Pouchain Family

Morrocco details...

2012-01-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

Roads: Beware of potholes. I've never driven under more stressful situations. The roads have potholes and sometimes speed bumps that are both intentional and unintentional. Either way, beware of both. On the right side of the road are people walking, bicycles, motorcycles with the entire family on them (it's amazing how many people you can fit on a motorcycle, mom, dad and a toddler), carts being drawn by horses or donkeys filled with people and produce, taxis pulling over to pick up or drop off people, cars pulling over for not sure what reason? Sometimes cars and motorcycles drive on the shoulder along the road against traffic (slightly nerve racking). There is also the issue of lanes. In most countries two lanes on the road means two cars side by side. In Casablanca, that could mean as much as four. People drive all over the place. I almost got squished today between a bus and a truck. I decided to brake, just in case there wasn't enough room and it was a good idea. I'm thinking most collisions happen here not front end, but rather side by side.

Driving: Driving into Casablanca this afternoon to get the kids, I saw a dog eating the carcass of a dead dog lying on the side of the road.

Things that annoy me: people can't pick a lane. They wander into my lane even though their lane is clear of cars, they just wander over so I can't get by them. I feel like pulling up next to them, honk, roll down my window, and yell "stay in your own lane!"

Honking: On the same road as the cannibal dog, there was a large bus behind, next to and sometimes in front of me. He is what I call a "happy honker". Traffic isn't moving, yet he continues to honk his horn, beep, beep, beep. Look, a parked cart on the side of the road; beep, beep, beep. Uh oh, I merged in front of him; beep, beep, beep (this time at me I presume.) Oh look, now he's crossed the two lane road and is partially driving into oncoming traffic all the while; beep, beep, beep at the caravan of cars in front of him to drive faster and forcing all of the on coming traffic to squeeze 2 rows of cars into 1 1/2 lanes. Still beep, beep, beep. I think he honked his horn all the way to his destination (wherever that is??)

I find that most often trucks are "happy honkers." Someone told me, well, welcome to Casa.

Lanes: What are those white stripes on the road supposed to mean?? Today as I was driving my husband to work since my new job has become the family chauffeur before the child drop off at school, I had to merge. There are two lanes presumebly drawn on the road. I counted the number of lanes that were created to merge onto the 2 lane overpass; 5. I was in lane 4, naughty me. I intentionally stayed in the left lane with the idea of cutting ahead of everyone else. Lane 5 had the same idea, but more brazen. Lane 5 was blocking everyone who wanted to stay on the main road and NOT merge onto the overpass. Mentally I had to give them kudos for their ballsiness (though I still didn't let any of them cut in front of me.) I figured they should wait until the very last moment before they could merge. No one merges early.

Turning: Sometimes there is no break in the traffic in order to make a left hand turn, therefore you have to get a little nuts and a little creative. Besides if you don't, the people behind you will start honking their horns. You have to pull out into fiercly oncoming traffic, say a little prayer that they will slow down and not cream you, then once you've fully cut everyone else off, hope for an open space and then jump right in.

At the kids school, I have to make a left hand turn to get to the light. Unfortunately both two lanes of the treet were already backed up to the next block. The car in front of me was both creative and brazen and just created a third lane by driving on the wrong side of the road and cutting everyone else off who was in line and got right up to the front. So, like any nice, kind, road polite person; I followed. I felt a little guilty, but made it out by the first light. Surprisingly, no one honked at me.

Crossing the road in Casa on foot: SUICIDE. Yep, made that mistake today. No, I didn't get hit by a car, but was very scared. I just wanted to check out the tennis club near the kids school to see if I can sign them up. There are no pedestrian cross walk lights in Casa and there are NO breaks between traffic. I crossed not when the traffic was coming, but when people were turning. I had to run and dodge four cars and two mopeds all of whom didn't seem keen on slowing down. I got honked at. At the other half of the road, I waited for the red light, but just because the light turns red, doesn't necessarily mean drivers are going to stop. Often, people burn red lights.

Morroccan mint tea: delicious

Avacado Juice: that's right, freshly squeezed avacado juice. Didn't know one could juice an avocado. It is delicious! It's like a liquid meal in itself.

Yesterday at the last minute X. invited a new arrival family to the house. I asked N. if she could prepare a meal for 4 adults and 6 kids. She went all out and prepared some hors d'oeurves. She then created a beautifully layered salad on a giant plate she borrowed from a friend (since we have a skeleton kitchen here). Then she made a French tajine of mutton and mushrooms and crème fraîche with a side of rice. Mmmm...delicious. I was very proud.

Pet Shelters: As far as I know, do not exist here. All animals roam free together. Then, if there is a rabies outbreak, the army comes and shoots all the wild dogs. Afterwards, the dogs slowly repopulate. If you want a puppy? Just go out and grab one. They're all over the place. If you think about it, it's not a bad life. At least here, dogs are free to be dogs. They run, find a mate, have some puppies. All in all, I think they are able to live a full life. In the US, we murder animals on a regular basis to keep the population down. It's just done in a clean, systematic way in the shelters, not necessarily better. Most animals are spayed and neutered so they never have a chance to live a full animal life, of course then they don't have to die young or experience other terrible things.

