIVA bring you peace, serenity, health, wealth
and happiness and love.

Thank you Manik! You are a Sweetie! Happy Diwali to you and your family!

Hugs, XXX

Jamie, Ben et al

A quick one as I am so so tired. I went to bed at 3:00AM this morning and got up at 6:40. Jamie's concert was fabulous. Also we heard his new song he wrote for Clint Eastwood's new film. Lovely!

Jean-Luc, my cousin and I, had seats row 4 and I got to see Jamie's fingers going mad on the Piano. What a wonderful entertainer he is, what a fantastic voice and he doesn't take himself seriously in the least! He's hillarious!

Here are a few videos of last night:







Wonderful wonderful evening! Thank you Mark for letting me go...Thank you Jean-Luc for being such a wonderful cousin, thank you for being so special, spoiling Miss B and for being my Body guard! HA! ;-) We miss you tons over here!

On my way to Paris, to see my Darling Jamie

Photo: Jessiann16

I've got front row tickets!! I'm boing with My darling cousin Jean-Luc...my body guard ;-) A+ J-L!

I'm back! De retour!

I'm back with a new design! I don't really feel like talking about what happened a few weeks ago, I just want to keep things "light and bright" for the time being. As they say it so well in Seychelles...I dont want to brake my head and since I cannot pick a coconut from a tree, I am having a cup of green tea...

Me voici de retour! Je n'ai pas trop envie d'expliquer ce qui s'est passé il y a quelques semaines...je ne souhaite pas me prendre la tête...aux Seychelles ils le disent si bien "Casse pa li tet" et puisque je ne peux aller chercher une noix de coco du palmier, je sirotte un thé vert...

Don't vote - Do vote!

Paul Newman

TRIBUTE TO PAUL NEWMAN
January 26, 1924 - September 26, 2008

This morning, whilst I was making myself, yet another cup of green tea, Mark was reading the news on the net and announced the news about Paul Newman. I am saddened. I really like(d) him. A great actor! I remember seeing his eyes in "real"...that was 22 years ago or so when my Uncle used to share a sail boat in Connecticut and we bumped into him at the marina. I'm tellen ya eyes like this...waow!

Blog...

Blog floating on "half mast"...I am in sort of morning...I have no strength nor will to explain why!

Blog en "berne"...chui endueillée...pas la force ni le courage d'expliquer pourquoi!

International day of Peace / Journal internationale de la Paix

What are you all up to? Are you participating in any special activities? More on this subject later!