R.A. White's Blog, page 26
May 20, 2014
Pow Wow Videos
This week we had the privilege of attending the Drums on the Pocomoke pow wow in Pocomoke, Maryland. We saw some cool arts and crafts and dancing, as well as hearing some original music. I was hoping for some traditional food, but maybe next year. If you're interested in seeing a couple bits of it, click away! If you want to check out Sue's shop online, it's tigersdendesigns.com.
May 15, 2014
New Trooper Videos
I'm posting three silly Trooper videos this week. The first is 'Trooper Singing', where you get to see Trooper making up his own song. The advantage to him writing his own song is that no one can tell him he's off key :) . The second is 'Trooper and the Coconut', which should probably be titled 'Jonathan and the Coconut', but Trooper is cuter. It was our cultural experience for the week, and I admit it didn't go so well. The third video is 'No Shorts!', a clip of Trooper walking around in the yard, silently protesting his shorts. I don't think I'm going to post the videos of him SCREAMING about his shorts, because I don't want child welfare to come after me. I mean, I know he's crying about having to wear shorts, but anyone else might think we had put him in a chest full of scorpions or something. He leans toward the dramatic.
Click here to view them.
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Click here to view them.
Subscribe here to get weekly emails about added videos, stories, book news, and interviews.
May 13, 2014
Challenge of an Interracial Family part 2.
I got a handy hair tip from a friend who used to have dreads. Now I can do Trooper's hair in 2.5 to 3 hours instead of 4, woohoo! Now if I could just keep him from running through the sprinkler without his shower cap, it would stay nice.
I'll be posting a lot more videos next week, but for now, enjoy this video of Trooper's hair and the other new posts.
You can find older videos here, and if you don't want to miss future posts and videos, be sure to subscribe for weekly email updates.
I'll be posting a lot more videos next week, but for now, enjoy this video of Trooper's hair and the other new posts.
You can find older videos here, and if you don't want to miss future posts and videos, be sure to subscribe for weekly email updates.
May 12, 2014
You and Me Against the World
Here's a link to my first review as a 'real' reviewer on Underground Book Reviews! I can't tell you how excited I am to be listed under their reviewers, both because it's an honor and because it means more exposure to potential readers.
The review is of a zombie novel that I really enjoyed despite it being completely NOT the kind of thing I usually read. It has more typos than I like, more gore than I like, more profanity than I like, and zombies... did I mention zombies? But it hooked me from the beginning and kept me clicking that page turn throughout.
Anyway, if you're interested in reading the real review or checking out quality indie book reviews, click here.
The review is of a zombie novel that I really enjoyed despite it being completely NOT the kind of thing I usually read. It has more typos than I like, more gore than I like, more profanity than I like, and zombies... did I mention zombies? But it hooked me from the beginning and kept me clicking that page turn throughout.
Anyway, if you're interested in reading the real review or checking out quality indie book reviews, click here.
May 10, 2014
Cultural Interview #1
Dear Readers, welcome to my first Cultural Interview. Today we have Vanesa, who has been married to her husband for ten years. She has an interesting story, and gives us some insight into her experience with intercultural marriage.
RA: Tell us a little about you and your husband's cultural backgrounds.
Vanesa: My husband and I are both immigrants to this country. My family moved here when I was a preteen from Argentina, and my husband is from Trinidad and Tobago. His parents immigrated first and were living here for 10 years before my husband joined them, by that time he was almost 18 yrs old.
RA: Has the difference in your cultures/first languages created any challenges in your extended families?
Vanesa: I don't know that I would call them challenges but our differences have made for some funny and some awkward moments. All of our parents speak English, some better than others or more clearly than others, and Trini people definitely have a different dialect or way of pronouncing words so that even if it is English it can sound very different than what is spoken here in the US . When we are all together at any given conversation there can be a blank stare of "I have no idea what they just said!" and both cultures are too "polite" to ask for clarification. If I laugh or agree, my parents will laugh or agree and the same for my husband and his family. As funny as it can be, it does impede with the depth of relationship that one is able to have. Our families get along very well, but there is a certain amount of closeness that you can have when you can't always clearly communicate.
