The Learning Curve

 

      Today the kids started their first day in the Dusseldorf International School, so they can become international citizens (that's the schools motto.) The kids start school everyday at 8:40. If you know me, you know this is a great thing as I have a small problem waking up in the morning. Even though I am overjoyed with this start time, there is one big negative to this set up. The kids do not get out of school until 3:40. It currently gets dark at 4:30 so the kids have less than an hour of daylight after they get out of school.
    So at 8:00 I woke them up and packed their lunches in cloth bags from Real. We ate breakfast in the hotel lobby and walked down the street to the school. I took their picture one block away so not to embarrass them (Elijah, said he would just die.) When we got to the front lobby the admissions officer walked each of them to their new classrooms, first Elijah, then Stella, and last but not least Oliver. They each walked in a little slow but no one looked back. I think they were glad not to spend the day in a hotel room.  Then it was time for my orientation. Another 3rd grade girl was starting the today in Stella's class. She came from Brazil a week ago. Her Father spoke English but her mother spoke only Portuguese, so she could not understand any of the orientation. She kept looking at her husband anxiously because he was leaving for work as soon as orientation was over and she would have to do everything else with out any use of language . The secretary kept telling her not to worry the school uses hands and feet to communicate, and they are used to working with all languages . This women could not speak to the teachers, the principal, nor the secretary.  She was more in the dark than I was. For the first time this week I could understand what was going on around me, the secretary was from England, the school nurse from Ireland. Sure they said trousers and kept telling me I looked cold, but I could understand it all. This women could not speak English or German. She had a very large learning curve, greater than mine! Just when you think "how can I do this," you meet someone whose challenges far out way your own and think "how are they going to this?"
   The Brightside is everyone seems to be in the same boat. The Brazilian couple live in our hotel and are also currently homeless and phoneless, just waiting on their air shipment to arrive. I also met an American from Ann Arbor Michigan. Her family arrived the day after us and they have been to Ikea an equal amount of times. 

-- The school nurse told me "slap cheek" was going around? what? am I the only one that has never heard of slap cheek? Chicken pox is also going around? because many places still do not vaccinate for it?