Really Murphy? Seriously?

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."  So states Murphy's law.  There should be an addendum that states "When all is going smoothly, look out 'cause Murphy is on the way."

For the last several weeks I have been uneasy.  Everything was going along very smoothly with pack out, Alonzo's 13th birthday, sponsoring a new family to post in early summer, and lastly purchasing and furnishing a small house in the states to function as our permanent home base.  Dave smirked and called me WW2 every time I expressed any worry.  WW2 for Worry Wart 2, the original WW being his Grandmother Pearl.

Packout is finished and although we came in ever so slightly over the allotted 7200 pounds, we had planned ahead, and it was easily dealt with.  Hands dusted! All finished with that, at least until it all shows back up in Oman.

The new family touched down earlier this week.  In spite of my using the welcome kit's two-molecule thick cheap pots and pans, I manage to create something edible and leave it in their house for their first meal in Malawi. Their house was mostly ready, stocked with the usual welcome kit supplies, and we even made it to the airport on time to meet the plane.  As a bonus for having us as sponsors, they inherited some of our unused consumables.  I hope they are as thrilled with that as I am.

Earlier this month Alonzo turned 13.  In our house 13 is a big deal.  We try hard to do something extra special.  When Dakota turned 13 he had his first ever airplane ride (pre-FS) in a WW2 Ambulance plane. During an air show. It was hard to top that.  We think we managed.  Dave booked a walking safari to go rhino tracking down in Liwonde National Park. Dave and Alonzo didn't just see one rhino, they saw three.  Totally cool.  I will get a blog post all about it up soon, I promise.

In Early March we closed on a house in close proximity to family and friends.  We now have a place that is our very own.  A place with not one single piece of Drexel Horrible furniture, no blah beige rugs either. I can even pick my own curtains.  Those of you rolling your eyes haven't spent the better part of the last decade living in government furnished housing in various countries. We've been online shopping like mad and have managed to order almost an entire house's worth of furniture all scheduled to be delivered within days of our arrival.

The kids are signed up for summer camp in the states. Alonzo and Colin will be going to sleep away camp in Galveston where they will be learning about marine biology and coastal ecology, while  Gray will attend a local day camp. This gives us one week mostly kid free to get the house set up.

In short everything has been going smoothly.  Too smoothly.  I kept waiting to see what was going to go wrong. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something had to  go wrong eventually.  I thought a delivery was going to be delayed and we would end up sitting on the floor all summer instead of on a nice new sofa.  Or perhaps our UAB heading to the states full of ethno-plunder so our new house reflects our travels would be sent to Ouagadougou or deepest darkest Peru.   I should knock on wood because that could still totally happen, but at this point I am not sure I even care anymore.

Monday morning just as we were getting ready to leave for the rhino encounter Dave decided to check his email one more time, and found this waiting in his inbox.

Yep, that is the floor in our new house.  The floor that was fine just a week ago. The floor in the house we haven't even moved into yet. The house where we are supposed to hosting a big family house warming get together just a week after we arrive.  Granted I didn't like that floor and was already planning to replace it in a few years.  But still.  WHY???  I have cried, and ranted, and raved, then I calmed down and looked at flooring options. I discovered if I like a floor it is guaranteed to to cost 75 gazillion dollars a square foot.  I also discovered we are looking at around $3000 just to get the old floor out before we can even talk about a new floor.  I am trying not to freak out, yeah right, like that's working. In the end there is really there is nothing we can do until we arrive in early July and get a good look at the floor ourselves. We may be having that big family house warming get together in the backyard because our new house may not actually be livable right about then.

Just Another Day Living Overseas

Disclaimer: its Dave here again. Shannon and the kids are in the USA where she has limited access to the Internet right now.

