Wordless Wednesday- Habits that could make me go broke in Kuwait

Which water bottle for your globetrotter kid?

We live in a developing country, which means that we don't drink water from the tap, which means that there is no potable water at the Bambina's school, which means that she has to bring a bottle of water with her every day to school.  

So the question is, which kind of water bottle should she use?

This question is also relevant for globetrotter families who are on the go and want to have one or more bottles of water on hand for the kids.

One obvious answer is your standard disposable plastic bottle of Evian or other bottled water.  But they get grody after a while and they are difficult to wash.  Plus have you ever looked at the water inside a bottle of Evian after your child has drunk from it?  There are food particles in it because kids backwash.

Another possibility is a hard plastic bottle like the kind you can buy in our local Jumbo grocery store here.  The Frenchman bought one of these for the Bambina last year and I nearly had a keniption.   Besides the fact that your water ends up tasting like plastic, the bottle itself was made in China, reeked of "new plastic" and was probably leaking polyvinyl chloride and/or Bisphenol A into the water.  That and the fact that it leaked all over and broke after about two weeks of use meant that we had to search for another bottle.

An alternative to plastic is a metal flask with a drinking spout.  There would seem to be two kinds on the market - those made of aluminium and those made of stainless steel.  Decathlon, the French sporting goods giant, sells an aluminium one (pictured above).  The Frenchman was very keen on buying these but I determined from the coding on the bottom of the flask that it was, indeed, made of aluminium and I had some reservations.  Aluminium in unlined water bottles leaches into the water, leaving a metal taste, not to mention possible concerns about alzheimers disease in the long run.  No link between aluminium and Alzheimers has been proven - yet - but it's just not something that I want to have to worry about.

Aluminium cans with a lining, such as a the famous Sigg line, come with concerns about what, exactly is in the lining.  Sigg swore that the lining in their water bottles contained no Bisphenol A - until they changed their minds and admitted that all bottles sold before August 2008 did have Bisphenol A "but only in tiny amounts".  Great.

Rather than worrying about what may be in the lining of an aluminium bottle, you can always get a stainless steel bottle instead.  Stainless steel is made of chromium, iron and nickel.  Stainless steel bottles don't generally have lining inside, as stainless steel doesn't leave a metal taste in your month and there is no danger in ingesting the molecules (iron is good for you!).   There are a few brands out their but we bought the Crocodile Creek brand at Le Bon Marché department store in Paris.

6 Things Every Globetrotter Parent Should Know

A couple of years back, PhD in Parenting posted on 10 Things All New Parents Should Know.  I thought her advice was really helpful and I even sent the link to a newly pregnant friend just last week.

As I pondered PhD in Parenting's post, I thought of my own globetrotter version.  People tend to rely on their relatives, friends and doctors for advice on coping with parenting questions.  Not all the information they get is accurate and some of it is harmful.  So here is my top 6 list ('cause 10 would be way too long!) of what all parents trying to raise their children in a global culture should know:

6 Things Every Globetrotter Parent Should Know:

1.  Baby care norms differ radically from one continent and even country to the next one.

Moreover, what's considered the norm where YOU live is not necessarily the objectively right way.

My favourite example:  In Canada and the States, the health industry tells us not to share a bed with our infant, because it can lead to smothering, SIDS, baby falling off the bed, etc.

Yet, here in Madagascar, most moms sleep with their baby.  They don't do cribs here.  And I don't ever hear or read about any babies dying of SIDS or getting smothered here.  Funny that.

The point is, never assume that information from doctors and well-meaning friends where you live right or even mostly right.  Indeed, there are a lot of things not right about modern conventional western parenting ideas.  Babies have not always drunk cow's milk (whether or not adapted into formula), and still don't in many places in the world.  Newborns are not wired to sleep in little cages far away from their moms, and don't in many (most) places in the world.  Most baby boys in the world do not get the tips of their penises cut off.  The list goes on...

2.  Contrary to what many "granola" mamas seems to think, Europeans are not necessarily more into "natural family living" than North Americans.  If you've ever been on the discussion forums of mothering.com, you'll know what I mean.  "I wish I lived in Europe.  The breastfeeding rate is much higher there.  And everyone gives birth with a midwife.  And you get one year's maternity leave!"

Allow me to set the record straight about Europe:

Europe is not a monolith.  When you hear granola moms going on about how much more enlightened Europeans are, they're usually talking about Scandinavians.   The Dutch and the Germans are nearly as "crunchy" but only in certain respects.  Maternity leave is only about 12 to 16 weeks long in Germany, for example.

As for the French, well, don't be surprised to see a French maman smoking and drinking during pregnancy, formula feeding by choice (40 percent do) and sending her baby to daycare at the age of three months without so much as wincing because "baby needs to learn to become autonomous".