RA: Are your families and friends accepting of your ethnic differences?
Vanesa: With our friends and families, we have not encountered any sort of backlash for being together. We have a diverse group of friends where marrying someone outside of your culture is the norm rather than the exception. Both of our families have been very accepting of us, even to the point that sometimes we joke that my mom loves him more than she loves me and his mom loves me more than him. Of course it's not true, but there is a real affection and love shown both ways. Even when we visited Argentina, a place that is not diverse at all, everyone embraced my husband with so much adoration it was very touching to me.
RA: How about strangers and casual acquaintances? Do you ever feel like people are 'staring'?
Vanesa: There have been times that we are stared at, but who knows all the reasons why. There have been moments of "aggressions". I've had Hispanic men (not of my own culture, which is a whole other discussion on how the Hispanic culture discriminates within itself based on skin, heritage,etc.) ask me why am I with a black man. It has nothing to do with who my husband is as a person, it is only posed because of the color of his skin. Which, by the way, if you ask an African-American my husband is "light-skinned". I happen to have light olive skin tone, so to them, for me to marry someone with darker skin than mine is.....I don't even know what! I guess to them it's beneath me, which I find ridiculous and beneath me to judge someone solely on their skin color.
We were once eating lunch at a restaurant, a group of Hispanic men were sitting at a table next to us and they proceeded to say derogatory things about my husband in Spanish. The things they were saying were along the lines of, who does he think he is? That has nothing to do with me, but more to do with them seeing my husband daring to take one of their women an affront on the culture itself. My experiences have been similar to that. I've recently had an older African-American woman who was an acquaintance ask me, "How did you get such a catch?". I know enough to know, that again it has nothing to do with me but more on how did I get one of "their" fine, black man. My answer to her was that if she asked my husband, he would say that he is the one that got the catch!
RA: Do you think that having mixed heritage will be a challenge for your children? In what ways do you think it will be an asset to them?
Vanesa: Our children are very proud of their heritage, they love both countries we come from and their own country they were born into. My older son who loves soccer, often says he is happy he has so many countries he could play soccer for! I love that point of view, it is a blessing to have a stake in three different countries! They love all the different foods they get to enjoy from both sides of our families, they are exposed to a different language in a real way, they have more holiday/cultural reasons to celebrate. I see more assets than not. I'm not naive, I know the world will bring it's own challenges to them. But a big part of overcoming them is knowing who you are as a person and that is what we try to impart to them. To us, it is much more important what makes you a person of character than what the world will judge them for.
RA: Is there anything special that other people can do to support mixed relationships or biracial children and adults? Anything they shouldn't say or do?
Vanesa: Please don't ask what are you? Well, you can ask that way if you want. What you'll hear from us will be, "We're humans!" A better way to ask is, where is your family from? What is your heritage?
Vanesa, thank you so much for taking the time to participate in this interview! I really appreciate it, and I think others will too.
RA: Tell us a little about you and your husband's cultural backgrounds.
Vanesa: My husband and I are both immigrants to this country. My family moved here when I was a preteen from Argentina, and my husband is from Trinidad and Tobago. His parents immigrated first and were living here for 10 years before my husband joined them, by that time he was almost 18 yrs old.
RA: Has the difference in your cultures/first languages created any challenges in your extended families?
Vanesa: I don't know that I would call them challenges but our differences have made for some funny and some awkward moments. All of our parents speak English, some better than others or more clearly than others, and Trini people definitely have a different dialect or way of pronouncing words so that even if it is English it can sound very different than what is spoken here in the US . When we are all together at any given conversation there can be a blank stare of "I have no idea what they just said!" and both cultures are too "polite" to ask for clarification. If I laugh or agree, my parents will laugh or agree and the same for my husband and his family. As funny as it can be, it does impede with the depth of relationship that one is able to have. Our families get along very well, but there is a certain amount of closeness that you can have when you can't always clearly communicate.