It's just another day living overseas. Holidays come and go and some are celebrated and some not so much. Traditions are big in our home as it helps to create memories. Like Friday night movies and desert Wednesdays. One of the best memories I have of Thanksgiving is at my Mamaw's and Papaw's house where a bunch of tables would be placed to span from one end of the living room to the other side of the dining room. Around the table were their two kids and most of the grandchildren. But that was a long time ago. Papaw passed in 1979.

I use memories such as this to set a standard for what celebrations like thanksgiving should be like. My last Thanksgiving with my Mother was similar except Shannon and I hosted it in our home. Again in a small house with tables spanning the living room and dining room filled with most of her children and grandchildren. My mother passed in 2000.

This Thanksgiving Shannon and the kids went to her uncle Tommy's house with her mother, enjoying fried turkey and friendly games of washers... creating new memories for our kids to build upon and help set the standard for them later on.

Not only do we have holiday meals at the dinner table, but we eat every meal as a family at the dinner table. Ok except one... the inauguration of President Obama... we all sat in the living room to see it live. History in the making.

You see, this is the first Thanksgiving in seven years in the USA let alone at her Uncles. I don't think the kids even remember the last Thanksgiving they had in the USA. I am truly thankful that they are spending it with Shannon's Mom and Uncle.

Living overseas... its hard for me to go "home" because I know that my traditions are so different then most of my family... All of their celebrations are done buffet style. You get your food and you go find some place to sit and eat.

I am not sure where I am going with this except perhaps to just write it down to share my thoughts.

It would be nice to know that we are not the only people out here that hold on to old traditions. If you have any traditions you have feel free to share.

Homework Woes

*Rant Alert, don't say I didn't warn you.

I hate homework. I mean I really hate it. As a kid I hated it, in fact I often refused to do it. As a teacher I hated assigning homework, I did because district policy required it, but I didn't like it, and refused to count it as anything more than a completion grade. As a parent my relationship with homework has hit a whole new low. Homework is public enemy number one in the Cyberbones household causing daily battles and disrupting the family peace.

As a former student, former teacher, and current parent of school aged kiddos I am familiar with all the reasons for assigning homework. It (supposedly) reinforces the skills covered during the day. It (is supposed to) promote responsibility. It (theoretically) teaches study skills and time management. And it is often one of the only ways that parents know what the kids are learning at school.

Now I don't know about you, but except for when I was a teacher, I simply didn't work on work outside of the work place. Work was for work, home was for family, chores, hobbies, romance, love and laughter, food and fun, but it wasn't for work. I say except as a teacher because the dirty little secret of teaching is that for every assignment you give to your students you have assigned the grading of that work to yourself, as homework, multiplied by the number students you assigned the work to. If you LOVE homework teaching may be the gig for you. If we as adults generally aren't willing to spend our leisure time on work, why do we expect kids to?

Of course I think there is a time and place for homework. I actually don't have huge problems with older kids having regular homework, although I think it is best reserved for special projects and studying for tests. But daily homework in kindergarten or first grade?? Seriously? How is giving a 6 year old homework at all helpful? Is it teaching time management or responsibility when he can't tell time or even read the instructions for himself? If you want me as a parent to know what is being taught try sending newsletters and weekly packets of graded work. That would be a lot more effective and I would have an idea of how he is actually doing in class so the report card wouldn't come as such a surprise.

I know that I should write a conclusion summing up all the points I have made into a nice concise paragraph but as this is a rant I find myself either repeating myself or going off on a tangent. I will instead simply thank you for your attention and go see if the oldest boy is finished with his homework and send him off to bed.

Why?

Why do schools now seem to feel it is necessary to assign homework over long holidays? Is this a thing in the states too, or just overseas? I don't remember ever having homework over Spring Break or Christmas Holidays, not once, not ever. As an adult I would work overtime before vacation to make sure I didn't have to work while on vacation. I would strangle David if he brought work with him in vacation. So why should our kid's vacations be ruined by homework? What kind of lesson is it supposed to teach? That it is bad to take time off to relax? I know darned well those teachers aren't carting papers to grade when they go on safari, so why do they expect the kids to do it?