Horsebackriding: X and I decided to go for a tour of the Sahara in March for 1 week on horseback through the local horseback riding club. Of course I've never had 1 class before and have limited horse riding experience to nose to tail trail walking in a large group. This would be interesting. So I've had 3 lessons so far.

Lesson 1: we had to learn to post, ,that is bounce up and down in the saddle while the horse trots. The instructor yelled at me to lift my bum off the saddle, but I swear for the life of me I couldn't. He said, "stand up!" I'm thinking if I do that, I'm going straight off the front of the horse. Still after lots of painful bouncing and a very sore bum, I was finally able to sort of post by the end of the hour.

Lesson 2: The trainer and I went out on the trail. It was great! More trotting, more posting and he said now we're going to gallop. I said we're going to whatop? He said, "do you have confidence in me?" I said, "Yes, I have confidence in you, but the question is do I have confidence in myself?" I'm looking down at the rocks and boulders lining the trail and thinking if I fall off, I'm going to break something. So, he promised we'd do a slow gallop. He said you do not post in gallop, you remain in the saddle. I said, how? He said you squeeze your legs together very tightly. I'm thinking, I have no inner thigh muscles, this is going to be interesting. So, I galloped. I got partly bounced all over the place, then for a brief moment I was able to ride with the horse and remain in the saddle. It was pretty cool, really hard, but cool. Everyone said horseback riding is a sport. I always thought you just kind of sit there, I mean how hard can it be? Well, I assure you, from always too overconfident me, it IS hard.

Lesson 3: more trotting and galloping. Good time. I'm still sore. Legs are quite sore, but hopefully that will go away with some time.

Morrocco News...Finally

2012-01-25T09:52:00.000-08:00

Where do I start?

Architecture: a bunker from WWII crossed with downtown Nice

Trash: everywhere outside, in fields, on sidewalks, on the sides of the road, in the middle of the road, in yards, piles and piles of rubbish, on the beach, in the ocean, etc.

Roads: some are cement, many are dirt, hard packed dirt. Not sure what happens when it rains, the center of Dar Bouazza where people walk is a dirt road filled with dirt, rocks, rubbish, poverty and cats

Animals: packs of wild dogs roam free, cats everywhere. Animals graze everywhere, empty lots, beach, the sides of the road, and they graze in the trash littered fields. Roads are shared with chickens, sheep, and cows, and carts being drawn by either horses or donkeys.

Once I was driving and I had to stop because a sheep had wandered into the middle of the road. Another time I was driving, I had to stop because I farmer was walking a train of cows right in the center of the street.

Language: a little French, mostly Morroccan Arabic, communication is hard. I ask people if they speak French. A lot of people don't understand me. Many people are illiterate. We interviewed a young woman who couldn't speak French real well to write her name for us in French and she couldn't. A lot of signs and foods are written only in arabic. I've learned just a few words in arabic. I have a hard time learning to count because the words are so long. There are phonemes that don't exist in English which makes some sounds very hard to pronounce. I have a hard time pronouncing the sound R in just about any language (French and Arabic).

People: are very nice, lots of good service, lots of people working in restaurants or on the side of the road to help you park or wash your car. Lots of cops (not sure that's a good thing). I have the feeling they would be out to exploit expats and expect to be bribed. I haven't been pulled over by the police yet, but it is inevitable. It would help if I could speak a little arabic, just to show respect.

Housekeeper: The best thing that's happened to us so far. I figured out pretty quickly that things work through word of mouth here. (bouche à l'oreille). We moved into a house in a large closed in housing development where most rich Morroccans keep their second vacation homes. Therefore it is quite dead in the winter, but very beautiful and quiet. We did very well choosing our house and where we live. I went to the park with my kids and met all the nannies. Everyone has a nanny and a housekeeper who cleans and cooks for the family. I was looking for someone to replace myself (ie nanny, cook, housekeeper, shopper, etc) and asked everyone in the park if they knew anyone. Everyone has a sister or a friend who could come and work for us. I collected a few phone numbers. My only stipulation is that she has to speak French so I can communicate with her. I then had a knock on my door from a lovely woman named Zora. She said the guard told her that we're looking for someone. She herself is already engaged by a family, but her sister is working and looking for a full-time job. I said, well bring her over. I met her the next day and she spoke French. I told her what I wanted and she said that's no problem. She asked for a fair amount of money, but I thought, what the hek. If I pay a nanny and a housekeeper separately, it would probably cost me more. So, I had Xavier meet her, I liked her and he agreed to hire her. Her name is Najat and she is the greatest thing that has happened to our family since we arrived in Morrocco. She explains the prices to me, tells me where to shop, where not to shop, how things work. I had to take a taxi here and asked if she would come with me so I can learn how to do it. Silly, I know but not obvious. She said it should cost 7 drm (70 cents) to go to Casa and 10 drm (1€) to come back per person. This is the white taxi. Once in Casa, you take the red taxi which runs by a clock like in the states so you can't get ripped off. She said never ask for the price up front because I will get ripped off because I'm not local. She said there are 2 prices, 1 for local, 1 for French. I obviously fall into the French category. So far though, I don't feel like I've been ripped off much. Most people I've delt with have been honest.