RA: Are your families and friends accepting of your ethnic differences?
Vanesa: With our friends and families, we have not encountered any sort of backlash for being together. We have a diverse group of friends where marrying someone outside of your culture is the norm rather than the exception. Both of our families have been very accepting of us, even to the point that sometimes we joke that my mom loves him more than she loves me and his mom loves me more than him. Of course it's not true, but there is a real affection and love shown both ways. Even when we visited Argentina, a place that is not diverse at all, everyone embraced my husband with so much adoration it was very touching to me.
RA: How about strangers and casual acquaintances? Do you ever feel like people are 'staring'?
Vanesa: There have been times that we are stared at, but who knows all the reasons why. There have been moments of "aggressions". I've had Hispanic men (not of my own culture, which is a whole other discussion on how the Hispanic culture discriminates within itself based on skin, heritage,etc.) ask me why am I with a black man. It has nothing to do with who my husband is as a person, it is only posed because of the color of his skin. Which, by the way, if you ask an African-American my husband is "light-skinned". I happen to have light olive skin tone, so to them, for me to marry someone with darker skin than mine is.....I don't even know what! I guess to them it's beneath me, which I find ridiculous and beneath me to judge someone solely on their skin color.
We were once eating lunch at a restaurant, a group of Hispanic men were sitting at a table next to us and they proceeded to say derogatory things about my husband in Spanish. The things they were saying were along the lines of, who does he think he is? That has nothing to do with me, but more to do with them seeing my husband daring to take one of their women an affront on the culture itself. My experiences have been similar to that. I've recently had an older African-American woman who was an acquaintance ask me, "How did you get such a catch?". I know enough to know, that again it has nothing to do with me but more on how did I get one of "their" fine, black man. My answer to her was that if she asked my husband, he would say that he is the one that got the catch!
RA: Do you think that having mixed heritage will be a challenge for your children? In what ways do you think it will be an asset to them?
Vanesa: Our children are very proud of their heritage, they love both countries we come from and their own country they were born into. My older son who loves soccer, often says he is happy he has so many countries he could play soccer for! I love that point of view, it is a blessing to have a stake in three different countries! They love all the different foods they get to enjoy from both sides of our families, they are exposed to a different language in a real way, they have more holiday/cultural reasons to celebrate. I see more assets than not. I'm not naive, I know the world will bring it's own challenges to them. But a big part of overcoming them is knowing who you are as a person and that is what we try to impart to them. To us, it is much more important what makes you a person of character than what the world will judge them for.
RA: Is there anything special that other people can do to support mixed relationships or biracial children and adults? Anything they shouldn't say or do?
Vanesa: Please don't ask what are you? Well, you can ask that way if you want. What you'll hear from us will be, "We're humans!" A better way to ask is, where is your family from? What is your heritage?
Vanesa, thank you so much for taking the time to participate in this interview! I really appreciate it, and I think others will too.
May 8, 2014
News!
-This week I added a new book to the children's book list, 'The Most Important Gift of All', inspired by folk tales from around the world. It's about a girl who lives in a village in Africa who wants to give her new brother a gift, love. So she goes searching the plains for love until she finds it. It's a cute story. If any of you has any books to add to my list, please share!
-In other news, I have a review of a zombie novel and interview with the author being published on Underground Book Reviews next Monday! It's exciting for me to write reviews for a fairly prestigious independent book review site, partly because it boosts my ego and partly because it means more exposure to this blog and my own books. I'll link the review when it goes live.
-I'm doing a guest post for a site called TodaysMama, which should also be coming out next week. The post is about foster care and how it made an impression on me. If you're a parent you aught to check out the site. If you're not, you can still read my post when it comes out, if you want :) . I'll link it here when it's posted.
-I'm going to be posting interracial/cultural interviews starting in the next week or two, probably about once a month, depending upon how much time I have and how many people come out of the woodwork to be interviewed. We'll be getting glimpses of their stories to form a better understanding of what it's like to be in an interracial/intercultural relationship, or what it's like to live in a country you weren't born in. These things have been very interesting to me for a while, and I hope you find them interesting, too. Next week will be a good friend of mine who is married to a man from another country, and the next (if he doesn't change his mind) will be with the man who runs the Caribbean market down the street in Rodney Village.
