The Embassy Wife

Would you Like that With or Without Ants?

The embassy wife — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:59:40 GMT

Oddly enough, this is one of the most common questions asked in our house these days.

Mostly the ants are little, tiny, ghostly looking things about the size of flake of black pepper that get into everything. Only problem is, they seem to spawn at the rate of about three million per second; the entire population of China throughout history has nothing on these ants. Someone left the remains of a PB&J in the guest bathroom the other day, and when "ants" were reported, I went to investigate. I followed a solid trail of these ghost ants across the bathroom cabinet, up the wall, through the window (which leads, oddly enough, into our laundry room) across the wall, over the door, across another window sill (between our laundry room and "maid's quarters," known in our house as "the storage room") up and over the top of a ten foot wide cabinet, and up the TWO STOREY wall that is the west wall of my laundry room. And from the top of that wall, they presumably formed a solid and equally tortuous trail two stories down to the ground. This was a Solid Chain of Ants, two or three ants wide, stretching this vast, (for ants) cosmological distance. That's a lot of ants.

I sprayed them, of course. All that I could reach. With some wonderful, non-toxic, mint-based spray that my husband found and that makes ants curl up and die, twitching, in their tracks. DIE YOU FILTHY LITTLE VERMIN, DIE!!!! MUWAHAHAHAHA!!!!

But I digress.

Then there was the day that Timothy asked for honey on toast. There seemed to be an odd, frothy mixture embedded in the honey. Oh, no, that's ants. Millions of them. Were there more ants or honey? An intensely philosophical question that I didn't care to answer.

"Would you like your honey with or without ants?" I asked him, and when he was informed that it was with ants or not at all, he cheerfully agreed to "with ants." And then proceeded to eat every bite of his toast. This is the child who vomits when you wave a carrot in front of his face and can't stand horrible things like Chocolate Ice Cream because they're just too far off his "normal food meter." I don't get it.

And, since we've been taking a Lot of Very Nasty Medicine lately, I have fallen back on the immortal wisdom of Mary Poppins that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, and have been offering same as a bribe to get the nastiest stuff down their throats. And again the question comes: "Would you like your sugar with or without ants?" Always they ask for "without," but none of us looks too closely, because we know the truth. The ghost ants have gotten into my large sugar canister and carved out tunnels in the sugar there; they've gotten into my bread box before and turned the remains of a loaf of bread into an ant hill. I didn't have any other bread, so I whacked them out the best I could on the counter top, sliced it, and turned it into a PB&J for Timothy's lunch at school. I told him they were all gone and hoped the ice pack I put in his lunch box would slow them down enough that we could maintain the polite fiction surrounding what we both know is a bald-faced lie. Jonathan occasionally makes matter-of-fact comments to the effect that "they're just extra protein." Oddly, this seems to reassure all three children.

And then, we have a roving group of LA-style gang ants; black, nearly a half-inch long (OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a LITTLE bit, but they're much bigger than any ants should ever be), and I strongly suspect they're the kind that bit Timothy's finger the other day and made him bleed. They've staked out the territory between the guest bathroom and the bathroom in the abuela's room (which we use as a TV room/play room) and roam in small packs of 3-5 ants. They're never in groups big enough that I can spray (or stomp or hammer) enough to make a difference or tell where they're coming from. Sometimes we stomp, sometimes we just give them a wide berth and they return the favor.

There are many more tales I could tell you over a cup of coffee, if you'd care to join me? And would you like your sugar with or without ants?

WHAT Bit You?

The embassy wife — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:46:22 GMT

Timothy came in the house yesterday afternoon holding a finger that was covered with blood.

Naturally, I was curious. "What happened to you?"

"An ant bit me!"

"An ANT did that to you??" I exclaimed as I watched the blood puddle on my floor.

"Yeah! One of those big ones." Yeah, big like the size of a man-eating tiger!! "I killed it."

Couldn't say I blamed him. I cleaned off the blood and slathered the quarter-inch long gash!!! with antibiotic cream and sent him off to play. He volunteered to stay away from the ants.

And I'm not going outside again without a Really Big Hammer!

