Did you know April was National Celebrate Diversity Month? Great! But do you know how to celebrate National Celebrate Diversity Month or why you should even bother? The goal of “celebrating diversity” is to better understand others; to find the connections and shared experiences that connect you to those who may not look like you, speak your same language, or worship the same deities; and to develop relationships with people outside of your own tribe that can be used to further social progress. Suffice it to say, racial harmony is not a word one would use to describe life in the United States ..read more

Guess what? Today is my birthday! And in case you couldn’t tell by the headline, I’m turning 50. I officially have 50 years today, and I am so thrilled that I get to celebrate in Spain. But there’s no big party planned and I’m actually working today, but that doesn’t mean that my celebration isn’t going to be full of gratitude and grace. Unlike previous years, I haven’t requested any special gifts from friends or family. And I haven’t been tempted to go buy myself something extravagant to mark the occasion either. Instead, after some real soul searching and reflection, I’ve decided to give mys ..read more

My eldest son got a plane to return to the United States this morning and I am gutted. He was here for a two-week vacation, his first time visiting us since we moved to Spain. It was supposed to be a fun-filled reunion, which it was, but his departure today has left me weeping and filled with despair. The Backstory to My Sorrow In order to understand my devastation, you have to know that there’s a backstory to my sorrow. Please allow me to indulge you with said backstory that goes all the way back to the beginning. My boys when they were cute and innocent. My son’s birth was the fulfillment of ..read more

It’s officially been six months that we’ve lived in Spain, and we’re all still smiling. We left the United States approaching the summer of 2021 and now we’re heading into the holiday season and I couldn’t be happier. I have no regrets about taking this leap of faith and moving to a new country. Setting Up a Regular Routine in Spain Despite the fact that we moved in the middle of a global pandemic, when Spain was still considered one of the countries with the highest number of COVID cases, our arrival to the Iberian peninsula was not heavily impacted by the virus. We couldn’t go out partying a ..read more

Since arriving in Spain, I’ve been strict about keeping my rules about diverse media consumption for my daughter. She generally chooses her TV shows from Netflix, so honestly she has a bevy of programming to choose from that feature multicultural characters, even though a diverse cast doesn’t guarantee a quality show. But Netflix has definitely come through with the diversity, drama and color in their new limited series, Maya and the Three. Indeed, Maya and the Three takes multicultural storytelling to a whole new level. A Heroine instead of a Hero Maya is supposed to be a princess, but she ye ..read more

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a book called, How to Find a School in Spain for a Tween and Teen in three easy steps? Surprise, that book doesn’t exist, so el esposo and I have had to ride the struggle bus to find schools for our kids here in Spain. I am happy to say, however, that as of yesterday, we have finally found a school for both the teen and the tween. The Mad Dash From the United Sates Was for the Children Let me begin my reminding everyone that we left the United States at the end of May in a mad dash of chaos and crazy. The main reason we left so quickly, is because we wanted to ..read more

Moving abroad with a family is not the same as moving abroad as a single person or with your boo. It’s hard to upend your life, leave friends and family behind, and start over in a new country no matter what, but when you have a teenager and a tween in tow, the challenges get more complicated. Everybody keeps asking me how my kids are handling our upcoming move to Spain and for now I can say that two out of the three are excited, but of course that’s not the whole story. These Seeds Were Planted Long Ago One of the best decisions el esposo and I made early on in this process, was to tell our k ..read more

Hello Meltingpot Community, Now that we’ve made the decision to move our family abroad to Spain, I find myself wondering what will be different and what will be the same about our new lives. Of course, I’m constantly thinking about how my life as a Black woman, raising Black children will be different in Europe compared to the United States. And not that Black History Month is the arbiter on whether or not a country is “pro-Black,” I did wonder whether Black History Month is celebrated is Spain. For the record, it’s not. At least not officially. On the other hand, it is celebrated in the Nethe ..read more

Hello Meltingpot Community, Guess what today is? It’s my birthday! *cue the horns* And since my next rotation around the sun is so close to the beginning of the new year, I look at my birthday as the time to really dive into my resolutions. My mantra for my new year, after the dumpster fire that was 2020 is, “I’m not afraid to make radical changes.” After experiencing a global pandemic, an anti-racism uprising, and an attempted coup, all in one year, I felt like radical change was in order. Don’t we all need a reset? In addition, this year of disaster and despair proved to me that time is not ..read more

Hello Meltingpot Community, If I made a list of some of my favorite things in the world, children, breakfast foods and international travel would all be in the the top-ten. For me, one of the hidden blessings of the  pandemic is that I get to spend more time with my children and my breakfast game has leveled up since I spend way more time in the kitchen.  But international travel? Clearly, that is a passion I’ve had to mourn. But, as I wrote here on the blog earlier in the pandemic, armchair travel is still possible and we can still explore distant lands from the comfort of our own h ..read more