moving on- the pain

And so we struggle through our life in the rural coastal countryside. There are such stark differences and such dramatically opposing values among the people and the community, that we are not prepared emotionally. This is, despite 6 months of planning and anticipating all the possible problems we could encounter and working out strategies to encounter them. Now I find that these were pure intellectual excercises. Nothing prepared me for the emotional impact of this change, some of which are quite traumatic. All of us as a family are reeling.

The heart breaking experiences of my youngest daughter who has never in her life had to question her identity. In London she was comfortable, confident in the person she was. Here, as the only 'black'child in her class, she is subject to some debilitating discrimination and rejection. A chance comment- " I am not part of their tribe- I am alone in my tribe. Why do they treat me so differently? After all I am only a child" pointed me in the direction of her distress. The exclusion is not only by children but by parents and sometimes teachers. In North London ( among the people we knew), if a child wanted to play with another of her schoolmates, we made it possible. It did not matter who they were, the house they lived in or the money they had. We accommodated for our children- if they had friends and were happy- we were too.

At school, during a public harvest festival, the staff allowed children to stand up in front of all the school children and parents and refer to Asian/Indian food as " vomit like, sick looking, horrible, smelly" Shocking? And the theme of the festival was to understand and celebrate cultural differences!! In London, if this had taken place there would have been a parents strike!!

Of course, this does not stop here. Racial abuse in the buses (now we know why the island is known to be several decades behind), boycotting working at our hotel because we were against the war in Iraq!! Astonishing ? There is more.

As adults, we are stronger and better established in our mind sets than our children. My youngest daughter has dumbed herself down stataing clearly that she does not wish to be the only " boffin". Social adjustment - a lesson for us.