Schools: NIGHTMARE

There are 2 « American » schools here in Casa. One I heard is very, very, very bad. I've only heard negative things about it. The other is the lesser of 2 evils (called GWA). We based everything on GWA. We moved near GWA hoping we'd find lots of expats in the area (we heard there are lots of expats in Dar Bouazza). I had been in contact with GWA since Oct letting them know we were coming. I got all the papers together and we arrived during the winter break. They were closed so I had to wait until school started to begin the « enrollment process .» I called over the holiday and left numerous voicemails. Never got a response. I then called monday and they told me to come in maybe that day, maybe tues. I can't remember. The attitude of their admissions staff was not interested and not motivated. They just didn't care that my kids were not in school. There is one French woman who is in charge of admissions, she's nice, but totally slow. She wouldn't move her ass to do anything. I called everyday and said what do we need to do to get the kids into school? I figured it would take 2 days at best. All they needed from me was money to pay the admissions and some photos and the kids to get tested. They said that the teachers are sick so there is no one to test my kids. I said why don't they just start school and you can test them during the week when the teachers come back. She said GWA doesn't work like that. I waited until the following Tues to get Anais tested. Austin was supposed to get tested the same day but we all got sick so he couldn't. Wed was a holiday so no one reveiwed the test. Austin got tested Friday, still no response regarding Anais' test. Now 2 weeks have gone by, while admissions twiddles their thumbs and no one tells me anything, except they kept using words like « IF your child gets in. » There is one other Morroccan woman in admissions who helps the French woman. She is nice, but a total waste of human space. I have NEVER whitnessed a more useless human being in my life, and incompetent. She stupidly said to me once, « well you know, the 2^nd semester doesn't start until Feb 6, so your kids might not be able to start until then. We don't like kids starting in the middle of the semester. » I said « if this is the case, you need to tell people BEFORE they move to Morrocco. I would have stayed in France. » I was so pissed that night, I couldn't sleep.

At this point I realised there is a problem. I was so pissed with the admissions staff and their overwhelming incompetency, that I called the elementary education and told them their admissions staff is totally incompetent and that I am no longer going to deal with them. Is there anyone in this school who is competent? Do you have any idea what it takes for me to tell someone they are incompetent? I am not a person prone to emotions or exaggeration. If I say someone is incompetent, it's because they are. Not a good foot to start off on.

Monday comes, I received an e-mail. The American school after great deliberation has decided to reject my children. They are not welcome to the school. GWA has a native English population of 20%. They said my kids scored way too low academically to be accepted into the school. My son did poorly on reading and maths and they think Anais has a learning disorder, dyslexia, whatever. They said her reading is high 1^st grade, low 2^nd grade level and her maths is poor. They said they do not have the ressources to take care of her. I said, who does? Where am I going to go? I was so pissed!! I understand my daughter has a problem. I understand I need to find a professional in English who can solve this problem. I need to go to either England or US to have my daughter properly tested and get her on track.

GWA to be clear is NOT an American school. It is a school that caters to those who pay for its existence, Rich Morroccans. They say they follow an American cursus, but that is only a sales pitch for the Morroccans who pay money to get into the school. Xavier thinks they were expecting to be bribed. I don't know. I don't care. My kids aren't going there. The school in Manosque has kindly agreed to take my kids back. We have one last option here. There is a brand new school called International School of Morrocco run by an American and her husband. She used to work at CAS and something happened where she got fed up, left and started her own school. Currently they only have a kindergarten so our kids would be the only ones at this school for their age. Not sure how that will work. The kids are getting tested right now as I write this and then the owner will give us a proposal. We came here Monday and they said they couldn't help us because they are only a kindergarten for now, but hope to grow. We said in that case, we have to keep looking for other options. We are also looking into the Lycée Français, but I think Anais will get reemed in that system.

EVERY SINGLE other expat had the same horrific nightmares regarding schools. There was another expat who waited 1,5 months with his kids NOT going to school, only for the school to deny his children entry at the end. He was so pissed, he took his family, left his job and the country. I have now learned how to take control. I have an appt today at CAS anyway and told them up front the negative things I've heard about CAS and what happened to us at GWA. I told them I am completely enraged at what happened and that I'm coming back to France. I said you have one week to test my kids. She said that's impossible. I said then they will not be tested. I'm NOT keeping them out of school any longer for these kinds of things. She said she understands. I said I will go back to France, put the kids back in school. I will do all the necessary bull shit paper work in France and then have everyone line up the testing at the same time and come back for that. I am so pissed about the nonchalant lazy points of view regarding children's education in this country. I told GWA, you are an American school run by Americans. I expect you to be able to ACTUALLY run things the way Americans do. They said the problem is Morrocco. The country resists them. I've heard about that. It's the same problem for Xavier at work. Nothing works, nothing functions. It is very bizarre. From what I've seen locally, things have run very, very well here for me with the locals. Especially since I have Najat who knows everyone and who watches out for us. She is absolutely wonderful! We are so blessed to have her on our side!