"My 30 Objects Bag"

The embassy wife — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:53:44 GMT

Benjamin was supposed to send in to school this week 30 of something, ANYthing, the teacher assured me. Anything they could count to practice counting up to 30, with the understanding that objects would be traded and would not be returned to the child of origin.

Of course I forgot until the morning this was due. So, leaving the car running in the driveway, I rushed back inside, grabbed a handful of what I hoped was 'about' 30 dried cranberries, stuffed them in a baggie, and away we went.

I did pause briefly to wonder if I was supposed to have counted these out carefully with Benjamin's help, but I was just glad to have SOMEthing to send to school with him.

The big count-off/trade-off was today, and Benjamin brought home a large bag full of: decorative scrapbooking papers; building blocks; pieces of decorative border to stick on his wall; butterfly buttons; lovingly hand-decorated foam teddy bear shapes; fuzzy puff balls. And a very sad, dried cranberry squashed in the bottom of the bag.

Sigh. I think I must be missing the point of preschool. Good thing Benjamin doesn't seem to notice.

Portrait of a Costa Rican Prostitue

The embassy wife — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:08:33 GMT

Her name is Yamileth and she is no longer a prostitute.

But she was. For 41 years she worked the streets, starting when she was 13 and needed to support a drug habit. She's 54 now; has had eight children, and spent 35 years living on the streets, turning to crime and prostitution so she could buy drugs.

But since coming to the Rahab foundation several years ago, she's gotten off drugs, has become a Christian and is going to church, and for the last four years she hasn't had to sell herself once.

I've talked about the Rahab foundation before, but I wanted to give you a picture -- even just a brief one -- of the sorts of work they're doing; the sorts of lives they're changing.

There are also Lady and Evelyn and Jasmin and a half dozen other happy women and their children whom I've met at Rahab: whose lives have been changed and whose stories I don't know yet. They are one of my biggest incentives for learning Spanish, actually. I want to know these women, know what they've come from, to see the world, even briefly, through their eyes. If they can find so much joy in life, there is certainly hope for the rest of us.

Good Spanish; Strange Workman

The embassy wife — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:55:55 GMT

I have been suffering from Piglet Flu today, and so I spent this morning in bed in a coma, occasionally answering the phone. If I woke up in time.

But even when I woke up in time, I wasn't always coherent. Which makes the following even more astounding.

The phone rang. I picked it up. It was a man speaking entirely in very rapid Spanish. I understood him completely! He said he needed to come by my house to do some work on the dryer (that had been requested a couple of weeks ago), when was a good time to come? I rallied myself sufficiently to realize that today after one would be perfect. And told him so in Spanish. Woo hoo!

I felt like such a Spanish stud. Or would have, if I hadn't immediately passed out again into a coma. It was very interesting driving to the preschool to pick up my youngest while in a coma, I can tell you!

So, this guy shows up at three (that's after one, right?) to install a lint catcher for my dryer: a small box that contains water and mounts to the wall. The dryer hose attaches into it and the lint is trapped in the water.

Did he install this above the dryer? No he did not. He installed it exactly even with the top of the dryer, making it impossible to push the dryer as closely up against the wall as it's designed to be pushed.

I politely questioned this (in Spanish again!!) since the position of the dryer is critical: there are about two inches of leeway in its position, and after that, the door to the laundry room won't shut and then all the ash and rain and dust that blow in there from outside blow in to my kitchen. Like I said, it's critical.

He assured me, that certainly the dryer was in a good position! and certainly the door would shut! He looked offended.

He crawled out from behind the dryer, and shoved it back as far as he could.

The door would not shut. He looked surprised.

My housekeeper and I sat in chairs in the living room, out of sight around the corner, and laughed silently until tears rolled down our faces as he then proceeded to attack an unoffending plastic pipe that stuck a mere half inch out from the wall and was doing nothing to impede the dryer's retreat. He chipped it completely away.

That was the pipe for connecting the hose to vent the dryer to the outside. I have no idea what the next tenants are going to do. But I'll be gone, so it's not my problem.

The door still wouldn't shut.

I made him a cup of coffee: two sugars, milk. Maybe this would help.

