How I know Azmina:

I met Azmina when she was on a pre-assignment visit to the Bay Area with her husband and daughters. Her husband works for the same company as my husband, and their daughters are about the same age as ours. After they moved here we regularly visited each other at our houses, usually meeting for lunch and ending up staying for dinner as well. Azmina and I lost touch for a few years but recently reconnected.

Azmina’s youth: family uprooted

Azmina was born in Ngora-Teso in Uganda. Her parents were Kenyans from Pakistani descent; her dad was a trader who started and ran a shop in Ngora-Teso. When Idi Amin, a dictator, came into power, he evicted all Asians. In 1971, at age 4, Azmina and her family packed their suitcases with everything they could carry. Initially they were bound to go to the US but Azmina’s dad wanted to go to Europe instead. They were put on an airplane and landed in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. They stayed there in temporary housing until they received political asylum. At that point her dad got a job at Kamgaren Factory in Veldhoven, and they were assigned a house in the same town. They also received warm clothes, blankets, and other necessities. Three more families from Uganda were housed in the same neighborhood so they wouldn’t feel alone. Her dad biked to work on Azmina’s sister’s bike.

Azmina’s school years: culture shock

For Azmina and her brother and sisters going to school in the Netherlands was a complete culture shock. They didn’t speak the language and everyone around them was white. Besides, they went to a Christian school while her family was Islamic. The contrast between school and home life was confusing. Azmina’s parents didn’t speak Dutch and didn’t know anything about the culture. Home life was completely different because mom and dad held on to their own culture, as that felt safe and secure for them. They thought the Dutch had a bad influence on their daughters. They weren’t used to girls wearing whatever they wanted and being outside at night. 

Azmina’s dad learned Dutch in the factory where he worked. Her mom received Dutch lessons at home with the other families from Uganda. Other than that, she learned from watching TV and hearing her children speak Dutch. They didn’t speak Dutch at home: they kept speaking their own language, Kutchi. 

Azmina as a teenager and young adult

Azmina was able to walk to elementary school and bike to high school (there’s no middle school in the Netherlands). After high school she went to a vocational school for fashion and clothing. She didn’t know what she wanted to be but she loved drawing and clothes. She got her degree, and had wanted to continue her education in the fashion and clothing field but her parents didn’t allow it. Azmina started working various jobs while still living at home. She remembers this being a tough situation because her parents were still very much in control of her life. In retrospect she understands and appreciates why her parents did that: all they really wanted to do was protect her. It was a completely different life from the lives of native Dutch girls, but Azmina feels she has become who she is because of that. 

A few years after finishing high school Azmina left her childhood home to live on her own. She tried various jobs and interned at an advertising agency, where she ended up working for a while. She also worked at a photography shop, which she liked a lot as she loves photography.

When she was 26, Azmina met her now-husband Thierry in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. They moved in together soon after they started dating. Azmina worked at ABN Amro Bank, Thierry finished his studies and started working at Philips.

Azmina in her thirties: children first, then marriage

Azmina and Thierry had their children before they got married. Marriage was complicated because of Azmina being caught in between two cultures. When Azmina turned 40, Thierry proposed anyway, and she said yes. They celebrated their wedding Dutch style; they also had an Islamic style wedding at her parents’ house.

In 2001 when their oldest daughter was born, Azmina stopped working. Their second daughter was born in 2002. After a few years Azmina went back to working in the photography shop in the weekends. Her husband worked during the week and took care of their kids when she was at work. 

Azmina as entrepreneur

When her sister’s boss in a flower shop retired, her sister convinced Azmina to take over the shop together so they could take turns working and watching each other’s kids. Thus began a 5 year adventure of “Two Flowers”: a corner shop in a busy shopping center in Eindhoven which they completely redesigned to their own taste. The sisters worked hard and put in endless hours, doing almost everything themselves. They bought a van to pick up their flowers, vases and accessories from suppliers in the morning to get their flower arrangements ready for the day. While they enjoyed running the shop, working together, learning a lot and making beautiful things, after 5 years it was time to move on. Still Azmina looks back on these 5 years with great pride!

Azmina in the US: stay-at-home mom taking on part-time jobs 

In 2010 Thierry was offered a job at Lumileds in San Jose, and they moved to the Bay Area. Initially Azmina wasn’t allowed to work and she didn’t want to either, as she wanted to be with her children. She enjoyed being there for them when they came home. She volunteered at school and joined them on field trips, so she could get to know American culture – as all she knew was what she had seen on TV. 

At some point while her kids were in school Azmina walked into a coffee shop she really liked in her neighborhood, and discovered they were hiring. She went for it and worked there for a little over a week, then quit because of the way her boss treated her and her coworkers. The coffee shop closed shortly after. Azmina went on to look for something else to do during school hours. She found a part-time job as relocation agent. The flexibility in work hours really appealed to her, as well as the idea of meeting people from all over the world. She loved listening to their stories and figuring out how to best help them find a house. For a lot of her clients, she was their first point of contact in the Bay Area. She is still in touch with some of her clients. Fun fact: when Azmina and her family moved here, they had a relocation agent too, and she thought that would be a super fun job. Turns out, it really is! Due to Covid there isn’t much work in relocation right now, but Azmina hopes to help more people once the pandemic is over and people start moving here again.

At a social event of Dutch people in the Bay Area about 3 years ago, Azmina met people from the Dutch School Silicon Valley who invited her to come help out once a week. She went, came back every week, and within a year she was running her own class. The Dutch School runs after school; Azmina’s classes are 2 1/2 hours long. She sounds like a fun teacher: her main goal for the kids is to feel good and she is very patient with them. Since March 2020 the classes are online, which means Azmina doesn’t just teach the Kindergartners but gets their parents in tow as well. She is enjoying the ride and has been learning a lot. Azmina currently teaches a few classes of 5 children as well as some private lessons. She hopes to go back to in-person classes in the Fall of 2021. 

Azmina’s love for exercise: hiking Half Dome

Azmina started running and exercising with a friend when her daughters were in elementary school. They ran two half marathons together. After injuries their routine fell apart; Azmina ran by herself for a while but realized she’d rather do it with friends. She stayed active in all kinds of classes through the gym: she likes everything that makes you sweat. She even considered becoming a fitness instructor. (Throughout her life so far, Azmina was regularly looking for something she liked, for which she could get paid.) Her relocation job got in the way of pursuing that path; she didn’t mind. 

Through her daughter’s volleyball team Azmina met some other moms who liked being active; during their kids’ practices they’d take off together to run or hike. During the pandemic they started making longer hikes. Right now they hike 15 miles at least once a week on trails all over the Bay Area. Over the Summer they went on some seriously cool adventures: they hiked Half Dome, and a week prior they made a one-day roundtrip to Yosemite to practice hiking there. They also went on a two-night hiking/backpacking trip with another friend around Lake Tahoe. They intend to keep up their fitness level with long hikes: they have big plans for future hiking adventures in the US and Europe.

What Azmina wishes she would have known earlier

In retrospect, Azmina wishes she would have realized earlier that she could combine her relocation job with her children. You learn so much on a job, it helps you grow professionally. For example, sending a business email in English would be a lot easier if she had been doing this much longer. She struggled with fear of failure, of making silly errors a lot in the beginning. Although it is going much better now, she feels it would have been beneficial for her to start much earlier.

Azmina’s advice for others in this stage of life

Stay active! Go outside, keep moving. You feel good when you do, you stay “younger”. It is tough to find someone to regularly work out with, someone with a similar schedule and similar interests. Keep looking though, or go on your own!