All Expats told us they went though the same things with the schools. They waited forever to get into the school. The schools jerked them around. Their kids were poorly treated in the schools. They themselves were poorly treated. The schools cater to the local Morroccan population, which is normal since there aren't enough expats to keep the school afloat. Therefore schools are Morroccan run. It feels like a collossal joke. I don't think the education is even that good. Najat told me I was too nice, that I should have been a real bitch and yelled at people. She said when people are nice they get treated like shit in Morrocco. This is new to me. I did get angry and was about the level of rude that I get. But yelling straight up is not my style. I don't like yelling at people. In my culture, yelling at someone is showing that I have no intelligence and or emotional control. It looks pretty bad, at least that's how I see things. I just have to take control now and run the show. I was in a weak position at GWA, I've learned now. That is never going to happen again. A lot of people are leaving after 6 months because they are fed up with the situation in Morrocco and fed up with the school situation. We are worried about our kids. We want to keep the family together and are not sure what to do. However, when I signed onto this project, I didn't sign on to teach my kids home schooling and that seems to be where I'm headed. I'd rather come back to France. Socially, homeschooling isn't healthy for anyone.

It is hard because I never had any problems in school. I went to a great public school. Teachers were good, kids were bright. School for me was never an issue. I wasn't the brightest, which always annoyed me, but I wasn't the dumbest either. Everyone was bright. I just didn't have any learning issues, reading issues, math issues. I just didn't have any issues period. I guess I just assumed my kids would be like me. I had an incredibly stable childhood, which probably really helped. We've put our kids through tremendous stress and it's not getting any better. The int'l school in Manosque is properly accredited, which makes all the difference. That's hard to find in these parts, which makes it scary for the kids when we move onto the next place. I plan to come back sunday if nothing works out here and I will keep trying from France, slowly, at my own rhythm and in control.

This is my first month of experience in Morrocco. I keep forgetting how hard it is to be an expat. It already helps that I speak French. I cannot imagine how hard it would be if I couldn't communicate at all. And I have Najat who can translate for me and help explain the culture to me. It makes all the difference in the world. It's like having my own reliable, personal, capable guide to Morrocco. In that sense I'm very lucky.

My experience so far really is ok. It's just the school situation that has given me much stress, but like I said, we're learning quickly and I suppose adapting. Adaptation is really an acquired skill. I suppose you get better at it the more you do it.

I hope all of you stay well. If any of you do think about following to Morrocco. Please beware of the schools. Do it slowly during vacation if possible so you don't get stuck like the rest of us. Or prepare well in advance for homeschooling so you don't have pressure to get the school crap done. But definitely do ALL the papers for ALL the schools in advance because it is so much to do and really like a bad joke.

Phone, Bank card, Ladder Nov-Dec 2011

2012-01-01T03:05:00.000-08:00

Shortly after my last blog lambasting the phone company and bank, I got things sorted out. The phone just started working finally. It took about 3 weeks total that I went without an internet phone, ie free telephone calls to my family in the states and to my husband in Morrocco.

The bank is slightly worse. Like all diligent, careful people, I wrote my code down. The bank asked me if I wrote down my code. Of course. Then she said, did you write it down correctly? Yeah, duh. She asked if I still have the record of my code that the bank sent to me. I've learned that in France, keep ALL your papers, you never know. So, I went looking for my code in my file assuming I chucked it and voila! I found it. I took it out and compared it to the code I'd written down and whoops. I wrote down the wrong code. The problems more or less originated with myself.

So, all that being resolved brings me to thanksgiving...

We had our traditional potluck on Dec 3 during a weekend that Xavier would be home. I really wanted to invite EVERYONE I liked. That added up to about 100+ people. I tried hard to find a venu that could hold us. In the end I couldn't find anything available and or that could seat that many people, so I resigned to keeping the numbers down to the amount of people I could conceivably fit into my house. This time we did a little more picnic style, so people could sit on the sofa and chairs away from the table. It worked out fine.

In my image of a great party, I wanted to utilise the 30m² terrace, but in order to do that, I would need to enclose it. So, I went shopping for tarp. When the time came to put the tarp up, it proved to be difficult. The tarp I bought was mislabled and way too small. The highest height to attach is about 2.5 meters. I am 1.6 meters tall to give you an idea. I had to climb up the ladder to highest height in order to reach the wood beam to attach the tarp. It was windy outside and I kept thinking I'm going to fall off this ladder and get myself killed. Xavier left at 3:30 to get his hair cut. People were due to technically arrive at 4.

At 3:40, I shifted my weight on the ladder and as I did so, the ladder flew out from under me taking my feet along with it sideways. I was up about 1.5 meters high and thought, this is going to be bad. I landed very, very hard on my lower back (coccix). The terrace is tile and I had nothing to protect my fall, no coat on since it was relatively warm outside. My hand hit the step and luckily my head just missed the step.

Anyway, there I was laying on my back, outside on the tile in December feeling like an idiot and in extreme pain. My body made a loud noise when it hit the ground. The pain radiating from my back was very, very great. I lost all feeling the my fingertips and looked at my hand. In the impact my nail had lobbed off a nice chunk of my finger. I looked at that and thought, I'm glad I can't feel anything because when I get feeling back, that's going to hurt.

