Typhoon

We were woken at 5:45am this morning (Thursday) by a text message beep from Nigel's phone. Teacher message chain: No school today. At 6am, Jenalyn answered our housephone - parent message chain - no school for Emily today. There was a typhoon over the whole country. We had breakfast in the living room, looking out our glass wall at the weather outside. It was stormy, but as far as I could tell, just a bit of wind and rain. What's this typhoon business? As the day went on, it became clear. Winds rushed through the area, and I even witnessed a tree fall over into a ditch. Around the city, other trees fell over in the streets. One teacher had moved his car into his garage just in time. An hour later, a tree fell right where his car had been. The fence in the plot next to our building fell over onto the parked cars. At one stage, I saw something fly past our window. What was that? I heard a mighty crash, and looked on the ground - it looked like the bonnet from a car, but I couldn't tell, as we're 11 stories up. Someone picked it up off the road. Luckily no one was under it! Looking out the window the other way, we saw some curtains from 2 floors up fluttering in the wind. Either the wind had sucked them out the small open windows at the top of their living room glass wall, or a whole pane of glass had fallen out of their living room! I hope it was the former, because the thought of one of our glass panes falling out scared the pants off me, especially as the girls love to put their noses on the glass when they look out.

Mid-morning, the power went off, and stayed off. No air-con. No TV. No fans. Things were getting hot & sticky at home, so we thought we'd go out for lunch. Brave the weather, grab a taxi to a mall. Surely they'd have power. Well, we never got to tell, as our lifts were not working. We were literally stuck in our apartment. (In an emergency, we could've carried the girls down 11 flights of stairs in the dark to the back of the building, but I didn't fancy that now.) Luckily we didn't go out. We later heard stories of cars trying to get through metre deep water in places. And most of the shops just closed. The 7-11, open 24 hours, was open, and selling by candlelight!

By dinner time, the lifts were working, (but still no electricity) and we went for a walk in the much calmer, but still windy weather. We found somewhere to eat dinner - Good old McD's. They had generators going, so we enjoyed the air-con, and didn't mind that we had to wait in the queue for half an hour! Seems lots of others had the same idea.

The walk there, only a couple of blocks away, was eye-opening. Street-lights and traffic lights were out. Most shops shut, mangled umbrellas lying in the streets, branches and whole trees everywhere. While we were out, we got another txt on the teacher chain: school cancelled tomorrow again for students, but teachers are to come in anyway, for a late start.

Now here we are, in the evening, still no power. The girls have gone to sleep in their underwear, and Nigel's managed to hook the fan up to the emergency generator switch, which the fridge is connected to. So we'll at least have some airflow tonight, and hopefully, Zoe's heat rash won't get any worse. Luckily, the typhoon has cooled the air a bit, it's only 28 degrees.

Doctor Jo

"I did buy some pita bread, but the ants have got into it through the plastic," she said. "So if you don't mind waiting - if you're not too hungry, can I just whip something up?"

"Sure" I say, taking a seat on one of the plastic chairs in her "sitting room", directly in front of the fan. I wipe the sweat from my brow and watch Jo "whip up" some fresh chipatis. She deftly mixes flour, yeast, whatever else, rolls it with a drinking glass on her small "bench" and then throws it into a hot wok on her 2-burner gas stove. She's actually baked a cake, too, which REALLY impresses me. I find baking hard at the best of times, but she has baked a cake WITH NO OVEN! She showed me her clever contraption that involves heating a round stone thing on the gas burner, then putting a metal container on it, which has a tray for the cake tin inside it. She said she picked it up in Nepal. Having no fridge, she had carefully mounted it on a container with a 'moat' of water so the ants couldn't get it. She says sometimes the ants get together and form a 'bridge' over the water! But we were in luck today.

During our delicious lunch, I decide that it's quite like camping. But luxury camping - there's electricity and a "toilet" right inside. I actually really enjoy camping, and find Jo's place quite cozy, even though it's smaller than our family tent. It is roughly the size of the combined area of our apartment's walk-in wardrobe and ensuite. It has everything one needs. But then, I realise, I only go camping for a couple of weeks a year. And the worst pests I have ever had to deal with while camping are the cheeky wekas in the South Island. We had to actually zip up the tent. Jo deals regularly with mice. She said she doesn't even need to bait the traps.