The Italians have a higher neonatal breastfeeding rate but 90 percent have weaned by the time baby is four months old.  Italians typically start baby on solids consisting of pasta and parmesan cheese at the age of four months.

As for the midwives, they are a highly medicalized profession in Europe.  In France, they even have to attend medical school for a year.  Most European midwives will not allow you to birth in anything but the gynecological position, i.e., lying flat on your back with your legs in stirrups so that they can perform  a routine episiotomy.  You might as well have an OB.

And forget about home birth (except in the Netherlands, and the home birth rate is dropping there).  The home birth rates in European countries hover at around one percent.

3. Your child will not become confused or speech-delayed because you speak to him in another language.  I've already written about this but let me reiterate: there is no evidence whatsoever that bilingual children have a higher rate of speech/language delay or any other speech or language disorder than monolingual children.

4.  Bilingualism is not an automatic fact resulting from a parent who speaks another language.  It takes work.  Yep.  The fact that you speak English or Spanish or French does not automatically mean that your little one will grow up speaking it.  In fact, your child will need about 24 hours per week of exposure to your language in order to speak it like a native.

5.  There are NO required vaccines for international travel - other than yellow fever in some countries in central Africa.  Polio is not a required vaccine for travel in any part of the world, neither is the vaccine against typhoid, tuberculosis, or any other disease.

6.  A global child starts with the parents who have a global mindset.   Children learn from the attitudes of their parents.  Open-minded parents who are interested in learning about other cultures, who are willing to try speaking the foreign language that they're a little rusty in, and who like meeting and talking to people from other parts of the world are more likely to have children with a similar mindset.

On the other hand, it's hard to expect a child to be interested in learning French or Spanish when the parent won't even consider watching a foreign film.

Traveling with Cloth Diapers

I use cloth diapers whenever I can.  I'm even using them during our one-month vacation in Paris.  But here's the thing: I just don't think I can travel with cloth diapers - not exclusively anyway.   Jennifer Margulis has written a blog entry on traveling with cloth diapers and has described how to make it work but I'm not wholly convinced.  For one thing, I fear the diapers may take up too much space - they're much bulkier than disposable diapers. Margulis suggests bringing prefolds but 20 prefolds take up a lot of space in a suitcase and here's the thing: that number is not going down so you are not going to gain more space in your luggage as the days go by.  Then there's the fact that you have to carry around the smelly, dirty diapers, at least until you have access to laundry facilities.  Ick.  And then you have to use of an afternoon or more of your trip doing laundry.  Plus I don't use the dryer to dry my cloth diapers so I would also need a rack or line to hang the wet diapers out to dry and ideally some clothes pins, too.

On the other hand, having used cloth for more than a year now, I cringe at the sight of disposables.  I hate their feel and their smell.  And they are so NOT cute on baby (it's IMPORTANT!).

So I have been looking for a compromise.  As G-diapers contain Super Absorbent Polymer (SAP), I don't consider them a compromise.  I might as well buy Pampers as far as I'm concerned.   Same goes for Gro-Via - their eco-friendly disposable inserts contained SAP the last time I checked.

I have recently discovered the Hamac.  It's a French-made hybrid diaper.  On the outside is super thin, impermeable microfiber.  On the inside, you choose either (1) an absorbent hemp and cotton washable insert or (2) a disposable insert.  The disposable insert is made of paper - no plastic and NO SAP.  It's basically like a giant maxi-pad.  The bambino went through two of the disposable inserts on an outing today and they worked okay - no leaks and they seemed to fit well.  I need to use the Hamac more on the Bambino to see if it really will work for a two week vacation in the south of France, though.

Organic, homeopathic products, dirt cheap?

Do you like to buy beauty products that don't contain parabens, phenoxethanol or other nasty stuff?  Do you find that these products can sometimes be expensive?  What if I told you that you could get all natural, organic beauty products for dirt cheap? 

I've recently discovered Homeopharma.  Homeopharma is a Malagasy company that specializes in homeopathic medicines as well as organic body care products.  And now they are exporting, at least to Europe.  I don't think their products have hit North American or Asian shores just yet.  I have just bought their children's shampoo (see photo at left).  The shampoo contains no preservatives.  The ingredients are mostly plants, although there is some sodium laureth sulfate in it.

I do have a couple of concerns with their products.  The labelling is not top.  Their website says that all their products have been certified as organic by Ecocert, yet the Ecocert label is absent from their beauty products' packaging.  The list of ingredients on the children's shampoo that I bought includes "parfum" (fragrance), with no indication that this fragrance is natural rather than a synthetic one containing phthalates, a harmful chemical known to disrupt the body's endoctrine system.  The label on the product does say "produit 100% naturel" (100% natural product), yet this cannot be true given that at least one of the ingredients is sodium laureth sulfate, a synthetic chemical.