My friend Barb was in town from Texas and was home with me at the time, thank goodness. I was laying there in shock. I checked to see if I could move my fingers and that was ok. I was thinking, ok I'm going to have to call myself an ambulance and go to the hospital, question is, when? I've got guests showing up technically in 20 minutes. I can't leave Barb here alone. She's in the middle of making her hors'ouevres, she isn't ready yet either, she doesn't have time to deal with this. Then I realized, crap, I can't do anything now. I can't finish getting everything ready, I can't work and I can't use my left hand at all.

Anais was outside so I told her to go get Barb. She came out and we ascertained that I could move my body. I crawled inside and stood up, so that was ok. At least I knew the ambulance was out of the picture. I decided to relax and wait for Xavier to get home. I shoved the icepack down the back of my pants. People came on french time, roughly 1 hr late, so that bought me some healing time. When people did show up, I felt terrible because I had to ask them to work to finish setting up the house for the party. I wasn't able to lift anything.

I called our friend who was coming to the party anyway who is a doctor and told him that I broke my coccix and maybe also my wrist, but I wasn't sure about my wrist, it was swelling and changing colors. So, I spent the night trading the icepack off between shoving it down the back of my pants and my wrist. A friend of ours is a nurse and I asked her if she wouldn't mind looking at my bottom to assess the damage. I don't think there was any visible damage, just a lot of pain.

Well, we had a good time anyway in spite of the accident. I wasn't of any real use, which really annoyed me. My friend offerred to call off the party and take me to the ER. Call off a party? No. Everyone cooked and everyone's here, it's alright I'll go to the hospital later. Our friend picked up a wrist brace and looked at my wrist for me, he said it might be broken, but not requiring immediate attention and that the brace is as good as anyone can do anyway. He had a contact at the hospital and could get me in and through the system in one go, so it would be better than blowing 4 hrs at the ER for nothing. I said fair enough. He said you can't do much for a tailbone anyway. It didn't feel like it broke in half or anything, but it did feel broken.

The problem is all this took place on Sat. On monday both Xavier and Barb were leaving. I thought, crap, I can't lift anything or use my left hand at all and my right hand was severely damaged due to my finger. It was really hurting. So, I decided I hoped I would heal a little before they left. It was pretty rough. I couldn't sweep the floor or do the dishes, so I just let everything sit for awhile and get dirty. I went to the hospital monday after everyone left and got x-rays of my body. My wrist is not broken, but I did a nice big fracture of my coccix. The dr said it would take about 1.5 months to heal. My bottom is healing faster than my wrist. It's been about 1 month, I'm now taking the wrist brace off, but there is still a visible bruise on it.

In the meantime, I was living alone in France. A single mom with no family, working part time and broken and having to prepare a large move to another country. A little insane. Sometimes, I thought what the hek am I doing? My husband was able to come home every other weekend, but the weekend of the 3rd would be his last weekend home.

Luckily I am blessed to be surrounded by a group of amazing and wonderful international women in France. They all banded together to help me. A few friends came over and helped me go through all our stuff that we've collected over the past 10 yrs and helped me unload. We gave carloads away to charity and threw the other trash out. Our neighbor has been a very great help. He has dumped all the big stuff for us, like our very old and broken sofa from TX.

So, all went well. We finally received an emergency last minute passport for Nicolas so we could fly to Casablanca and meet Xavier for Christmas. Together we found a nice furnished house to rent in a beautiful resort like place. The house is smaller than other homes for the same price, but we get to live in a beautiful residence with pools, playground, beach and lots and lots of other people and consequently lots of kids for ours to hopefully make some friends. We have also met some expats, but so far no one has kids the same age as ours. Most people have very, very young children or their children are grown.

More on Morrocco in the next blog.

Cheers,

French Observations October 2011

2011-10-28T02:07:00.000-07:00

Gypsy:

One day not too long ago, I was driving from Gréoux to Manosque. I was running late to pick up the kids from school. At the top of the hill btw the 2 towns on the plateau was a man pulled over on the side of the road with his car. He was running about on the street flagging people down for help. Most people drove passed him. At first he looked Indian, so I though he might be a poor Indian ITER employee who has car problems and needs help and being foreign, doesn't know what to do. I pulled over and he came up to me, he spoke poor French, so I spoke to him in English. His English was ok, but not great. He said he is from Turkey and he has his family in the car and he's out of gas. My instinct was to call the police for help for him, but he asked me for money to get gas.

This was the first red flag. But, I know that if he came from Turkey, maybe his bank card doesn't work and maybe he couldn't find the gas station in Manosque because they aren't obvious and easy to find. So, I gave him 20€. He offered to give me his gold necklace or his gold ring. I said no, just take the money and I left. His whole family inside his car was thanking me.

I was feeling pretty good about myself. Like I'm a good samaritan who helped another person in need until....................

2 days later when I saw the same man, on the same side of the road, at the same time of day, doing exactly the same thing. I was pissed. He was parked on the opposite side of the road and I couldn't make out his license plate number. I debated whether or not I should call the police. After I got the kids and came back, I was hoping he would still be there and I could get a better look at his license plate and perhaps ask for my money back, but he was already gone. I've kept a look out since, but have never seen him again.