Jo, a fellow Kiwi, lives in one of the squatter areas in the north of Metro Manila. She's lived in the area on & off for the last 17-odd years. She's involved with a medical project up there - mainly education about basic health care. And from her stories, it seems that it's really needed. She lives with the people she has come to serve. She knows them. They know her. Only one person called out to us when we were walking through the squatter area. Jo commented that he must've been new.

I spent the day visiting with Jo, and she taught me some very practical things, like how to catch a jeepney, as well as a few attitudinal things. When it was time to go, I made a freudian slip, and instead of saying 'apartment', I said 'hotel'.

Curly Zo

Zoe's enjoying going to the local park (i.e. small patch of open space with a few trees and some pathways) with Jenalyn. Today, they went for about 2 hours in the morning, and they had a fabulous time. Although there is no play equipment there, the culture here is very sharing, so and all the yayas and children who are there just seem to share toys and snacks and play all together. She managed to join in kicking a ball around, and also even riding someone's bike. I hope she shared her bubbles, too, but to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if she just shouted her favourite word. ("MINE!").

Apart from Zoe having a good time, it's good for Jenalyn to get out and 'hang' with the other yayas. They all know each other in the area, and they have a good old natter about what's going on. Apparently, Zoe's quite the star amongst all the yayas, due to her blonde, curly hair. In NZ, when she finally did grow hair, it was pretty straight, apart from the odd wave, but here, with the humidity, it's gone very curly. Attached is the latest picture of our 'barbie doll', both her curls at the back, an her cheeky grin that she has been sporting lately! Although Zoe still misses Emily in the mornings, I think she's revelling in all the attention she's getting for herself! Spot the extrovert!

Maid-free weekends

Jenalyn lives in with us Mondays-Fridays. She comes in early on Monday, and goes home in the afternoon on Friday, depending on what's going on. Sometimes early, sometimes after an evg of babysitting. She keeps herself amazingly busy during the week, both with housework and sharing with childcare. We decided to have maid-free weekends for two reasons. 1) Because she asked for weekends off (even though the norm here is 6-day weeks) and 2) We decided that we needed to stay somewhat realistic about our family life. Having househelp is fabulous, but very much a priviledge that we don't want to take for granted.
At the weekends, we do laundry, but that's pretty much it. Our apartment gets messy. We leave the girls toys exactly where they have landed. (mostly). The beds don't get made. We just pull the sheet up when we hop in the next night. We leave the washed dishes un-put-away until they need to be used again. And ZERO cleaning gets done. The funny thing is, this is exactly how we live in New Zealand! I never really "did" beds - what's the point with a duvet that just needs pulling up? And the dishwasher would usually get un-loaded only when necessary. And cleaning got done just when it seemed REALLY necessary.

We've had three maid-free weekends like this so far, and all seemed well, till last night (Sunday night). In the middle of the night, I asked Nigel to get me a glass of water from the kitchen (he was up anyway). Well, what a commotion! He came back a bit weary and said "Be glad it wasn't you who got the water". Aparently, when he turned the light on, he spotted a VERY LARGE cockroach scuttling to safety. He managed to win the ensuing battle, but he came back muttering that "that thing did NOT crawl in from the drains" (All the other cockroaches we've seen so far have been little ones (in retrospect, anyway!) on the bathroom floor, near the drains, and after 3 days of Jenalyn working for us, we hadn't seen anymore).
SO. We told Jenalyn the story, and she spent a large amount of time today scrubbing the kitchen floor, all the surfaces and all the cabinets with bleach. There is not a single germ in there, and I'm sure that's how she's been keeping us critter-free the whole time. What seems 'excessive' cleaning from my NZ perspective is actually really kinda 'necessary' cleaning here.

Are we going to change the way we do our weekends? Well, I'm going to give the stove and benchtops that EXTRA wipe down after use. And I think I'm going to make more of an effort to actually put away the dishes after they've been washed. Because if there ARE night visitors, I'd rather they not dance on my clean plates.

And not forgetting Zoe...

Although a lot of focus and energy has been directed towards Emily, in her big new adventure of school, Zoe has certainly not been forgotten. I'm actually very proud of her, because even though she's been through a lot of changes - moving country, getting used to not having her sister around in the mornings, she's also managed to truck on in her own development. She's in the middle of potty training, which is going very well. AND she's managed to give up the dummy. And hardly a protest at that. Both of these things I was wanting to do for a while, but thought we'd better wait till our long process of shifting was finished. Well, that time has come, and she's handled it pretty well. She's even managed to mimic some Tagalog words that Jenalyn is teaching her. Go Zoe!