-In other news, I have a review of a zombie novel and interview with the author being published on Underground Book Reviews next Monday! It's exciting for me to write reviews for a fairly prestigious independent book review site, partly because it boosts my ego and partly because it means more exposure to this blog and my own books. I'll link the review when it goes live.
-I'm doing a guest post for a site called TodaysMama, which should also be coming out next week. The post is about foster care and how it made an impression on me. If you're a parent you aught to check out the site. If you're not, you can still read my post when it comes out, if you want :) . I'll link it here when it's posted.
-I'm going to be posting interracial/cultural interviews starting in the next week or two, probably about once a month, depending upon how much time I have and how many people come out of the woodwork to be interviewed. We'll be getting glimpses of their stories to form a better understanding of what it's like to be in an interracial/intercultural relationship, or what it's like to live in a country you weren't born in. These things have been very interesting to me for a while, and I hope you find them interesting, too. Next week will be a good friend of mine who is married to a man from another country, and the next (if he doesn't change his mind) will be with the man who runs the Caribbean market down the street in Rodney Village.
May 6, 2014
The Birth of Lifel
I decided to post a deleted scene from 'Kings of the Red Shell', this week. If you're interested in an alternate prologue and learning a bit more about the Harans, click here.
May 5, 2014
safe Not Sold
Anyone who has read my books knows that this topic has very much to do with them, but more than that, this is about my real life passion for peace in the world and loving families for children (and adults, for that matter). I plan to do a post about adoption sooner or later, mainly because people have been asking about it, but for now, I want to share this link for everyone to check out.
I've been aware of rampant slavery and exploitation in Africa for a while, but I think this is the first time I've gotten a direct link to help through people I trust. Bethany Christian Services is sponsoring this endeavor, and I trust them because they facilitated Trooper's adoption. If you can do anything to help, please do.
Check it out here.
I've been aware of rampant slavery and exploitation in Africa for a while, but I think this is the first time I've gotten a direct link to help through people I trust. Bethany Christian Services is sponsoring this endeavor, and I trust them because they facilitated Trooper's adoption. If you can do anything to help, please do.
Check it out here.
May 1, 2014
Plumbing
Everyone, be warned, I'm going to poke some gentle fun at my well-meaning and otherwise intelligent husband. I'm not going to talk about the holes in my bathroom wall (project started six years ago) or the number of reinforcements he applied to the dog run, including concrete and a couple different wires anchored into the porch. I won't even discuss the living room mirror with its lopsided brackets because I'm assured that no one notices that anyway. Oh, but I can't fail to mention the time he used a rototiller to 'flatten' the yard before he planted grass. That had me laughing my head off, and stumbling in ruts every time I crossed the green stuff we wished was grass. We finally gave up and put a sandpit and play set over it. HA! And that's another story in itself...
The line 'I cut it twice and it's still too short' was written by a man just like my husband.
All that to set up for this little video of Trooper helping dad fix the kitchen sink. The sprayer was leaking a little, so Jonathan decided to replace it. Seven days, six trips to Home Depot, three sprayers, two sink kits, and one exploding pipe (and consequential flood) later, the sprayer is working great. Except that the cold and hot are reversed, but what is it they say? Oh, quit while you're ahead.
The line 'I cut it twice and it's still too short' was written by a man just like my husband.
All that to set up for this little video of Trooper helping dad fix the kitchen sink. The sprayer was leaking a little, so Jonathan decided to replace it. Seven days, six trips to Home Depot, three sprayers, two sink kits, and one exploding pipe (and consequential flood) later, the sprayer is working great. Except that the cold and hot are reversed, but what is it they say? Oh, quit while you're ahead.
April 30, 2014
A Boy I'll Call Jim
I had a strange experience today, one that has me reflecting on who I am and the impact I have on others.