I heard he scammed another one of my friends in a different area of town, same story, same gimmick. As I was infuriated at the man who cried wolf, I told my neighbor and without going into details, she said so he offered to give you a silver necklace or other jewelery item in return? Uh hm. She said, he's a gypsy. NEVER give them any money. I've learned my lesson. It turns you a little callous, which is not a good thing.

Phone Company:

We went to our phone company called Orange on Oct 13 to change our contract because we were being severly overcharged. We have an internet phone and a landline as well. We had a bill for the internet phone (internet, satellite included) for over 100€, then a separate phone bill just for the landline through France Telecom for 38€. Xavier was pissed, so we decided to stop the landline. Then our internet phone stopped working. This means I can no longer call people for free especially the US. Today is Oct 28, 3 phone calls later to Orange, still no phone. Everytime I called Orange they said it was because our new contract wasn't finished being processed and therefore there is nothing they can do until it's finished. IF our phone still doesn't work by Oct 28, which we ALL know will certainly be the case, then I'm supposed to call back and then they will actually begin resolving the problem. So, today I called yet again and explained the situation. They said they don't know what the problem is, but they will call me back on Tuesday Nov 1. I said "are you actually going to do anything between now and tues?" They said they think the problem is from their hardware someplace, or maybe my phone cable, or maybe my phone jack in the wall. They really don't know. If they cannot solve it, then on Tues they will explain it to me, then put me on a list for sending out a technician, you know like a week later to resolve the problem. I will be going at least 1 full month without a phone. I will try to negotiate not paying the full bill since I haven't had full service, though I know that in France, that will be an exercise in futility. I'll let you know at what date, I will actually receive the service I pay for.

One more thing, when we changed our contract, our new contract comes with something useless but costly called 3G and Gigamail. We want neither. The guy representing Orange signing us up is somehow NOT able to NOT sign us up for these options. If we want to "Delete" them, then I have to call Orange myself. Now, I DID call Orange and was able to delete gigamail after about 1 excruciating hour on the phone, however, they were not able to delete 3G. You see, it is NOT their department, and they cannot transfer me. So, as polite and as seemingly excellent service as they offer, I will have to call back the main line and ask for commercial service to get rid of 3G. And by the way, EVERY time I call my own phone company for anything, I pay per minute to resolve my own phone issues. Now, that's what I call EXCELLENT customer service!

The Bank:

Now that we have established the wonderful efficiency of French phone companies, let us expound on the BANK EXPERIENCE.

I bounced a check, well 3 checks to be exact. Whoops. I wasn't watching my account closely, it is my fault. 2 were to the canteen at the kids school. I wrote those checks in June. They bounced in July, then all banking hell broke lose. Overnight, ALL my cards and checks froze. I could no longer access anything. I have 2 banks. 1 in Manosque near me, 1 in Aix. I only bounced checks at the bank in Manosque, yet somehow EVERY bank I own in France went into blackout.

Now being checks to the school, the school closes during the summer. By the time we figured out which checks bounced, mind you, I called my bank numerous times and even physically went in and asked the simple question "which checks bounced?" The answer from the banker always was "I don't know." Surprisingly, that answer just isn't much help. If they are able to freeze my account, you'd think they'd be able to do a little research to find where the problem originated.

So, my husband being good and thorough, went through our mail to hunt down the letters from the banks and make sense of everything. The school being a school closes down in the summer, so I had to wait until Sept for everyone to come back to work to resolve the problem. Now we are 2 mos without access to my account. Xavier had to buy the gas and pay the groceries. We ran out of checks and our bank refused to send us more since I was in a bank blackout. Finally I got from my bank that I need to physically get the checks back and bring them along with a receipt to the bank. Now I have 2 days off mon, thurs. The bank is closed on mon. This doesn't leave much opportunity to resolve things.

I finally got the checks from my school. They said that I then needed to bring them cash. How? I asked when I cannot use a cash machine? So I went back to the bank on wed morning when I was in Manosque every wed and asked for the cash. Brought the cash to the school on Thurs. Once I procured the checks and the receipt I waited again until I could go to the bank. Everything was supposed to be in order. The 3rd check was to a grocery store in Lyon and after a few phone calls, Xavier negotiated with them to pass the check on through a second time.

On Wed, my bank now had ALL the information they should need to get the issue resolved. However, NEVER trust a french bank. So, the following Wed, I went back to see what was "happening" since I was still sitting pretty in blackout. They said they were still missing a check. I said no you have the check. They argued with me. I said look for it, you have it, there is nothing I can do. She looked and oh my goodness, the check was just sitting there in the pile. It never got processed. 1 week wasted.

The following Wed, I go back to the bank and said "so, what's going on?" Why can I not yet use my cards? She said it is now at the bank of france, it will take about 15 days to process so you should be good by the first week of oct. Remember, I'm in blackout, I have no checks, I cannot pay bills and I have to come to Manosque to the bank physically to take cash out. They are not open on mon, sun and are closed during lunch hours and basically any time someone is NOT at work. They are open Sat morning for about 2 hrs. DO I really want to drive 1/2 hr there and back to get cash?? That's an awful lot of gas to waste, esp when a full take costs about 75€. I said how can 15 days take me all the way into Oct? Do you mean 15 business days? As in 3 weeks? "uh, yes ma'am." Then you should say 3 weeks.

