Little Miss Suzy Homemaker

One common denominator of the expat experience is missing the food one grew up with. It is the only reason why I continue to pick up Yakult from my local supermarket. It's brand familiarity, and I suspect I wouldn't be so loyal to the brand if I were back home.

There are things that I miss so much right now, especially at this time, that I cannot have. Roast pig or lechon, which Anthony Bourdain raved about, and pancit malabon. Normally, I would not even touch lechon at a fiesta banquet back home. Too fatty, and I never liked the sauce, which is made of ground pork liver. Now I think about it like a woman obsessed.

Many expats have learned to deal with this by making things from scratch. In the Philippines I had the luxury of a maid, and the fact that my favorite rice cake is readily available at the next street corner. Though I cannot make fresh coconut juice, (please don't tell me you can get it in Germany, it is just not the same) I can occasionally savor fresh Philippine mangoes, a luxury. I have made my own pancakes, french toast, mac and cheese casserole.

I actually have become really good at cooking Pinoy and German food, using only fresh ingredients easily sourced in Germany, without relying on mixes. Since there aren't any Filipino stores in a 100 mile radius, the Chinese and Vietnamese shops supply me with things that we have in common.

I have learned to make a really mean Lumpiang shanghai, Suman sa Latik, and cook munggong guisado, Chicken Afritada, Chicken curry,Guinataang manok, Pinoy style sweet spaghetti (with hotdogs!) and even Itlog na maalat. If you need to make palitao I can whip up galapong for you.

My successes in the kitchen have prompted me to be more adventurous, and now could even make sauce hollandaise from scratch, even if I could get it here store bought. Today I made my own pork stock, and my own tomato sauce to make chicken afritada. Thomas and I both noticed how much more pronounced the flavors were. I think it was the home made stock and sauce. It kind of took me aback today to realize that I'd rather eat jam that I made myself rather than buying it from the store.

I have always liked to cook and bake, but now, seeing myself turn into Martha Stewart, I feel a weird sense of accomplishment.

The Good, The Bad, and the Superstitious

Growing up in the Philippines, I've been surrounded with stories of ghouls and goblins lurking in the night, evil spirits possessing an entire class of schoolchildren (it even makes the 6 o'clock news back home), and white ladies floating and appearing on video (it even made the pages of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country's most respected broadsheet).

I thought Germany, with its emphasis on logic and reason, would be different. Boy, was I wrong.

I lived with my MIL during my first months here, and though she went to college, she came from a farming family in the boondocks, and she held on to a lot of old wives' tales from her childhood. Things like drafts from windows left ajar and going out with wet hair in winter could give you a cold, and such nonsense.

In the Philippines, before the advent of ultrasound, people would guess the baby's gender by looking at the mom. If a woman is "blooming" (read, glowing or very attractive), it means that she's having a girl. If a woman is less attractive while pregnant, and has a darker neck, elbows, and armpits, then it's a boy.

Here in Germany, my MIL has, what I feel, a more patriarchal belief. She says that my skin looks rougher now than when I was not pregnant, and concluded that I am having a girl "because a girl takes away her mother's beauty." Ouch. It lends a more sinister, Snow White and her evil stepmom spin to my pregnancy, something I would rather live without.

And there is this fear of flying. I would really, desperately want to have my mom be here for my birth. I don't want to have my baby with just my MIL around. To be quite honest, I don't trust her and I don't really want her around my happy day, for reasons I don't want to elaborate here. But if my mom comes here, I would have to foot the bill, cos she's paying the mortgage of a house that my family just bought. Thomas says that I would have to choose between her coming here or us flying back. And for the both of us, we'd rather fly back and escape the winter.

The moment I announced I was pregnant, and told one of my classes I wanted to fly back in December (my baby would be two months old by then), they all said that it would be a horrific mistake, that it isn't good for my baby, and my baby's ears will pop and I would render it deaf, So I looked it up on the internet, and it was quite interesting what I found. When I typed up the question in German, I got this doom and gloom prognosis from German parents, but German pediatrician websites said that it was all right. In English websites, they were so relaxed about the whole thing that they only said that if you want to be really sure about it, wait until the 2nd month, when the baby's immune system is strong enough to fight whatever bugs are floating around in the cabin.

I've always hated it when other people try to impose their beliefs on others, and that's why though I am Catholic, I've been against preaching and "spreading the Good News." And when other people impose their superstitions on me and pass them on as medical fact, it makes me angry. Why frighten a pregnant woman unnecessarily?

14 weeks

"Everything seems healthy. All the bones seem to be in place. See that? That's the leg bone. Here's the hand. All in place. These four are the bones of the middle finger. All five fingers are formed."

"Wow. How big is it?" I ask.

"About six centimeters." I look quizzically at Thomas. With his thumb and index finger, he makes a gesture. "It's about this big," indicating a gap of about three inches.

"Oh. Look, it's emptying its bladder," says my Frauenarzt. I find myself fascinated, not at all disgusted, that someone is peeing in my insides.

It hits me that something that is not completely a part of me is inside me. This thing, wriggling, kicking. It has its own thoughts. It is not me, yet a part of me. I wonder if it reacts to my thoughts.

"I can't get the baby in the right position for the screening. Hopefully we could get it to lie on its back?"

With two fingers, I gently thump on my belly. It moves, and we have our money shot.

"Ah, perfect." he says.

Thank God.