He studied the problem, and then, by main force, shoved the dryer back until the hose was almost flattened and the innocent little plastic box (which should have been mounted a mere six inches higher and there would have been no problem) bulged on both ends.

But the laundry room door shut and the box didn't crack. So he gulped down his coffee and drove off before any further problems could develop.

And my housekeeper and I laughed and laughed and laughed.

But the dryer works, the door shuts, and I sounded more like a retarded third grader than a retarded preschooler in Spanish today, so I'm calling it a good day. Piglet flu notwithstanding.

Trafficking in Persons Award

The embassy wife — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:27:19 GMT

I am sure that you, like I, have been anxiously awaiting the release of the Trafficking in Persons award by the State Department! Wait no longer!! The awards and the report were released today. The 2009 report is available on the State Department website, but when last I checked, they seemed to be having technical problems. Or perhaps I'm having technical problems.

Anyway, Trafficking in Persons is actually a really big deal, whether you were waiting with bated breath or not. I'm sorry to say I was not. "Trafficking" is actually a modern-day diplomatic euphemism for "slavery," often -- although not always -- with forced sex work as the goal.

I'm excited this year because Mariliana Morales Berrios (pictured above, receiving her award from Secretary Clinton in Washington, DC today), is the founder and director of the Rahab Foundation here in San Jose, where I occasionally volunteer. She was chosen out of hundreds of candidates to be one of only nine people worldwide to receive the Trafficking in Persons Award this year; her work at Rahab helping women leave the sex trade has fed directly into stopping trafficking, a large source of the labor pool for the global sex trade. In fact, just this week two Costa Rican women were rescued from sexual slavery in northern Mexico. Despite Mariliana's hard work, there's still a long way to go. I hope this award gives even greater visibility and stature to her work here.

Olga is My Friend

The embassy wife — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:48:16 GMT

All those bad things I said about Olga last week? I take them back.

She is my friend.

OK, so we still need to iron out some issues relating to her use of icepicks, but she is still my friend.

She thinks some of the knots she's been working on in my shoulders might have been there for years: she asked me how old my oldest child was. He's nine.

But after two sessions with her I can now move my neck without hearing the bones grate together. I can sit in a chair and hold my head up without wanting to cry (most of the time). The fingers in my left hand are still a bit numb, but at least I can operate a knife without being in fear of my life. And best of all: I actually SLEEP! at night!! Woo hoo!! Of course, prescription painkillers may be helping with that too. Whatever. I'll take it any way I can get it.

She's coming back Monday. I can hardly wait, icepicks and all.

If a Tree Falls Out of the Forest....

The embassy wife — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:40:23 GMT

... Does anyone hear the transformer explode when the power lines snap??

In case you're wondering: yes.

I was upstairs on Tuesday afternoon packing my son's suitcase for his school camp trip (two overnights!!!) and heard a noise rather like Godzilla-meets-Flight-of-the-Bumblebee right outside the window. Which is interesting because the transformer is half a block away and nowhere that I should be able to hear it, even if it exploded. Which it did. And, of course, all our power was cut.

A large tree had collapsed -- for no discernible reason -- onto the power lines across the street from the gate to our condominio. I mean: DIRECTLY across the street to our condominio. If it had been about four feet taller, it would have crashed into our gate and we'd probably still be trapped inside.

We streamed outside to see what was going on just in time to see two guys in a little white truck pull up, wade through the (live) electrical wires to pull part of the trunk out of the way, and casually drive off.

It was 4:30. Having seen this sort of thing before, and noting that in the past it had taken most of the day to get things back up and running, I went inside without comment and fired up the tabletop camp stove I'd purchased for emergencies. When I bought it, I was thinking of emergencies like camping out under the swing set after an earthquake, but I figured an exploded transformer was close enough.

Only problem: we were scheduled to have meatloaf. It was all mixed up, in the pan with the ketchup sauce already on top. I had only been waiting for my husband to get home to pop it in the oven.