So, every couple of days I called the bank. Same response, we don't know. We cannot contact the Bank of France, I just have to wait. "Can I call the bank of france myself?" "No, ma'am, you cannot call them, they don't have a phone number, no one can call them." Every Wed, I went into the bank and asked about the progress. No ma'am nothing's changed yet. Finally, after 3 weeks, I went into the bank yet again and they said, Oh yeah, it looks like the bank of france lifted the blackout, but it was LCL who was freezing my accounts. I said, "so, can you take off the freeze?" They did, then we said we want to close our account.

Xavier has been trying to close the account for over 1 year. He sent certified letters, we came into the bank. This last reason is oh, yeah, once we got a letter returned to us that we sent to you, so you need to bring us proof of your address. We need a bill from the electric company that is less than 3 months old. In the meantime, they are charging us like 30€ in charges every month per account. Xavier was so pissed. I finally made an appointment with our banker for Thurs, you know the one day I don't work, the bank is open, and I don't have children with me. Our banker, Mme Yde said yes, she closed the account of my husband and transferred everything into my account. His account had 0€.

Then, I had to go back to the bank to make sure everything was in order for my account because I wanted to close it as soon as the blackout was lifted. Xavier was no longer working at ITER at this point and was going to go to Morocco soon, so I wanted to bring him with me, just in case, you know, so if he needed to, he could "go French" at someone. Mind you, we showed up there in the morning. We asked about Xavier's account and they said, no it's not closed, and showed that there was money in it. Xavier was infurious! We demanded to speak to Mme Yde and that we are closing both accounts right now, today and want paper proof of the close. At that particular moment, Mme Yde was present and had NO ONE in her office, but in order to talk to her, we must make an appointment to come back in the afternoon. Xavier wanted it to be clear. We asked what must we bring to close our accounts?

The answer was the usual ID, proof of address, bank transfer paper to the new bank, electric or water bill that is less than 3 mos old or rental agreement, and this was new, they wanted us to bring in ALL of our unused checks. We said "are you joking??? The account is closed, what will a check do??" She said it will put us back into blackout lockdown again and will be harder and more difficult to resolve.

We came back at 15:00 spoke to Mme Yde. She looked nervous. Xavier tried to remain calm and NOT go French at her. She closed the account and gave us proof of it. I now have a file going for LCL Bank because I still don't trust them. I understand now why Xavier was so keen on keeping French papers for years and years. In France, you absolutely have too! Never trust anyone.

In the meantime, my other bank in Aix. Apparently, I was still in blackout lockdown with them even though my bank account at LCL is closed. I called and they said it's because it takes 8-10 EXTRA days for the bank of france to lift the other accounts. That puts me in blackout for over 1 month. My extra problem is back in July, just before lockdown, I forgot my bank code and put in the wrong one 3X. Now I'm in blackout and lockdown from the Bank of France, but in special lockdown #2 for putting in the wrong code. The bank said I need to come and get a new card and give them the old card.

Remember they are located in Aix, I live 1 hr north of Aix. The toll road is 6€ to get to Aix, parking in Aix is an extra 4€ min, gas will be at least a quarter of a tank, about 15-20€. Total cost out of pocket to make a quick 1/2 day journey to Aix to swap bank cards is about 30€. Now, after some negotiation with my new bank, they offered to mail me the card with the assurance that I will be able to use my old code.

Remember bank of france lockout on HSBC last 4 weeks, after ban has been lifted and phone call to bank was made, it takes an extra week to receive new card. I had written down my old code, so am sure of the code being correct. Banker said in order to activate my card, I must buy something. I received my new card with great joy on Oct 24, the day Xavier was supposed to leave. I then went to a place and tried to spend some money on the card. What happened?? Card did NOT go through, it said I used a false code. I reluctantly tried a second time after much insistance from store owner.

Remember, 3 wrong codes keyed and card gets locked out again and will have to call bank for a new card and wait yet a minimum of 1 week. Xavier is leaving in 2 days. 2nd time, code came up false. I stopped and paid cash. I called the bank and she insisted that my code is correct. She said I should go to a cash machine and try it. I said "no." I asked her to please mail me my code. Xavier said my code should change and that the banker is wrong. So, I should be receiving my new code on Tues. Let's hope there won't be something wrong. I just might have to make that trip down to Aix afterall.

Xavier is now gone and I still don't have a functionning bank card. I at least have received checks, so I can buy groceries, etc. Let's hope for the best. Worse comes to worse, I might be able to cash a check at another bank if I need cash. Who knows??

