You know how there's always something to moan about? Like, the traffic, or the wierd Saharan smog, or the stupid amount of spellings your child has suddenly remembered they have to learn by tomorrow morning. Yes, life is a teensy bit annoying. However, when I teach my Wednesday ESOL classes, my life is often flung into very sharp perspective. One student, for example (whose husband is working towards a PhD here), is from Aleppo in Syria and has no contact with her family - the only means she has of finding out whether or not they're still alive is by looking online for the death notices. Today I discovered that an Iraqui friend of another student had to leave her one-day-old baby behind to take up her PhD place here. She's now half way through her research, and although she Skypes her (now) two-and-a-half year old, she has not been able to see or hold her little girl since she was a day-old newborn. Both these examples are from relatively wealthy, middle class women. If it's like that for them, imagine the sacrifices that the poor and ill-educated are having to make to try to build a better life for their families?
So I've decided that today I'm not going to get huffy with my squabbling children or whinge about the disruption my kitchen refurbishment will cause, or feel a bit droopy about not seeing my husband all week, and just keep my trap shut and feel blooming lucky that they're here with me, and that we're all safe.
TTFN x