Today is the last day of Spring Break*. I am sitting here forcing the boy in Year Four (3rd grade) to read Charlotte's Web. The whole book, in one day. He dutifully carried the book with him to Zambia but instead of curling up and reading, he chased lizards, befriended donkeys, swam, went on Safari, got drenched at Victoria Falls, sat around campfires and generally enjoyed himself. He didn't get around to even starting Charlotte's Web.

While the older boy is sulking, but at least holding the book, even if he isn't reading it, I am in the kitchen with the boy in Year One (kindergarten). He is filling out his "My Animal Spotting Book." Said book didn't make the trip with us because mom was more worried about making sure we had swim suits, bug spray, sunscreen, malaria meds, and food. I wasn't even remotely thinking about homework over the holidays. So we are getting it all done today. Each page has a space for an animal's name, where it was spotted, and then it is to be classified as wild or domestic, herbivore carnivore or omnivore, and finally fur feathers skin or scales. I can't tell you how much fun it is get a 6 year old to write "I saw a BABOON at VICTORIA FALLS, it is an OMNIVORE, it is WILD and it has FUR," when all he wants to do is go swimming. Then we get to to do this for 4 more animals. He is supposed to draw a picture for each one too, but I am just printing the pictures and he can cut and glue, or we would be here all day.

The homeschool boy is running around outside because I didn't realize I was supposed to assign homework. Bad Mommy! Whatever was I thinking? No school work over vacation? The very idea of actually having time off! Sheez!

Dave had to run into town for a few things. As soon as he gets back we are going to head to the Tamarind Club and go swimming. Homework be damned. Whatever isn't done will just have to wait. The sun is shining, it is still spring break and we are going to enjoy it. It is already fall and I have been told that by mid-May it will be too cold to swim so we are going to enjoy these last days of summer.

*It is probably called Easter Break or something, since it is in fact the very end of summer here not spring, and the days are already starting to turn cooler. Yes the kids go to school all summer then get a month off during winter, which be summer if we were north of the equator, but since we are south of the equator it is winter and will be too clod to swim when they are off from school. Confused?

Lilongwe Housing

Quick Reminder: Tomorrow is the Weekly FS Blog Roundup, the theme this week is housing. I will be hosting it here on Cyberbones. Several people have already submitted posts featuring their housing overseas. With out FS community participation the roundup would cease to be, so please think about submitting a post... there is still time. Also you don't have to have done an overseas tour to participate in this one. How about posting on housing options in DC? The dreaded Oakwoods for example? It doesn't have to be a new post... many of us do the "Here's our new house" post shortly after arriving, please consider including an older post in the roundup this week. Thanks!

Necessary Disclaimer: No two houses in Lilongwe are alike so issues with my house are not necessarily representative of all housing. Translation: If you are the the family we are sponsoring this summer and you happen to be reading this don't freak out! If you are someone from Embassy Lilongwe and are reading this, I am well aware that we have one of the "nicer" houses here and have been told this ad nauseam and don't really need to be told it again. Further more this is clearly a RANT! Yes I am whining, quite a lot, as a matter of fact. Sorry if that offends someone but there a few million other blogs out there to read, go choose one.

Houses in Lilongwe does not live up to American expectations or standards. Not much of a surprise really, this isn't America... DUH! The housing in Jakarta and Frankfurt had issues too, but neither of those housing experiences prepared me for what we found here. I was told the housing here is "some of the best housing in Africa!" Once we were assigned to our house we were told the house was "Fabulous!" and the last tenants told me they "loved living in this house and would really miss it." So part of the problem is undoubtedly that my expectations were far too high. After all Africa is known for large houses in various states of disrepair. I should have remembered that.

Lets start with that "best housing in Africa" thing. There are many people here who are on their second, third or fourth African tour. Every one of them as assured me that the housing here is NOT the best housing in Africa, not even close. I can't comment on that since this is my first African posting, but I really really hope this isn't the best Africa has to offer.

