culture

My Own Car – Spoken Word

by Ghanaperu
My Own Car – Spoken Word
by Ghanaperu

When I was in the village
Somebody asked me, and I don’t remember
Who they were
They asked me
If I had a car.
And I said yes.
Then they asked me if my sister
Had a car.
And I said yes.

And I saw on their face
That it didn’t make sense
And I started to explain
In America, if you don’t have a car
You can’t have a job
And if you don’t have a job
You can’t make money to live.

And they looked at me.
And I looked at them.
And they said
Does your mom have a car.
And I said yes.
And they said
Does your dad have a car.
And I said yes.
And they said
Does every person in your house
Have their own car.
And I thought of all seven of us
And I said yes.

And I wanted to give some explanation
I wanted to say that
This is just normal here
And
Everybody has their own car
I wanted to say
I worked hard for what I have
And I wanted to say
There are people
Who live in this country
Who don’t have a car
People who are poorer
Even than I am
And you know I’m poor
Because I qualify for five different types
Of government assistance but
There are people who have less
Than I do
Who do not have any cars

But I said none of that
I just looked at him
And he looked at me

And I wanted to say
I’m sorry
If I could give you my car I would
If I could trade places with you
I would
If there was some way I could share
All my privilege and benefits
I would
And if there was some way I could trade
My birthright with you
I would
But I can’t

But I said none of that
I just looked at him
And he looked at me
And we didn’t say anything
But I know
The same look I saw in his eyes
That nothing made sense
That he could not imagine
What I was saying
That same look in his eyes
I know is the same look
That people see in my eyes here
Because it doesn’t
It just doesn’t make sense

So I tried to imagine having a car
My car
In the village
I tried to imagine
Driving it to Makeni and going to market
I tried to imagine coming out of market
And putting my groceries in the car
And driving back home
I tried to imagine my sister
Living in the same
House as me
And having her own car
And it just made no sense

It made no sense

And I’m not
Confused
Exactly
I just don’t get how
These worlds can be so different
And how
I can be in both of them
And yet not either

And I just don’t get
What answer I was supposed
To give him
That would ever make sense
Or any answer
I could give him
That he could understand
Because
I couldn’t even find an answer
That I could understand

Yes
I have my own car
And yes
Every person in my house
Has their own car
And no
I don’t know why

Another spoken word poem by Ghanaperu

Check out CulTuremiKs’ YouTube channel!

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Third Culture Conversations

Third Culture Conversations is a talk show about third culture kids: people who are raised in a culture that is different than the one their parents grew up in. We will explore identity, rejecting and embracing parts of our culture, and the struggle to fit in when you don’t feel like you belong. Hosted by Esteban Gast, Leslie Ambriz, and Manolo Lopez, on the SoulPancake channel.

By CulTuremiKs, ago
tck documentary

A TCK Documentary – Alaska to Africa

A TCK documentary exploring the world of seven siblings in Ghana, as they adjust to a new culture and wrestle with the questions about home and belonging that all third culture kids can relate to.

Featuring the Gelatt family, missionaries through ABWE. Filmed in November of 2018. No profit is being made from this film.

Soundtrack created by Spencer Parkhurst – check him out on SoundCloud here.

Filmed and edited by Hannah Mathews – check her blog out here.

Watch more documentaries about TCKs here.

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Dear Third Culture Kid

Dear third culture kid painting

Dear Third Culture Kid,
I know what it’s like to feel alone on the planet. Even though you have friends in multiple villages in multiple countries in multiple continents, you still wish you had that friend who lives just down the street. The one that comes over to just talk on your porch swing. Who with one look knows your heart is crying though your eyes hide the tears. Who knows exactly what to say or who doesn’t. Just being beside you would be enough.


Dear Third Culture Kid,
I know how wonderful it feels to find that friend you’ve been praying for only to know you’ll have to leave soon. I know the dark feeling that crosses your heart when you wonder if it is even worth it. I know how you feel when you think it is safer to live in your lonely world so your heart will never break with the never ceasing goodbyes. I’ve felt that cold sad ache in your belly knowing you could never see your friend again. I know how much safer it feels – but how hard lonely can be – when you block yourself off from everyone and choose to live in books and movies instead. I know you’d rather say “See you later” than “Goodbye.” And we both know when we say “See you later” it’s not true. But it helps us get by.


Dear Third Culture Kid,
I know how it feels to wonder if anyone remembers you exist. To watch your friends make other best friends and live out your dreams with someone more constant. You weren’t the one who went to the mall picking out prom dresses together and painting your nails and feeling beautiful and graceful for one night in your life. You weren’t the one who danced all night and laughed all night and slept all night at your best friend in the whole world’s house making memories to carry with you to university together. You weren’t the one to stand by her side at the altar watching her dreams finally come true with the man you cried with her over.