A camp stove is not an oven. What to do? Aha! Meatloaf patties! I smashed the meat into patties, ketchup sauce and all. I also opened a can of spinach and heated it up and opened a can of palm hearts and called it "salad." I told the kids it was delicious and most of us even believed it. We ate out on the patio by the light of three tiny citronella candles set on an overturned bucket and while I cleaned up by candlelight, my husband bathed the boys by emergency lantern light.

Then we had one more look at The Tree: emergency crews had showed up; the entire neighborhood showed up; cars from Panama, I think, showed up. It was like a huge block party, everyone standing around and watching the work men remove the tree, and occasionally move their tiny front-end loader looking thing out of the way so a bus could get by. And then everyone else standing around would have to jump in their cars and move them so the bus could get by; and then we all went back to watching the men work. There were a lot of cheerful shouts and waving of hands and lots of extra officious help. I was surprised there wasn't anyone selling popcorn.

My kids took a detour to the pitch black playground on the way back home and thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world to swing in the dark (in the mud), and then we went into our candlelit house and closed the door and hustled everyone to bed.

It was a WONDERFUL evening. It gets pitch dark here by about six o'clock. By seven, everyone in our house was in bed, and just almost asleep.

And the power came back on at seven-thirty.

Like I said, a WONDERFUL evening. It was so wonderful that every night since we've been aiming for a seven o'clock bedtime.

The only drawback is that our internet has been sporadic -- a generous description -- ever since Tuesday night. My husband swears it couldn't possibly be from the power problems, but I'm not convinced. But it's not such a bad thing because it means I'VE been getting to bed early too. Ahh, sleep!

I may send Gary out to flip the main breaker every night at six. Look, boys! It's dark. Bedtime!!

Seen Recently in San Jose

The embassy wife — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:02:20 GMT

I saw something rather surreal while driving on the autopista (interstate) recently: Young Costa Rican with dreadlocks, filthy jeans, ragged backpack walking on the edge of the autopista -- the kind of guy who makes you nervous. And not only that, he was carrying a wicked looking knife with a six-inch blade; I saw him stick it into a well-used leather sheath as we inched by in traffic.

I locked the doors.

A few yards ahead of knife guy were two policemen, standing at the edge of the road, checking for speeders in the bumper to bumper traffic and generally keeping the world safe for democracy. They watched with interest as knife guy wiped the blade on his pants and stuck it into the sheath. He walked past them carrying the knife, they each lit a cigarette, and we drove past.

I thought it was all very strange until I remembered that many men here walk around with a two-foot long machete strapped to their waist.

And after that, I guess a six-inch knife really isn't that big a deal; I'll just chalk the surreality up to 'seeing through American eyes'!

Olga

The embassy wife — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:47:26 GMT

For weeks I've had weak, numb fingers that have trouble wielding either a knife or a hairbrush (and even have trouble opening a clothespin), and last week developed pounding neck- and head-aches that start every day before I wake up and last until I finally fall asleep at night.

I was starting to get concerned.

The Embassy nurse sent me for X-rays last week to confirm that there is definitely a problem in my neck; including, among other things, the fact that my neck vertebrae are pulled slightly out of alignment. However, without consulting an orthopedic surgeon and having an MRI, it's difficult to tell if I have problems in my neck that are causing muscle tension or if muscle tension is causing the problems.

No wonder I've been a bit testy lately!

Enter Olga, whom I'm sure you're imagining as a 6 foot tall blonde Swede.

NOT!

Try a five-foot-nothing Costa Rican with muscles that put your average pro wrestler to shame. I haven't decided if she's a massage therapist who fights wild tigers for fun or a massage therapist who plays linebacker for a professional football team on the week-ends. Or maybe she's just your average sado-masochist. And she seemed so nice when I first met her, too.

She came to my house with her folding massage table and told me to lie down and just relax. Ha.

She started on my feet, and after she'd made me yelp and try to leap off the table several times, she looked at me pityingly and said in Spanish, "You poor thing! That hurts?" (Well, yes! Aren't you attacking me with an icepick???) "This is definitely an emergency massage for you, dear."

And then she proceeded to beat me with sticks and icepicks and a hammer or two. And I yelped and writhed and tried to keep from rolling off onto the hard tile floor.