Where to start? Hmmm...I know, lets start with the curtains. Most rooms in this house have an entire wall of windows so the curtains dominate the room since one entire wall from floor to almost the ceiling is curtain. Knowing that, why would anyone chose curtains that look like this? Seriously? Don't you just love the stripe with fruit? The peach print still leaves me speechless. I am actually missing the oh so neutral beige curtains that we had in Germany and Jakarta.






My favorite curtains in the house are these curtains in the bathroom. No you are not seeing it wrong, the curtains really don't match. Yes they are both white, but one panel has a silver circle motif and the other has a floral tone-on-tone motif. Even better the two panels aren't even the same length. Love It! No not really.


We were told our kitchen was huge. It would be more accurate to say the room our kitchen is in is huge. The kitchen itself takes up about a third of the room and it is pretty good sized, but not huge. The kitchen is the room we eat dinner in every night and and where Alonzo does his school work every day. It also houses the kids art/playroom, laundry room, and 2 pantries. We spend a lot in this room. Interestingly it is the only room in the house, besides bathrooms without an A/C unit. I requested one and was told that it is was against policy to have an A/C in the kitchen. So most of the time, but especially on baking (I make all our bread since none of us like the local bread) and laundry days, we sweat. It tends to stay hot and humid in the kitchen space all the time. We do have a ceiling fan that helps to make it bearable.



David refers to the kitchen as Monet, good from afar, but far from good. I suppose that statement says a lot about how Dave feels about impressionist art, but it is also a pretty accurate statement in reference to our kitchen. At first glance it doesn't look so bad but then you look closer and realize that the cabinets are vinyl covered particle board and the vinyl is cracking and the particle board is swelling. The drawers are all sort of crooked and some of the doors are falling off. The sink is a lovely huge size with built in drain boards. I love the shape and size of it, but it is so scratched up that there is no way to make it look anything close to white, it grosses me out a bit, but it does match the rest of the sinks and tubs in the house. The counters are old white laminate with burn marks and stains from the previous families cook. To top it off we can't use some of the cabinets because the insides are water damaged from some time in the past. It isn't getting fixed anytime soon. Apparently the cabinets would have to be pulled out to fix it and that isn't going to happen while we are living in the house. It is supposed to be repaired during the make-ready for the next family, two and half years from now. In the meantime I pretend like those cabinets don't exist and the cockroaches enjoy have a private party condo.*






After the drapes and kitchen, the thing that bothers me the most is the floors. We have wood floors. Don't get me wrong I love wood floors. In fact once upon a time I payed quite a lot to get rid of the builders standard beige wall to wall carpet to replace it with gorgeous hard wood floors. Sadly it has been many long years since the floors in this house have seen any sort of maintenance. Unmaintained wood floors don't look so good. Requests to have them refinished resulted in a firm no, not while the house is occupied. It creates too much dust. So we live with the floors and are very glad to have some carpets to cover the worst of it. It


Honestly the house is a good size for our family, it is a decent layout, and is very livable. It was probably a gorgeous house once upon a time. The biggest problem with this house is a long history of poor maintenance, neglect, and shall we say "creative" problem solving. What do I mean by creative problem solving? Well someone ordered a 110 washing machine for a 220 country. No problem just plug it in to a transformer, then set the transformer on the floor right next to it. I put the transformer on a little table when we moved in. Good thing too. Last week the washing machine flooded the room I didn't realize it until I stepped in the water. Can you imagine if I hadn't moved the transformer off the floor? Another example would be the plywood blocking the view and much of the light on our screened porch. Couldn't it at least have been painted? Need shelves in the bedroom? We'll make some. Is there a reason they couldn't have been all the same size? No bathroom cabinet? More shelves to match those in the bedroom. A hole in the screen? No need to replace the screen, we'll just glue a patch on it. Broke a bunch of tile replacing the toilet? Just poor concrete in the hole. The fact that I have boys who apparently can't aim and the unsealed concrete is porous and absorbs smells is an added bonus.