Needless to say, this company needs a little more sophistication.  But it's an interesting start and their products are cheap!  The shampoo cost the equivalent of US$ 3.50.  The homeopathic medicines (a smattering of which you can see in the photo) cost about the equivalent of US$1 each.  That's here in Madagascar - the prices are probably a bit higher in Europe. 

Oh Christmas Tree!

I have always liked seasons, the sea of orange, yellow, brown and red leaves that paint a Canadian forest in autumn and the peaceful snowfalls creating a white blanket everywhere I look during the Canadian Christmas season.  

And so it is with great sadness that the Globetrotter announces that we will be spending this Christmas in Madagascar.   The not-so-Christmas-y atmosphere will be all the less so because I am not even sure that we will be Getting A Tree.  Getting A Tree creates big ethical problems here.  You see, in Canada, the United States and even Europe, there are farms where trees are grown for the very purpose of serving as a Christmas tree one day.  You therefore don't have to worry about deforestation when you Get A Tree.  Better yet, you can buy a tree still planted in a pot and plant it in your backyard after Christmas.

Here in Madagascar, you have two options:

1) Buy a Christmas tree that has been cut down in a forest, thereby contributing to the massive deforestation efforts already at work in this country, or
2) Buy a Chinese-manufactured artificial tree, made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is not biodegradeable, pollutes and and is replete with phthalates, dioxin, ethyl chloride, etc. etc.  You get the picture.  What's more, apparently, many artificial trees contain lead.  Eek.

Last week, I mentioned that we needed to think about Getting A Tree, and the Bambina said, "We don't need a tree.  We can put the presents somewhere else."

That's my girl.

Well, in the end we did end up Getting A Tree - a special Madagascar tree.  Here it is.

The same trees are planted just out side the luxurious Colbert Hotel in downtown Antananarivo.  It's not a pine tree but I like it because it's simple, it's local and we will be able to plant it in our yard after Christmas.

Cloth versus disposable around the world

Back in Canada when I was growing up, lots of parents used a cloth diaper service for their baby. Every week, you handed the truck driver your bag of dirty diapers and in exchange, you received a bag full of folded clean ones, all ready for your little one to sully.

When I was pregnant with the Bambina in France five years ago, I said to the Frenchman, "so I guess we'll just sign up for a cloth diaper service, n'est-ce pas?."

When it was clear that he didn't know what on earth I was talking about, I said "you know, the truck comes by every week and you hand over your dirty diapers and you get clean ones."

The Frenchman wondered at this point if I was not from another planet rather than just another country. "Zees does not exeest in France," he said. And he promptly went out to buy a jumbo pack of size 2 Pampers in preparation for the arrival of our daughter.

And at the time, he was right. Diaper delivery services didn't exist in France. So, imagine my surprise when I checked out the May 2009 edition of Parents magazine (purchased in Madagascar in August!) to find .... an article on cloth diapers! Not only do cloth diapers and diaper services now exist in France, they are actually becoming... dare I say it , trendy??

Of course, just as parents in the West are starting to consider cloth diapering as a serious option once again, arguments against using them are rearing their ugly head. In 2005, a study carried out by an advisory board to the UK Environment Agency concluded that cloth diapers had equal the impact of disposable nappies. I still don't believe it. The study assumed that you would be washing your nappies every day in 90 degree celcius water on the mega-long cycle and putting them in the dryer for drying.

Which brings me to the next point (for which I would like to thank Green Living Tips) - When you use cloth nappies, you can control how much you damage the earth - you can wash them every two or three nights only, you can wash them at 40 degrees celcius (totally sufficient), you can buy your cloth diapers used (why not? They're even more absorbant than the new ones), you can use hemp or bamboo nappies instead of the environmentally less friendly cotton ones, and you can dry them in the sun - the best natural disinfectant going.

You don't have these options when you use disposables.

Here in Madagascar and the rest of the developing world, avoiding disposable nappy use is even more important, for a few reasons:

1) Disposable diapers are expensive here.

2) You can only buy disposable diapers in packages of about 30, making it difficult to stock up. That's not an assuring situation when you consider that stores run out of stock quickly here. If you run out, you won't necessarily find more when you need them (or you might at least have to hit a few shops to find them). Also bear in mind that in the event of another coup d'état, you may not be able to shop at all for a few weeks...

3) Discarded disposible diapers contain human waste. Human waste that sits in landfills (especially landfills in developing countries) can contaminate the local drinking water with harmful bacteria and viruses causing intestinal illnesses, polio and hepatitis.

All that being said, I do put my baby in a disposable diaper whenever we are travelling and as his final diaper before he goes to sleep at night.