Relax? I felt like I'd run a mile fighting jungle reptiles the whole way. I'd rather be with the "I'm a Celebrity... Get me Out of Here!" people eating bugs in grass huts.

Then she smiled innocently and asked when I was free on Thursday because she definitely needed to come back and I was so tense I probably wouldn't feel any better unless she did come back.

She stood there smiling, looking expectantly at me, so I hobbled over to my date book and confirmed that eight on Thursday morning would be fine. And she left.

But she's coming back. Oh dear.

I was numb for hours after she left. And then the old pain came back, and then after that I felt bruised.

And she's coming back.

Anybody know where those celebrities are here in Costa Rica? Maybe Patti Blagojevich would like a massage....

Game Called on Account of Tree Frog

The embassy wife — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:34:18 GMT

The pool game is always pretty much over when a red-eyed tree frog hops onto the pool table.

We were away at The volcano this week-end: Arenal, the most active volcano in the world, and potential for life-threatening eruptions aside, my new favorite place in the world. We stayed at the Arenal Lodge, some forgotten relic of a past heyday, full of threadbare gentility and rugged comfort and set in the middle of several hundred acres of what used to be a macadamia nut plantation.

And the main thing to do there: walk. Walk up the mile-long road that leads to the hotel and marvel at the thousands of bricks lining the road, all hand-laid. And marvel at the dense, green, rich, alive tropical jungle on each side of the road; and the sheer drops to rock-strewn streams, and leaves big enough to be a boy's umbrella; and welcome the splash of rain and the coolness of the mist.

Or walk to the butterfly house and the mile-long brick-lined path; and marvel at the stone-lined, abandoned swimming pool set in the middle of the stream; listen to the thousands of sounds that pass for silence in the jungle -- not one of them man-made; be startled by the sudden orange flash of a heliconia; be relieved that it's only a tangle of vine in the path and not a snake; slip on the smooth, slick, moss covered bricks.

And in the freshness of the morning, walk down the hill from the lodge, through an almost-endless grassy pasture, and watch your kids delight in the strange plants whose leaves close when touched. Explore the banana trees planted at the edge of the jungle surrounding you; have they escaped from the forest? Or are they there as sentinels to hold back the rich growth of a tropical jungle? Listen to the grunt of a peccary as you pass its hiding place in the forest; walk under macadamia trees, hoary with lichen, and sit and stare in awe as the wind scatters the clouds and the feet of the volcano across the valley are slowly revealed; its head wreathed in eternal smoke and steam.

Or watch as your children hold out flowers for the pair of resident wild blue macaws to politely take and peck at; watch them laugh as the birds fly overhead, feathers almost skimming through their hair; and watch yourself, with a catch in your throat, as they fly higher and higher, almost to the clouds it seems, calling out their raucous joy, only to settle in the lime tree just out of reach.

I didn't want to come home.

Cowboy Day or Dia de los Caballeritos

The embassy wife — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:36:59 GMT

Yesterday was family "Cowboy Day" at the preschool. I've been dreading it for weeks.

They had a family "Pirate Day" in the fall, so I already knew what to expect. That's why I was dreading it.

In the fall, whole families -- mom, dad, kids, and even grandparents dressed up in the most elaborate costumes you can imagine. All matching, of course. One guy had a live parrot on his shoulder.

I, myself, was thinking: Pre-school, pirates, simple. I wore a pair of frayed "cast-away" jeans, and I convinced Benjamin to wear a pirate's hat. People took one look at me and handed me dishes to wash: I simply was not Dressed Appropriately.

Have I mentioned 90-degree heat and 90% humidity?

And the Costa Ricans' need for personal space is much less than mine. Their accepted person:space ratio is approximately 8 people per square foot. I'm claustrophobic. I need 8 square feet per person on a long-term basis.

In the fall, I gutted it out till the bitter end because I had no car, was watching two extra kids, and was waiting for a ride. NOW, I have a car. I was planning to make an appearance for the beginning-of-party-assembly and then skedaddle.

And I even dressed up this time. I'm from Texas, you'd think a Cowboy Day party would be simple. Ha. We scrounged some respectable outfits together for the two of us, and, after much consideration and remembering the polite sneers and dirty dishes I had been handed in the fall, I wore my boots.