There is so much more I can say about this house, but I think at this point you get the picture. It isn't one big thing about the house, it's the sum all the little things that get to me.

*If you are coming to Lilongwe pack pest control. Lots of it. We are prohibited from buying any local pesticides for safety reasons but Dave managed to get his hands on a can of Raid. The next morning we swept up more than 40 dead roaches. GAH! Didn't phase the ants though. Nothing phases the ants. At least they don't bite like the fire ants back home.

A Daring New Adventure

Ok, Sorry folks this post isn't about the famous (or is that infamous? Kidding!) Kolbi. This is about a new, somewhat frightening adventure that out family is undertaking this year. We are homeschooling for the first time ever. There's your connection to Kolbi the High Goddess of Homeschooling. At the moment I am only homeschooling Alonzo who is 10. In fact today is our first ever day of homeschooling. Alonzo is busy at the dining room table working on his assignments, I am trying not to hover.

So why are we homeschooling you ask? Good question! At this point I will show great restraint and try to explain without resorting to four letter words, partly because the school here IS working for some people and partly because I do still have two children enrolled in the school and you never know who may be reading this. All the same I need to share this because 1) I may explode if I can't share with someone and poor Dave is really tired of me venting all over him so you get to listen (read?) to me vent. Lucky You! and 2) Someone reading this may be considering coming to Malawi and end up facing the same situation. Being informed of what is really going on at post is always helpful when deciding on where to bid.

Way back in February we submitted our applications to Bishop Mackenzie School* here in Malawi. We applied for 4th grade for Alonzo which only makes sense because he was in 3rd grade at the time. You finish third grade then move onto fourth grade in the normal course of studies.

We arrived at post four days before school started to be informed that Alonzo would be placed in his "age appropriate grade". This is a bit tricky since we had him retained in 2nd grade. What they were really proposing was that he skip a grade and enter into FIFTH grade instead of fourth. They then proceed to tell us they were a bit concerned he may have some learning difficulties because he didn't do very well on the placement tests. Umm...DUH! Maybe because he should have been tested for fourth grade not fifth?!?! We protested he should be in fourth not fifth. At which point we were informed that there was no room in fourth, even though we put our applications in early, even though he is an embassy kid and the school is supposed to have a working relationship with the embassy, there was no room. Period.

We spent our first weekend in Malawi going over our schooling options. Please understand there are really no sports teams outside of school, no extra curricular activities except those associated with school, no parks, no cub scouts, no American club, really very few options to meet other kids outside school. This was a concern for us. It is important to us that our kids have a chance to play and interact with other kids. Other parents told us he could probably handle it as the school wasn't academically challenging. Now that would have been something helpful to put in the post reports.

Alonzo was adamantly opposed to the idea of homeschooling at that time, he wanted to go to school and make new friends. So Monday morning with heavy hearts we loaded him up on the school bus and sent him off to fifth grade. We visited one of the other schools in town that same morning. The ABC School campus was bright and welcoming, the staff friendly and professional, but there was a waiting list. Sigh! We decided to adopt a wait and see attitude.

Towards the end of the second week the school we were called in for a conference. We were told Alonzo wasn't meeting the standards for fifth grade and NOW they wanted to move him to fourth grade. After he made friends. After he was already looking forward to the upcoming overnight field trip. After he had already begun to settle into the new schedule. After he spent the whole summer hoping and praying he would do so well on his placement tests that he would be able to skip fourth grade and go straight to fifth grade. After his dream apparently came true, THAT'S when they wanted to move him down a grade??? Relax, we didn't let them do that to him. We did agree to allow him to continue in fifth grade with help from a support teacher. It wasn't enough. Last week we had a very tough meeting with the teacher where we were told that our child had some very serious learning problems and needed all kinds of testing and intervention strategies and lots preliminary diagnoses were thrown around. We decided enough was enough we would be homeschooling.

