Making progress
Trip Start
Aug 01, 2008
1
30
63
Trip End
Jun 30, 2010
Pointe Noire,
Congo
Sunday, October 19, 2008
usual excuses about slow or intermittent internet and just finding the time in
the typically busy day. But things
are going quite well, one or two minor catastrophes notwithstanding. Our washer and dryer died, and there's no laundromat or laundry service in town. Luckily our friends live in an building with three washers and two dryers and they let us load them up this weekend while all the maids are off. Some guys came to try and fix our machines, then the next thing we knew they were gone and so were the machines, back to the store for who knows how long. Of course they said they'd return Friday or yesterday, but we weren't holding our breath. The boys are really progressing with
their swimming lessons - they are able to float and kick with their kickboards
now independent of the teacher, and Oscar swims on his own about eight feet
from the teacher to the ladder and jumps in the water letting his face go under. Both boys are spending more time
between turns hanging out in the water and moving easily from the ladder to the
side of the pool. I played poker
the other night with a P.E. teacher from the French school who also coaches
swimming and he told me that one of the boys' teachers is an Olympian (1980,
Moscow) and that his son is now in the US training for the next Olympics. Not bad! We finally made it over to their preschool last week to pick
them up and meet their teachers and get a glimpse of the goings-on there. It was a playground full of kids
playing very easily and calmly, some sitting and snacking and many teachers and
adults around who knew the kids by name.
We got brief run-downs (in French) from their teachers and all seemed to
be going well.
We have had a few days off from teaching, which has allowed
us to catch our breath and re-organize and gear up for a visit from the
boss. He's coming from the US via
Kazakhstan and Gabon to check out our situation this week on Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday. It should be
interesting to get some feedback from his observations and to see what kinds of
agenda he advances with the school board.
Things have been going very smoothly with the students and we hear all
kinds of positive feedback from the parents. I'm sure it will feel just as quick getting through the next
eight or nine weeks to the December break. All of our friends here are staying in town for the holidays,
too, so it should be a fun stretch of not working.
We have been heading up to the beach north of town just
about every weekend, and we now know a few people with beach houses up
there. Today we had a housewarming
of sorts with our Scottish friends who just took on beach rental a couple of
weeks ago. It's in a little
cluster of houses up on a plateau a hundred yards or so from the path down to
the beach, so it's nice for the kids to play around and we don't have to worry
that they'll wander into the water without anyone noticing. Last week we visited some new Belgian
friends who are building a deck onto their rental and planning to sink a kiddie
pool into it! The great thing is
that the waves are much mellower up there than down in town. At today's beach there was also a bunch
of clay that we all had fun painting ourselves with. Oscar and Henry were shouting "Dirty, dirty, dirty!" as they coated their naked bodies.
Another nice bonus is that the school has a dvd projector
that turns our white concrete cave of a home into a cinema! We're going to sponsor some family
movie nights for the school families and some cinema nights for friends, too.
So just to give a more personal flavor to the circle of
friends we have gotten to know, here's the lineup and where they're from (I'll
spare you the details of where else in the world they've worked): Klaus and Angela, from Germany; Phil
and Melanie from Scotland; Javier and Julie from France; Regis and Nathalie
from France; Georgina and Danel from Canada; David and Fiona from Australia;
Magali and Madenga from France and Congo; Elke and Kelia from Germany and
Congo.
We've been pushing our boys to eat more food and a wider
variety of food, and this week alone we've succeeded in getting Oscar to like
pineapple and hot dogs and green beans and cucumbers and scrambled eggs and (cinnamon)
French toast...Henry's a generally less fussy eater, but needs pushing just the
same. They've eaten chicken soup
and steak and fish and peas and plantains, too, but they won't admit to liking
any of those.
The weather here seems to be getting a little more hot and
less cloudy, but the real crazy rains and crazy heat and bright blue skies have
not yet begun to be the norm. It
should be interesting to see how life changes with the turn of the season.
