Archive for school

Strap it on

10 March 2008 at 7:05 pm · Filed under my kids, people, school, travel

I have an exercise for you. Take a not-so-small-anymore baby and strap her on the front of you in one of those baby carriers. (I prefer Baby Bjorn myself, since it’s lasted through some beyond-normal use and three kids.) Then strap an almost-three-year-old into an umbrella stroller. (Again, I have to recommend a Chicco Caddy, for the same reasons as above.) Strap on the backpack full of diapers and extra preschooler clothes, wipes, snacks, etc. And strap on a smile. Don’t forget that last piece, because you are going to need it. You are going to pick up a five-year-old from school.

It takes 10 minutes to get out the door of the apartment, down the elevator from the eleventh floor, and out the front gate. If you share the elevator with another resident of the building, you will get your first chance to exercise that smile. “Oh, what a cutie,” they say. That’s good, they are still focused on the baby.

By the time you get down the street to the bus stop, another 10 minutes have passed, and another 20 people walking on the sidewalk. “Que valiente,” they whisper to each other. Now they are talking about you. “How brave she is!”

The bus could take anywhere between two and twenty minutes to arrive. More opportunities to exercise that smile come with the wait. “Can I give her this candy? What’s wrong with her?” Now they are watching the two-year-old. Keep smiling!

You pull the kid and yourself and the stroller up onto the bus. Good news: now they think you have to be crazy, so they give you a seat, even if the place is full. But keep smiling because they are watching you now. If you keep smiling, the bus people will smile back, and you can complete some good-vibe circuit that will insure that you arrive with your smile still in place when the bus reaches your stop in 20 minutes. If you stop smiling, well…don’t stop.

Once you have made it to the door of the bus with your baby strapped on the front, your kid trailing from one arm, and your stroller gripped tightly in the other, push the buzzer and get off. Then assemble the stroller without bending over (remember the baby is still on you) and strap the kid back in place (if she doesn’t kick you in the meantime). You are ready for the next leg of your journey.

Cross the street, avoiding the potholes and the “dog doodles” in the sidewalk, hopefully not against the light, and walk six blocks to the school. You made it! Halfway that is, because you are about to gain another little dynamo and her backpack, and try it all again on the way home.

Roundtrip = 2 hours. Keep smiling!

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Cooking from scratch…as in NOTHING

13 January 2008 at 6:46 pm · Filed under food, school, students, travel

This morning Mark and all the other staff left for Chanco, a small rural town along the beach of southern Chile where Campus Crusade is holding the annual Student Conference. It is to last six days, and is to be held at an internado – a public boarding school of sorts – that is open to us because it is summer here in Chile.

Mark is in charge of the food for the conference. That’s for 45 people, including the staff and students, every meal for six days. That also means that he was in charge of planning what they would eat, deciding how much they needed to buy, buying it, cooking it, cleaning up after it, and reimbursing all the costs later. A big job!

This evening he called me after arriving in Chanco to let me know that there is nothing at all in the kitchen there. No plates, no cups, no silverware, no pots, no pans, no serving spoons. NO REFRIGERATOR, NO STOVE! They do have a sink.

He was prepared for most of this, because rumors had begun to arrive about the primitive nature of the place before he left. But he had pretty much counted on there being a hotplate at least.

I hope the students like sandwiches.

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Rachel starts school on Monday! She is only 4 year…

24 February 2007 at 1:17 pm · Filed under purchases, school

Rachel starts school on Monday! She is only 4 years old, so she will be in the pre-kinder class at Santiago Christian Academy. It’s an English-speaking, pre-K thru 12 school run by the American Baptists here in town. Mark was homeschooled and I went to public school in the States, so this will be our first experiences with a Christian school. I think it will turn out good for Rachel.

One of the things that is different about school here in Chile is that all the kids wear uniforms, and Rachel will too. We took her on Monday to get measured for it, and paid in full. Carey met me there to walk me through what size and what pieces I needed to get. She also brought me some patches with the school insignia that need to be sewn on to the shirts. We got two pair of navy blue pants, one short-sleeve white polo shirt, one short-sleeve navy polo shirt, and one long-sleeve navy polo shirt. They were supposed to be ready yesterday.

But even though this is a school run by Americans, we are still in Chile. Rachel’s clothes weren’t ready on Friday, and they weren’t sure when they would be. Maybe Monday. Hmmm. So for now I will have to hem up a pair of pants that Carey’s kids wore last year and she’ll have a shirt to borrow from them, too. Hopefully her new clothes will be ready in time for her second day of school! I’ll try to post a picture when we get them.

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