I taught school long enough to be able to tell the difference between a child that has a serious learning disability and a child that just needs to be held accountable. He doesn't have gross motor delays or pervasive developmental delay for goodness sake! He was riding a bike without training wheels before he started kinder. He runs, plays tennis, swims, shoots a bow and arrow, jumps rope, climbs trees, plays soccer, talks nonstop, he even plays piano with both hands, thank you very much.

What he needs is consistent handwriting instruction and lots and lots of practice writing until he can write legibly and quickly so he can finish assignments in a reasonable amount of time. He doesn't need someone to feel sorry for him and take dictation instead of forcing him to do his own work. Poor handwriting is not a major learning disability nor a cause to recommend occupational and physical therapy.

He reads every thing he can get his hands and comprehends what he reads very well. His bed is always heaped with books he sneaks in to read under covers after bedtime. No he doesn't read aloud smoothly but that is a matter of practice. He routinely reads books on the fifth and sixth grade accelerated reader lists without difficulty.

He does need to work on writing compositions. I will happily agree he is below grade level there. We will be writing lots of stories, letters, and essays in the coming months. Grandma and Aunt Teri get ready for you mailboxes to be full of letters from Alonzo. He also needs to be forced to sit and work until it is done. If he knows I am willing to let him sit there all blessed day until he is finished what ever is assigned then pretty soon he is going to pick up the pace so that he can go do something a bit more fun. I know this from homework battles. He used to sit and cry and whine trying to get out of homework. My attitude is he could just sit there until it is done. I don't care how long it takes. For a while it was taking hours to do homework. Sometimes he would even have to go to bed late. Lately homework is finished within thirty minutes or so. The homework hasn't gotten easier he has just figured out I am really going to make him do it so he might as well get it done.

He is on grade level for math, the fourth grade level that is. No, he doesn't get division, maybe because he has never had instruction in division. Now there's a thought. I will be ordering a ready made homeschooling curriculum that will help make sure that my instruction is on grade level and that I don't overlook something important, like maybe fractions. UGH! I hate fractions but it must be taught.

In case anyone cares I think I will use Calvert as the principal curriculum and supplement with Sonlight because of it's literature. This seems like a good starting point for an initial foray into homeschooling. Sort of a scaffold for me to lean on while we are figuring this whole thing out. I taught school ages ago. I think it might have even been in a different lifetime. It's different to teach my own child who will not be going home at 3:00. I am as nervous today as I was all those years ago facing a classroom full of 20+ students. Anyone out there who has hints or helpful advice feel free to share. I will be entirely grateful!

*Bishop MacKenzie is the school which most embassy kids attend. There are in fact two other schools here. ABC is a christian based school. There are a few embassy kids attending there and the parents seem happy. Please note is run by missionaries so the Christian atmosphere will not work for everyone. The Acacia School is a British system school that just opened this year. There are a few embassy kids there mostly at the preschool level. At present I think it only goes through third grade but they will be adding grades each year as the students move up. Since this is it's maiden year only time will tell if this will be a viable option in the future.

Day Off Gone Bad

Today was supposed to be my day off. For weeks I have been saying I just need to make it to the 14th then I can have a day to relax. Let me tell you there has been no relaxing today, none at all. Instead I am tired, stressed, and ridiculously weepy. I don't think I can write whole paragraphs today so I am borrowing my dear friend Monica's favorite blogging device, the list.

1. The coffee shop at the base changed it's opening time from 9 am to 10 am as of today. This became important because if I had been at the base sipping a latte and browsing at the books store like I had planned, then the next thing on my list would never have happened, and most likely the rest of the day would have been fine, or at least fine-ish. Yes I am reduced to making up words at this point.

