On Oma’s, Grandmothers and Tetas

A conversation with H. in the car this morning.
She is celebrating her fifth birthday today, and is all excited about being 5. But somehow the conversations shifts to grandmothers.

H. has a grandmother. She also has an oma in Holland. She does not have a teta. Hamoudi, the boy from downstairs, has a teta, with one eye, no less, she says, but he has no grandmother. She’s not quite sure if he has an oma. “I don’t think so.” Her friend Reem in school does have a grandmother and a teta, because Reem has told her so.

H. (on the left) and her friend Parel after a day in the woods.

Her friend in Holland has no teta, but she does have a grandmother, who – quite miraculously – is also called oma. That is odd. When we were at the airport last year, she met a lady who also had a grandmother that was named ‘oma’. “How come all people call their grandmothers oma in Holland?” she wonders.

She is pretty sure that oma’s, grandmothers and tetas are not the same thing. “Tetas are all squished up with one eye, like a witch,” according to H. I think she’s got Hamoudi’s teta in mind. Grandmothers are, well, like grandmothers. “They make chocolate cake.”

And oma’s? She sighs. That is a deep question. “Oma’s, they’re like grandmothers, but different,” she philosophizes, “They don’t speak English.” And tetas know how to speak Arabic. But some tetas speak French.

Life is good when you just got 5 and you have grandmothers and oma’s and tetas.