I should start by explaining that I take Trooper to speech therapy once a week at a pre-school where he has group therapy with as many as two other children at a time. Well, last time we were there his normal classmates were absent, so he had a new partner that I'll call Jim. I'm not sure what Jim's diagnoses is, but I think it's some kind of mental disability or autism or something like that, because it affects his interaction with people but his speech is fairly clear when you can get him to say anything.
So last week the therapist said several times that Jim was talking much more talking than was normal for him, and even interacted with Trooper a couple of times, which surprised her. Mostly he just told Trooper to stop playing with his trains, but apparently even that was unusual.
This week, we arrived a little early to the classroom and Jim was the only child there. He was playing on the floor by himself while the teacher and therapist were talking. When the adults welcomed Trooper into the room, Jim looked up and almost shouted, "Trooper! Trooper! You came back!" He ran to Trooper and gave him a hug, which Trooper returned.
Since I don't really know Jim, this didn't seem strange to me. Trooper and his little friends greet each other with hugs all the time. But the teachers were shocked at Jim's behavior. They said he had never acted that way with anyone, and they really can't get him to interact with at all. He mostly just repeats what you say, almost as though he doesn't understand it.
I don't know why he found such a connection with Trooper, but I can't help thinking it has to do with Trooper's openness and insistence on being a friend. Plus, he's not at all judgmental about people who are different from him. There's really no way to know because Jim can't tell us.
But the experience left me wondering what kind of affect I have on the people I interact with casually. Trooper made a lasting impression on a boy people didn't realize could be impressed, but most of the people I often meet around town couldn't tell you my name if I had it written across my forehead. Maybe it's time for me to start being a little more...more what? More like Trooper, I guess, willing to smile and greet anyone anywhere, and quick to show interest in those same people. I have to think that Jesus must have been like that to attract so many different kinds of people. This isn't me being preachy, just me wondering if the way Jesus is usually portrayed is more or less nonsense. It almost has to be when I think of things in light of today's meeting with Jim.
I should start by explaining that I take Trooper to speech therapy once a week at a pre-school where he has group therapy with as many as two other children at a time. Well, last time we were there his normal classmates were absent, so he had a new partner that I'll call Jim. I'm not sure what Jim's diagnoses is, but I think it's some kind of mental disability or autism or something like that, because it affects his interaction with people but his speech is fairly clear when you can get him to say anything.
So last week the therapist said several times that Jim was talking much more talking than was normal for him, and even interacted with Trooper a couple of times, which surprised her. Mostly he just told Trooper to stop playing with his trains, but apparently even that was unusual.
This week, we arrived a little early to the classroom and Jim was the only child there. He was playing on the floor by himself while the teacher and therapist were talking. When the adults welcomed Trooper into the room, Jim looked up and almost shouted, "Trooper! Trooper! You came back!" He ran to Trooper and gave him a hug, which Trooper returned.
Since I don't really know Jim, this didn't seem strange to me. Trooper and his little friends greet each other with hugs all the time. But the teachers were shocked at Jim's behavior. They said he had never acted that way with anyone, and they really can't get him to interact with at all. He mostly just repeats what you say, almost as though he doesn't understand it.
I don't know why he found such a connection with Trooper, but I can't help thinking it has to do with Trooper's openness and insistence on being a friend. Plus, he's not at all judgmental about people who are different from him. There's really no way to know because Jim can't tell us.
But the experience left me wondering what kind of affect I have on the people I interact with casually. Trooper made a lasting impression on a boy people didn't realize could be impressed, but most of the people I often meet around town couldn't tell you my name if I had it written across my forehead. Maybe it's time for me to start being a little more...more what? More like Trooper, I guess, willing to smile and greet anyone anywhere, and quick to show interest in those same people. I have to think that Jesus must have been like that to attract so many different kinds of people. This isn't me being preachy, just me wondering if the way Jesus is usually portrayed is more or less nonsense. It almost has to be when I think of things in light of today's meeting with Jim.