2. While heading out the base for a later than usual latte before I even cleared the security checkpoint another car backed up and hit me. Yes, hit the van. As in wrecked my car. Paul if you are reading this don't freak it is still drivable, just not so pretty as it was this morning. The other driver was a young lady who was very shaken and neither of us had any clue as what to do. She called her Mom, I called Dave, they both called RSO and after a very long time it was straightened out. I gave up on the latte went home and cried. Seemed reasonable to me. I also e-mailed Monica (of the list fame) with a long rant about teenage drivers. She hasn't e-mailed me back, she is probably still laughing at my creative use of certain four letter words.

3. Managed to sit on my sunglasses. My prescription sunglasses. Driving without glasses is not an option any more and I sat on my sunglasses. It is not raining today. Straightened them the best I could, they are still a little wonky, but I needed them. New ones are not in the current budget at this point, they will have to do.

4. Dave decided to take me out to eat. As I left to go pick him up to go to lunch I managed to lock myself out of the house. More tears, called Dave to say I am sorry but I can't make it, he called Dakota who left work on his very first day of work to bring me his house keys and a Starbucks frappuccino in a bottle. I have a good son.

5. Dave took me out to lunch...at McDonald's. Had some sort of grilled chicken wrap thingy. It was good. Really. There are limited choices around the consulate here so he did the best he could, he is a good husband.

6. Went to the base to go grocery shopping. Grocery shopping on my day off is a bad thing on it's own, but eating is a good thing so I had to go shopping. Forgot half the stuff I needed and forget to fill up on gas so I will have to go back again later this week. Oh well. There is milk and cereal in the fridge for breakfast and frozen pizza in the freezer for dinner tomorrow.

7. The weights from our shipments came in. We are WAYYYY over. Are you sitting down? Here are the totals. HHE to Lilongwe: 7699, HHE to storage: 464 pounds for a grand total of 8153 pounds HHE. Almost exactly what was predicted BEFORE I spent 2 weeks obsessively cleaning and throwing out huge bags of stuff. The only saving grace is that our consumables got thrown in with our HHE. We are having our consumables pulled and made into it's own shipment. That should take most of the weight out, I hope. We will know more tomorrow...maybe...I hope.

8. The GPS suddenly lost all it's European maps. They just vanished while we were picking up the kids from school. No idea what happened. David just spent forever on the computer trying to figure out what went wrong, now all the maps are back but all of our bookmarked locations are gone. Technology is great when it works but when it goes wrong it sucks, big time.

9. Kids screamed and yelled all the way home. Nothing new here, but totally out patience with their arguing if that was a fiat or an alpha romeo. It was a flipping car, what more do you really need to know? And really is it a good idea to be screaming while your parents are freaking out because the GPS just died?

I am going to call this day done before anything else goes wrong. Hope your day was better than mine.

Why?

I know that David being out of town has nothing really to do with anything in the house breaking down so how come both the shower and the dishwasher have broken in the last week?  Nothing has broken in months.  It was just waiting for him to go out of town.  On top of that Colin has locked himself in the bathroom upstairs and won't come out.  Not a bad strategy.  If I wasn't afraid the kids would burn down the house I would lock myself in the bathroom with a glass of wine, bubble bath, and a good book.  

Don't Need German

Here we are in Germany and I can not count the number of times I was told “You don’t need to learn German” when we were preparing to move here. We were repeatedly reassured that most Germans under 40 speak a fair amount of English, especially in Frankfurt. Today we decided to go get Colin his new bike as he has outgrown his old bike. We have been to this bike shop before so getting there should have been easy, so one would think.


It all started when we went to the bus stop to get our ticket and the ticket machine did not take bills and I did not have enough change to buy the ticket. Ooops. I guess I will have to ask the bus driver to give me a group ticket. Okay this shouldn’t be so hard because I don’t need to speak German. This is how it went down. Shannon, Colin and I get on the bus and I say to the driver “I need a group ticket” his response was a blank stare. I said again “Group” except this time I added some body language, you know the gesturing with the hand and wiggling of the body. He looks at me and says “Gruppenkarte”. I looked at him and my eyes get really big I look and Shannon and Colin and I say “Yes that’s exactly what I want”. He takes my money gives me my ticket and my change. We are now on our way. I know where we transfer and even to what line. So about 15 minutes later we transfer to trolley 12.