NOT cowboy boots; calf-high dress boots with what I'll swear are six inch heels. It would generally be more pleasant to walk barefooted over broken glass than to walk in these boots. I should have burned them years ago, but, dang, they look nice. And they were expensive.

We hobbled painfully to the party. Where, first off, we were supposed to gather in the kids' respective classrooms and learn a "Cowboy Dance" which we were then to perform in front of EVERYONE on the stage later on -- we were assigned the Cotton-Eyed-Joe, the one dance I can perform with some semblance of coordination. No one else had any clue what they were doing. I was even prepared to take charge and whip them into shape, but Benjamin was too shy with so many people around and burst into tears when I asked if he wanted to dance. Apparently, he doesn't like crowds any better than I do.

Well, being the Wonderful Mother I am, I promptly took him out of such a terrifying environment, of course (code speak for: we rebelled!!) and while everyone else sweltered in the classroom in undignified confusion, we went for a pony ride. Three pony rides in a row, as a matter of fact. And later, when we were supposed to perform as a class, well, we missed that too because we were Still Riding the Pony.

Benjamin made several hundred circuits on that pony; most of the kids were completely uninterested in the ponies, so there was no crowd there. I sat in the shade with a friend. There were about 20 other people in the backyard where the ponies were. Whereas in the front, where the band and the performances were, there were 300 people crowded together in the heat and sun. I could hear the distant sounds of revelry, and I rejoiced in my solitude. And shade.

The boots turned out to be a good call, my limp today notwithstanding: no one asked me to wash dishes!!

There will be another Pirate Party in the fall, but this time, I'm ready for it!!!

Where am I???

The embassy wife — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:25:58 GMT

Friday night, my husband and I went to friends' for dinner: she's Honduran, he's half Tico, half Mexican. We're American. The other guests were English and Irish. We ate Mexican food with Peruvian hot sauce, drank Chilean and Spanish wine (I think Gary had a German beer), and the Irishman cooked up his mother's plum pudding (left over from Christmas) on the stove for dessert.

Does that scenario seem as bizarre to you as it did to me??

I had never seen, tasted, or in any other way experienced a Christmas pudding, so when interesting sounds, smells, and yelps started proceeding from the kitchen as the pudding was being finished up, I thought I'd see what was happening.

Our friend D. was standing at the stove, with a plate of what looked like dark sliced cookie dough in one hand and a frying pan in the other. The noises and yelps were a result of the pan, which was on fire, flames shooting up into the hood over the stove.

I gawked. "That looks very interesting," I commented, trying to remain calm since he obviously wasn't panicking. "Do you know what you're doing?"

He grinned at me and dodged another flame, "-Ish!" he said.

He'd had to douse the pudding (which is not anything like what Bill Cosby used to eat!) with rum since there was no brandy. I didn't know that rum would ignite at a certain temperature. It does. Every time.

The pudding would have been delicious -- soaked in brandy, fried in butter (and rum), doused with brandy-flavored butter, full of nuts and fruits -- had we been about 5 months closer to Christmas. And maybe if we'd been able to leave off the rum.

D. says his mom sends one every year. Next year, I'm showing up in early January with a bottle of brandy and a stick of butter. How could he turn me away??!

Monsoons: The Best Toys Around

The embassy wife — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:24:15 GMT

My children are outside playing in the rain.

This is not your normal, average, every-day, run-of-the-mill, April showers (even though it's May) sort of rain. This is a monsoon: pouring, thundering, rushing waters, rain drops the size of Iowa, and distant rumbles of thunder bouncing off the surrounding mountains. This is a 10-inches-an-hour sort of rain. This is a Tropical Rain.

My children are out in it with my delighted blessings and encouragement. My one concession to the idea of a future mess is to remove the entrance-hall carpet. Tile is easy to mop.

