If any of you TCKs are in the Colorado area, be sure to check out our Facebook group! We have meetups periodically and hope to become more and more active as time goes on! Here’s the group page: http://www.facebook.com/gr
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Come to T-Wa Inn (a Vietnamese restaurant) at 555 S Federal Blvd, Denver, CO 80219 at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 23rd, and get to know some fellow TCKs! We had 4 TCKs at our first Colorado Meetup and we’re hoping to keep on growing with each subsequent meetup. I look forward to meeting you! If you live in the area or are just passing through, stop in and let’s get to know each other. Questions? E-mail me: lily@tckid.com. Also, the Colorado TCKs have a Facebook group…join us! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=55957130542 …also, go to the event page and RSVP for the meetup!
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Greetings, everyone! For those of you living in Colorado, we have a TCK meetup planned for Friday, October 24, at 6 p.m. (If you can’t come until later, that’s ok too! We’ll be there for awhile, so come and go as needed!) We’ll be meeting at a restaurant called “Soleil Mediterranean Grille,” a couple blocks from the Cherry Creek Mall. The restaurant’s website (with address, menu, etc.) is http://www.soleildenver.com/. I hope you can come! Please let me know if you’d like to join us so I can be sure and reserve an appropriate number of seats for us! My e-mail address is lily@tckid.com. Come and meet other TCKs in Colorado!
By the way, we also have a Facebook group for Colorado TCKs and that is my primary way to stay in contact with you. If you use facebook, here’s the link to our group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=55957130542
I look forward to hearing from you!
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Hi everybody! So with all the traveling we do, I’m sure most of us have seen some pretty funny signs, warnings, menus, etc., where something got a little lost in the translation to English. This is from a sign posted on a boat in the Galapagos Islands, telling what each crew member would do in case of emergency…a bit long, but hilarious!
SQUARE GENERAL OF SHAMBLES
Fire To/Long Whistled B 1
Captain: To govern the ship from the control bridge, to work the alarm, to maintain communication, it directs all the operations, he informs position of the catastrophe.
Helmsman: He is the captain’s messenger, he helps to install the emergency bomb.
Machinist: Operator of bombs and you scheme, to block the electric power and the pass of fuel, and it fastens the bomb against emergency fire.
Sailor I: It takes extinguisher, hose of the bomb against emergency fire.
Sailor II: First python, hose of exit of emergency bomb.
Sailor III: Second python, extinguisher and axe.
Cook: Auxiliary with extinguisher, it operates hidrantes valves.
Guide: It gathers and you attended the passengers.
Long Whistled Abandonment of Ship 2
Captain: It directs operations from the bridge, in charge of the communications and he informs position of the catastrophe, it throws flare and it takes sailing teams.
Helsmsman: Boss of maneuver active balzas lifeboat, takes radio it bouys and rescue team.
Machinist: It takes tools, lanterns, binnacle of you scheme help to the shipment of passengers in the rafts or pangas.
Seafaring I: Lowers pangas, takes flare lights, intermittent lanterns, I radiate portable, magnetic compass.
Sailor II: It takes radar respondedor, circular hoop, and gasoline to the panga.
Sailor III: It takes blankets and quilts, it takes radio vidireccional.
Cook: It takes water, provision, canned, he helps it embarks of passengers.
Guide: It takes radio VHF, first-aid kit first aids.
QUESTION: So what are the passengers to do while the crew gather the pythons, bombs, circular hoops, and quilts?
Here is the sign in every passenger’s cabin:
“Yacht Gabi any alarm, alarm voice that listens to it takes to its life jacket and to go wing starts off of the stern that is the reunion site with calm they hope instructions not to alter itself to help to an A the others.”
I am glad that passengers have a special role to play, too! 
I can laugh because I know I have sounded just as funny in other languages that I struggle with… Oh, and running things through electronic translators generally leads to a good deal of hilarity as well. (I’m guessing that is what happened with the above-mentioned signs.)
Anyone else have some good ones to share????
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Hi! I am the Colorado Community Leader for tckid. I live in Pueblo, CO, and would like to get to know some fellow TCKs, CCKs, or ATCKs in the area, and organize some activities togther! If you’re in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Denver, or anywhere else in the approximate vicinity (a few hours’ radius from here), I want to hear from you! You can e-mail me at lily@tckid.com. Cheers!
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Hi, I’m Lily.
Countries lived: USA (WA, CA, MS, TN, OK, TX, NM, and CO) and Mexico, in nearly 50 different houses
Age: 28
TCK type: Fugitive (it’s a complicated story as you will see). Now an adult world traveler.
