We're settling into life in KL, and we have routines set up now, but I still feel like we're in a bit of a holding pattern. School continues to be online, and we found out that as of the beginning of August, our sea freight was still sitting in DC, because the shipping people had the wrong email address for the people in KL, and no one thought to follow up with us. I know it will all get here eventually, but it means it will take even longer to make this apartment feel like our true new home. In the meantime, we're trying to stay positive and enjoy the little things.
One of Vivian's favorite new classes is called Kitchen Garden. She really wants to be more independent, so learning a bit about cooking and gardening is great for her. The first major assignment was chopping vegetables to make a salad.
The result was great, but the process was nerve wracking, because her teacher was telling her what to do over Zoom, while Noby and I were hovering off to the side constantly worried that she was going to chop off one of her fingers.
The next class was on salsa, which was a little less terrifying, but had some more challenging ingredients like onion and hot peppers.
The results were delicious though.
Noby has also been helping her with a little balcony garden for cooking ingredients.
Elena has also had some fun class activities. My favorite was her "shelfie" where she had to show herself with some of her favorite books.
She is very proud to be an ISKL student, and likes to wear the one uniform shirt that I bought for her, even though school is online, and they're not requiring uniforms.
She was very careful with it when she had ice cream, but I still had her eat out on the balcony.
The weather was so nice the other day, that we had dinner out on the balcony. We tried a burger place for the first time and were very happy with the results, although Elena wasn't as happy about the photograph.
It was the end of a long day of playing for her. We went to the ambassador's pool in the morning.
We made a dragonfly friend. We were terrified at first, because there was a big, red flying insect hovering around, but once we realized it was a dragonfly, we were intrigued.
Elena also has a new buddy in her class, so she runs around with him outside most days. They both want to be astronauts, and have devised a training regimen that involves trying not to get dizzy while spinning on the swings. Luckily, they didn't spin right after he shared some of his little sister's rainbow birthday cake with us. The family made it themselves, and we were so impressed, especially since it was delicious.
The astronauts are also working on a spaceship design, using some of the many boxes the two families get things delivered in on a regular basis.
Viv has been hanging out with some new friends at one of the other apartment complexes, and they are equally obsessed with Disney. I'm so happy that both girls have found friends that share their interests.
We have also been experimenting with new foods. Noby bought a pomegranate the other day and got all the seeds out for me, which was great.
Then I found some real American bacon (which is hard to do in this Muslim country!), and showed her how to make pasta carbonara.
We still haven't been out to an actual restaurant yet, but things are starting to open up, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to go out soon. Jeff and I had our 15th wedding anniversary last week, and while we would have loved to take a trip or go to a fancy restaurant, things just aren't there yet, so instead we went to our new "fancy" place, the ambassador's pool. I picked up some yummy things to snack on,
and we just chilled and relaxed.
It was nice to do something that was just for the two of us.
Things in KL are slowly starting to open up. We have our proof of vaccination, so that will help us get into places and potentially eat in restaurants again. The government has now said that schools will not open until October, but ISKL continues to petition to open earlier. I'm trying to hold on to my optimism that eventually things will settle into something that resembles the normal we knew before. Hopefully our stuff is actually on its way, and hopefully school will open soon, and hopefully I will make some progress on my dissertation or get a teaching job. There's a lot of hopefully going on. In the meantime, the girls are shining in their new environment, and I'm continually impressed with their resilience and enthusiasm, so I'm trying to model my behavior on theirs. Elena's Spanish teacher was going over vocabulary for parts of the body, and I love the picture I got of her lifting her foot up so that it was visible on screen.
It's a great reminder that we just have to be flexible, roll with what's asked of us, and have a loose definition of the word "normal".
No comments:
Post a Comment