We have a long history at our house of playing in the rain, starting in Jakarta during monsoon season. The mosquitoes in Jakarta are not to be believed, and, although there's a minimal chance of getting malaria in the city, dengue fever (also called "break bone fever" for obvious reasons) is a popular alternative. We took the mosquitoes seriously, sleeping under mosquito netting and slathering up with both sunscreen and mosquito repellent whenever we'd poke our noses out into the year-round 98 degree heat and 98 percent humidity.

If the mosquito repellent helped, I didn't notice. It just wasn't much fun to be outside in the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes, and I was 6 months pregnant at the time. We stayed indoors a lot, huddled around the air conditioning unit.

But, during a good monsoon rain, mosquitoes go to ground! So, during the rain and for about 15 minutes after, we'd send our oldest (then two years old) out to play in the mud and the vertical torrent, and occasionally the thunder, lightning, and gale-force winds while my husband and I watched from the relative comfort of the patio. He loved it. We loved it. Everybody loved it.

Our servants, sensibly sitting out the storm safely indoors, thought we were certifiable. They may have been right.

So, here we are in another tropical country, well into monsoon season, and again I'm sending my children out into the rain. All the other neighborhood children disappeared, squealing, indoors when the rain started. My middle son hurriedly pulled on some clothes and dashed outside, followed by his older brother. When the youngest learned that not only was he being permitted, but being begged to go outside, he didn't even bother to change out of his PJs. And I didn't suggest it!

Because now the house is quiet, free of slamming doors and the endless refrain of Mom-mom-mom-mom-mom-mom-mom-mom-mom that seems to pervade my every waking moment on the week-ends. My husband had asked me earlier if I planned to spend the whole day curled up in the bedroom with the newspaper, and I gently explained to him that, at the moment, the children were happy, quiet, and playing nicely together. They were content. Were I to appear on the scene, there would be an instant and endlessly-repeated chorus of "Mom!", unmet and immediate needs, unfulfilled desires, and begging, and pleading, ending ultimately in screaming and crying. This is the effect my gentle presence has on my children.

But outside in the rain, they are entertained, happy, wet, slightly cold, tiring themselves out, and deliciously dirty: a perfect recipe for delightful little boys. And when they tire of the rain (it's starting to happen now), they will stream inside and upstairs to the enormous jacuzzi tub -- which was an unasked for and unmistakable blessing that came with this house! -- and spend another hour playing with their army guys (too big to go down the drain) and the bubbles. After that, they will be warm, slightly tired, and delighted at the idea of family movie night with popcorn and an early bedtime.

Now, if that's not a win-win situation, I don't know what is!

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!!!

Spanish Class??

The embassy wife — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:43:03 GMT

I just want to know what they're teaching my kids in Spanish class at school.

Last night I asked the middle one: "Como se llama?" (What's your name?) And he responded: "Bien!" (Good!) He brought home a Spanish assignment (due Monday) that I have No Idea how we're going to complete: research and write (in Spanish) a short report on "The Bus" as a means of transportation. Heck, I couldn't even do that! And it's 20% of his grade! Well, like I told him, it's OK if he flunks Spanish. And Social Studies (which is required to be taught in Spanish.) And did I mention that he didn't even know he had an assignment? The only reason I know he has an assignment is because I happened to find it written out on a piece of paper in his backpack. He said his teacher handed him the paper, said something in Spanish, and walked away. He had no idea what it was.

Maybe we'll just do that report in English. I think we can manage that.

The oldest one recently had to write a very simple report for Social Studies: the teacher told him the topic, told him the website to go to, and told him what sub-topics to cover. Tonight I asked him how he'd done that report; had he understood anything he'd read? "No, I just copied down the first sentence under each topic. I have no idea what I wrote."

The littlest one seems to have a much firmer grasp on Spanish overall and can even ask intelligent questions like "Es de miyo?" ("Is this mine?"). And understand the answer. But even he tells me I have to say "Granada" (instead of "De nada") when he says "Gracias."

I just have a Whole New Perspective on kids who show up in American schools not speaking a word of English. And can I just mention that I can not possibly say enough nice things about ESL teachers and programs? 'Cause, honey, I've seen it from the other side, and it just ain't pretty!

So, if you're an ESL teacher and you're reading this, pat yourself on the back for me and, please, have a WONDERFUL day!! You're my hero.