I am the oldest of 2 children. My sister and I were born in Washington State to a good mother and an irresponsible and abusive father. In our early years we moved to California for a year, then back to Washington. When we were about 2 and 4 years old, we began seeing less and less of our dad, who came home sporadically and often said he was going away and never coming back again. Mom moved us around to different houses, doing her best to survive as we received little or no support from our father. When we were 5 and 7 he popped back into our lives, taking us from our mom and filing for divorce and custody. Amazingly, he won. My younger sister was being sexually abused by our father, and our mother tried in vain to get us back legally, but in the end we fled to Mississippi, becoming fugitives. By this point we were 6 and 8 years old. For the next several months, we lived in MS, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and finally, Texas, as we evaded our dad and the authorities and attempted to remain undercover. We had many close calls.
From Texas, we crossed the border into Mexico and fled well into the interior. We experienced many difficulties adjusting to the new culture and language at first, but in time we grew to love Mexico and it became a home to us. We lived there for 5 solid years, without returning to the US at all during that time. We basically stayed in the same region of Mexico, but we lived in 7 different cities and 14 different houses. So by ages 11 and 13 we had lived in 25 homes, 2 countries, and 6 states. Luckily our schooling was consistent–we were homeschooled. Mom supported our little family with her massage therapy skills and her knowledge as an RN.
By this point our mother realized she had 2 Mexican daughters and really wanted us to become reacqainted with our own culture. So we moved back to Texas but only lived there about a month before moving north to New Mexico. Moving back was very difficult for me as I never felt like I totally fit in with the American kids the way I had with my Mexican friends back “home.” Talking to them about my own background seemed only to alienate them from me, until at last I began keeping my upbringing in Mexico and bilingualism a secret just so I wouldn’t lose any friends. They probably thought I was bragging, but I was just talking about my life! In Mexico it was ok to be different because I was the “Gringa” (American), but in the States, suddenly being different made you a weirdo–you look and speak like an American, so you’re expected to act like one, too. We just weren’t into the materialism and the “disposable” culture. Again, more close calls with the Albuquerque police before–2 years and 6 houses later–the FBI tracked us down and ended our 7-year-long International game of hide-and-seek.
At ages 13 and 15 we moved back with our abusive dad in Washington State, while Mom spent a few months languishing in jail. Not a pleasant year. We moved twice with him as he went through marital conflicts with his then-current wife (not surprising). After our mother’s release from jail, my sister and I began actively fighting to move back with her, eventually hiring our own attorney, which seemed to do the trick. That fall, when I turned 16, I started college (thanks a great deal to my mom’s skills as a homeschool educator–my sister started the following year at age 15). Mom re-married that winter to a wonderful man who is more a dad to me than the other fellow ever was. Being on the young-ish side in college put me in better company, as my life experience tended to land me closer relationships with people several years my senior. Young people my age seemed (and sometimes still seem even to this day) a bit immature to me.
During my college career I went to a community college and a university, living in 7 different homes over the course of those years, not including the summer I spent in New Mexico with friends. I majored in Spanish (a natural choice) and elementary education. Elementary ed. was probably a poor choice, because as a teacher you are really tied to a place – something I had never been before! Also, I was used to the self-paced freedom of homeschool and regular schools felt rather prison-like to me.
Spent about a month in Nicaragua and Costa Rica the summer I graduated, then embarked on a year of substitute teaching. I signed on to teach full-time in a bilingual classroom the following year. Did that for 2 years, breaking it up with a 3-week trip to South Africa and Lesotho. I lived in the *same house* for two entire years, a new record for me! When I had itchy feet so bad I could no longer stand it, I moved to Colorado and accepted a position with the State’s Division of Child Care–a job that involves tons of driving, which is a really good thing for me–and a community college, teaching Spanish part-time. What a relief to not be tied to a classroom all day, every day! I use my vacation days each year to go on a major trip–Romania, Benin, France, Australia, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. I’ve also started my own business teaching short-term, intensive, job-specific Spanish classes. Scarily enough, I have even bought a house. But I’m far from settled, always dreaming of moving overseas, ever traveling.
I’m thrilled to have found this online community of TCKs and read so many stories like mine–it is SO good to know that there are people out there who can understand me! I seriously questioned for awhile if I was a “normal” person. So now I know that at least I am “normal” for a TCK. And by the way, lest you feel sorry for me for having such a difficult childhood….for the record, I wouldn’t trade it for the world! Growing up in Mexico and being homeschooled was AWESOME and I have learned SO much about life that I would not have learned any other way. Life is good, and I am happy!
Are there any other TCKs in Colorado? I am planning to get involved in setting up events, etc., for local TCKs, so I’d love to hear from anyone who is interested in that.
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