The Three-Legged Duck

First the name of the blog. It’s from the French expression “ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard.” The literal translation is: “that doesn’t break three legs off a duck” and is always used in the negative, to emphasize that something was not earth-shattering something.

I developed a liking for the expression when I was a kid, and realized that in my little world, there were three-legged ducks. Finding a four-leaf clover my grandmother had pointed me to in a clover patch, discovering that butterflies drink by unraveling a trunk, petting a calf, having my first dog, reading The Little Prince for the first time.

Decades later, small things still make my day. I started this blog when I was living in Israel, and it used to be hosted here.

About Miss V:

My name is Violetta Zein, I was born in Northern California, grew up with my lovely family in Zaire and the Republic of Congo through the ’80’s and mid ’90’s then left Central Africa to attend university in the US.

I’m half-French and half-Egyptian/Persian and am a Baha’i.

After college, I volunteered in local Baha’i communities in places like Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Madagascar and South Africa. I spent two and a half years in Israel, at the Baha’i World Centre in Haifa, then moved to Paris for a year and a half. I returned to the US, worked for two years at a video game company in California, got laid off and decided to return to Congo.

My family lives in a coastal city called Pointe-Noire, where my parents operate a private K-12 school and an English language learning center, with plans to open a children’s museum focused on educating about public health issues through arts and music. Those are some of the things I’ll be working on while I’m in Congo, along with writing about my home and its people.