Getting into the swing of things

Well, the first week of our new routine was pretty hard. Not as hard as the first day (see last entry) but still pretty exhausting. I spent a lot of the weekend just lazing around being tired! We all went to bed pretty early both nights.
Today (1st day of week 2) things were MUCH better. Zoe didn't cry when we left (amazing!) and also, EMILY DIDN'T CRY! Just as I was about to leave, she put on a sad face, then she had a lightbulb moment, and said "Hey Mum - I don't think I'll cry today." I thought that was a very good idea, so we agreed that she wouldn't. And she didn't! She did get a fright at one stage from a school bell and cried then, apparently, but she said she only cried for a short time. She seems to enjoy school and she likes her teachers. On the way to school, she said "Maybe Miss Truscott and Miss Annelee will be there again this week." I said "Yes, Emily, they are your teachers, they will be there." "Oh good!" She said. ;)
Here are a couple of pictures of her at school.

Emily has started school. It’s only nursery school, and only in the mornings, but it’s every day, and she has a uniform, and goes to a ‘real’ school.
Here’s a picture of her in her new uniform.
And later another one of Jenalyn and Zoe with her on her first morning.

The first day really didn’t go all that well.

First, I had to leave Zoe at home by herself (with Jenalyn). Now Zoe has ALWAYS had Emily with her. They went to playgroup together, to mainly music together, and they sleep in the same room. This is the first time in Zoe’s life that Emily had to go somewhere but she wasn’t allowed to go. So of course when mummy and Emily left in the morning, (and Daddy had already left) we had to just shut the door on the bawling, and go down the lift. Heart blow number one.

Then there was the school separation. Knowing Emily, I had promised her that I’d stay with her the whole first day, but I found I was the only mother there after the first mat-time session, and I wondered whether I was doing the right thing. And so, despite my promise, when the teacher suggested I try to leave her, I said I would. She said ‘walk out and give me 10 minutes, and I’ll send someone to you’. So I walked out and listened to nearly 10 minutes of screaming. At about 9 mins 30 seconds, the screams calmed down, and the teacher helper came out to get Emily’s water bottle. She said Emily would be fine, so I could just leave. Hmm. I thought I’d better, so I walked to the nearest café, and decided to come back in an hour to see how things were.

I left, and as I walked down the street, I bawled. I had, in the space of a couple of hours, abandoned both of my children. It was a very lonely walk to the café!

I had my (iced) coffee, and tried to keep myself occupied for a whole hour. Then, I found two text messages from Nigel. There had been a whole school fire alarm, and knowing what we know about Emily (i.e. that she is petrified of loud noises) he had found her nursery class at the assembly point, and had indeed found her in distress. His presence calmed her down, and he was able to walk her back to her room. But then, of course, he had to go back to his class, so that again caused another separation. And she started screaming again. That’s where he left her, that’s when he texted me. So I walked quickly back to the school, again crying most of the way.

I got back to the room, saw in the window that she was on a lap, and NOT screaming, so I sat outside, after letting someone know I was there. But lo and behold, 5 minutes later, the teacher came out with a crying Emily and said “See, there’s Mummy – I told you she’d be back!” And Emily smiled. I convinced her to go back in the classroom with me, and once inside, all the other children said to the teacher “she’s not crying anymore!”

We had a fairly good last hour of the day, and I stayed firmly in the classroom. No one even hinted that I leave!

Emily’s recollection of her first day at school surprises me, however. Despite her mother breaking her promise and leaving her, despite her crying most of the day, despite the terror of a fire alarm, AND despite getting bitten by mozzies all over her legs (and those who know her know that she’s allergic to bites, so she has huge welts covering her legs now), when asked how her first day at school was, she said “Good!”!

Today, her second day, went much better. There were no fire alarms, and I had prepared her beforehand exactly when I would leave. At said time, (and also a few times before that) she did scream, but her first words when I got her after school were “Mummy – I didn’t cry anymore!” According to the teacher, she did have a few crying sessions, but if she was proud of her non-crying, then so was I.