I look around and yep we are going the right way I see things I recognize and start to relax. We make a turn and I think "Hey are we going the right way?" Hmmm... we continue. About 10 minutes later thing are starting to seem very unfamiliar. Ok time to get up and look at the map. “Where did the guy say we were?” hmmm it’s kind of hard matching what is being said over the PA to what I am reading. If fact it all looks German to me. Finally I got it! We are going the wrong way. I look up and lo-and-behold we are now on the 11 trolley. “What the heck!” We exit and go back the other way on the 12 trolley and I hear Colin … “Look, Dad we already went by this place”.


“Yeah Colin thanks for rubbing it in”. Ok I see that we are on the 12 and the destination on the banner is correct. As I am sitting there looking at the banner... boom!!!! It happens! It changed to trolley 11. What @$#%^ !!!! We get off at the next stop and decide OK we will just go the other direction. We cross the track and there is a German man dressed in blue wearing a mister Rogers’s sweater. He says “aksldfjl askfj dsjeid dkjfoie dpetrt” (just make German sounds in your head) WHAT ? I look at him and say “That way” pointing in the direction I wanted to go. He then says “Asdfjlkdsjfl asdkfjlk sdlfkj BUS” and points. Shannon and I go"Ahhhh". The track must be broken and we are going to take the bus. We cross the street and hop on the bus and off we go. One U-turn and one stop later we are there.

We all decide that our stomachs are growling and are in need of food. Look it’s a Burger King. Its right next door to the bike store. I tell Colin look in there... that’s were we are going when we get done eating. He was so excited. We get to the cashier and I say “I would like a number 5” holding my hand up showing five fingers, seeing that hand gestures worked earlier. She walks away and goes to the fry’s. Hmmm, I think. A few minutes later she brings someone else to the register that speaks a little English. And we manage to get our food ordered.

We head over to the bike store and it took Colin about 25 minutes to pick out a bike. It is a nice bike too. I wanted to ask the worker a few questions, but he spoke absolutely no English. He tried and gestured with his hands as he spoke but I still I did not understand him. After I got to the fourth worker he spoke perfect English. He was a great help. He took us to the check-out and the attendant told me the amount and I say “ahhh ok” I knew exactly how much she told me to pay ‘cause I looked at the register. I take out my wallet and hand her my credit card. She looks at me, hands me back my credit card and says “Cash or c-card” hmmm... that puts a cramp in things.


Ok where can I find an ATM machine? Back on the bus, transfer to the trolley and off to the gas station to get money. 45 minutes later we arrive back at the bike shop and pay for the bike and off to home we go.


We get on the bus to take us to the transfer to the 12 trolley and then the 34 bus. So there we are waiting for the 34 bus under a sign that say 34 and it says bus in the street. Must be a bus stop. Pretty soon bus 34 pulls up and stops. The driver watches us go to the bus to get on but does not open the doors. Ok he has to wait. He is hanging out the front door smoking cigarettes and yakking on the phone. He watches us go up to the bus door a few time to try and get on but the doors are still locked. He gets back on the bus and Shannon decides she is going to try the door again. As she reaches to push the door open button the bus starts up and drives off. I tell Colin “Run! We will catch up with you” we run down the street dragging the bike along with us to the next bus stop. The doors are closed and the bus is pulling away. I can see the drivers face in the mirror and I hit the door. He stops the bus to let us on. What a @$#%$& !!!! he knew darn well we were waiting for him. Even if he could not speak English he could have just motioned to us and said “sahjdfkj sdfj dslkfj dfsflkj” we would have understood him. I mean we don’t need German here.

For all you people out there that said “You don’t need to know German”

BITE ME!