Dear Third Culture Kid,
I know what it feels like to be a lost puzzle piece that never finds where it fits. You aren’t really sure you want to find where you fit because you don’t want to lose what makes you unique. You don’t want to hide or lose half of who you are. But how you long for someone to be the puzzle piece that finally fits with you. Then maybe at least someone can see and understand that the parts of you that look so different really do make a beautiful portrait. Maybe then that restless feeling would go away and you could finally feel at home.


Dear Third Culture Kid,
I know what it’s like to feel like you skipped a beat or can’t even keep in time with the drumming rhythm because you’ve never heard it before. You feel like you’re trying to waltz at a tap dance and no matter how quickly you move your feet you still can’t count the same. Even though you use the same numbers. How do others move so smoothly? No one told you the rules. Even if you knew the rules you still can’t shake that feeling as though you’re missing something. Something unspoken. Something that is inherently learned that doesn’t match your multicultural heritage.


Dear Third Culture Kid,
I know you get scared and feel lost and alone and you hate being a nomad but you love it at the same time. You wish you could have a “normal” life but know you should be thankful for the opportunities you’ve had. Others tell you how fortunate you are and how blessed you are and you know it’s true but they don’t know how cursed you feel at times. How tortured your heart and mind have been with knowing your duty to be grateful and take full advantage of your experiences but longing for some sense of belonging and not always observing. You’re always on the outside. And no matter how many doors you pound down you never find yourself inside.


Dear Third Culture Kid,
I know how you feel. And I know it will be okay. You are not alone. There are so many of us hidden in the shadows you’re walking through. With one look we can see the foreign in your eyes and find a fellow comrade. We see the tears you’ve cried because they have run down our cheeks too. You don’t need words here. We can hear them all because they’ve come from our own lips. You don’t have to worry about keeping up here or learning a new dance. We’ve created a dance all our own. You can rest here. You can scream and yell and cry or you can just be silent and know you do belong. You’re the puzzle piece that makes our cultures beautiful. You’re the friend we all wished we’d had.


Dear Third Culture Kid, remember no matter how many times you move, no matter how many countries you’ve traveled to, no matter how many cultures you acquire, you are home here. You are inside an unseen but powerful world. And you are not alone. You are a beautiful portrait. So let your colorful cultures paint.

Painting and caption by Márcia Cave

Read more here

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Green Culture

Under country, over country,
Never committed and always free,
But that’s freedom by plane, 
And not freedom of pain.

That pain hides in the greetings that are filled with goodbyes,
Our hello is rather uninviting, we realize.
But it’s a result of a normal routine 
Of always having to leave as the in-between.

Our looks deceive – 
We are not who you believe. 
We know both more thank you think,
And less than you think.

Yellow in the sea of Blue,
In the sea of Yellow, we are Blue.
Holding the knowledge of a Green
We are mistaken as pretentious, as causing a scene.

We return home
To absorb the culture of home, 
But Painters admire each color alone, 
For Black absorbs all, yet has no culture of its own.

Yet there’s beauty in Green! 
It’s not a fault to be in-between. 
But Painters are stubborn, 
Holding the old standard of one, they just don’t learn

That Green is both – it’s two – 
Not yellow, not blue.
Is that not so simple? 
Yet it remains incomprehensible.

You may know us as Global Citizens;
We carry the global burdens.
The dark eye bags remain as battle scars of jet-lag, 
Telling of the loss and grief from flag to flag.

Some of us live on the prayer cards on your fridge,
Between you and the 3rd world, we’re the bridge.
Existing as the good of the world in your sight, 
It is a fallacy we must rewrite.

If we didn’t bring our Sunday’s best
To visit your church to impress,
Perhaps you would be disillusioned, and the truth be known 
Of the dirt we bear, of the sin we own.

The truth is that we are scruffy
With the odor of our homes stuck to our shirts, a smell that is friendly,
Familiar because it is foreign,
Foreign to any other person.

If our real closet was opened, it would burst.
Culottes falling first, 
Hand-me-downs intertwined, 
Revealing our fashion – only 10 years behind!

The skin of a chameleon
Has granted us the chance of one in a million
To adapt, give, and share all before noon,
And before we’re gone, for our goodbyes come all too soon.

by Rachel Hudson

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Uniquely Me

I am a confusion of cultures.
Uniquely me.
I think this is good because I can understand the traveler, sojourner, foreigner, the homesickness that comes.
I think this is bad because I cannot be understood by the person who has sown and grown in one place.
They know not the real meaning of homesickness that hits me now and then.
Sometimes I despair of understanding them.
I am an island and a United Nations.
Who can recognize either in me but God?

By Alex Graham James

By CulTuremiKs, ago