Those are some thoughts and experiences I thought I'd like to share. Xavier said Casablanca is sort of like as he put it "hell." He said it's all the negative of Marseille, to the nth power. He said it is the opposite of Germany. It is dirty, polluted and totally chaotic. He said there is no real public transportation system and driving it is hell. There are donkeys on the street. Casablanca is an ugly dump. He also said that Rabat is not 1 hr away, but 2 hrs away, so we can forget about moving there. His job is south of Casablanca, so I said why don't we just live south. He said he almost got killed crossing the road in Californie. He said he has never feared as much for his life as trying to walk Casablanca. Which means, forget parking in Casablanca. Hmm, a bit of a problem.

He found a colleague who lives south in some sort of house/compound. His colleague will be moving soon and his house will be available. Apparently the house comes with a butler. Yes, that's right, the house comes with a butler. How the heck can a house come with a butler??? I'm thinking that's probably out of our price range. I'll have to go and see for myself.

Explanation: To go French at someone:

Verb (used both with and without object)

1. To yell at a person in a truly direct manner. Why the cuss are you unable to do what I'm asking?!

2. To lose all forms of sophisticated composure and let out ALL of your negative emotions in the exact way your are feeling them at that exact given moment. You are the most incompetent group of cuss cuss cusses I have ever met! How can you live with yourself?

3. Will probably include verbal expression of extreme dissatisfaction with a specific person and or the institution they represent. How many times do I have to come here to resolve this? It's as though I have to do your job for you? This is totally unacceptable! (followed by fist pounding on individual's desk)

4. Is usually in reaction to extreme incompetency.

News Barcelona, Corsica, Morocco October 2011

2011-10-05T23:06:00.000-07:00

Lots of news since the last blog:

Barcelona - Xavier and I went to Barcelona, Spain for work for Xavier. I drove to Lyon to drop the kids off with Yvette and then hit the road with just Xavier for 3 days in Barcelona. He had a seminar for one day and we hung out the other 2 days. It was a great chance to put to use my 1 trimester of college Spanish. I really wanted to see all things Gaudi (the best architect for my personal taste up to date). Ever since a Korean friend of mine went to Barcelona and brought back photographs of Gaudi architecture and pictures from Park Guell, I've been decided to go too. I had Barcelona on my list of things to see before I die, especially this cool beautiful Gaudi bench that wraps around a seating area in Park Guell.

Xavier and I enjoyed a relaxing stroll around Barcelona. I found the city to be pleasant and spacious, though I wouldn't want to live in the center. No privacy, everyone can see into your yard or your house. It is way too crowded in terms of shared living space. We found Starbucks, so had a nice break there and just drank Chi Tea, which I haven't enjoyed since 2009 in Munich. We read books and spent the day on the beach playing in the waves. I had a really nice time. When I had the day to myself on Monday, I was on the long stubborn journey to Park Guell which was extremely difficult to find. The tour book looked easy, but on foot it was impossible. I ended up asking everyone for directions off the street in Spanish. No one spoke English, except for these nice Indian men working in a Kiosk. With a little French, I was able to understand enough. I didn't bother trying Catalan. I figured they would at least try to speak to me in Spanish, but I speak so little, it doesn't really matter anyway. Images from Park Guell are at the following link.
http://www.google.fr/search?q=parc+guell&hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=I52&rls=org.mozilla:fr:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=G0qNTrGhDKa00QXMgsk_&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=665

After 1 hr of meandering uphill and asking directions from every passerbyer, I finally made it to ParK Guell. It was very cool. I took photos, and will attemt to post them? There is no one interesting in the photos, just a little beautiful architecture. Gaudi looks a lot like the Palais du facteur Cheval in France. The Palace of the postman Cheval. I think he existed about the same time as Gaudi and wonder if Cheval was influenced by Gaudi or if they were influenced by the same things common to their time period. It is very cool to visit as well. I think it is near the area of la Drome. The kids loved running through it. There are lots of little passages and windows from which to peek.
http://www.facteurcheval.com/

There were other things I wanted to see in Barcelona regarding Gaudi, but I didn't have enough time. We saw the outside of the Cathredral designed by Gaudi called Sagrada Familia. http://www.google.fr/search?q=sagrada+familia&hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=bpN&rls=org.mozilla:fr:official&biw=1366&bih=665&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=TEuNToubMumx0AWuzY0d&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CBEQ_AUoAQ

We also visited the old city center which is the Barri Gothic Quarter.
http://www.google.fr/search?q=barri+%2B+gothic&hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=SXi&rls=org.mozilla:fr:official&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=6kuNTuyRMaiw0AXEorgm&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CBAQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=665

Barcelona is supposed to be about 5 hrs without traffic from Gréoux. It took us 8 because it was in high tourist season.

Corsica: In mid August we took the kids to Toulon, climbed on Corsica Ferries with the car and slept overnight during our boat ride to Ajaccio, Corsica in the Mediterranean. A few years back we took the same boat company from Livorno Italy or some place like that to Sardinia before Nicolas was born. The kids loved being on the boat, but this time neither of them could remember it. It was like they were experiencing it again for the first time.
http://www.corsica-ferries.fr/

Corsica, how to some up in a few words??? Hot, Hot, Hot, sunny, wasp infestation, mafia, tourist rip off, beautiful nature, beautiful landscape, beautiful beaches, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
We camped for 2 weeks with the kids. It was about 40 celcius (95-100 farenheit) every day from about 9 AM onwards. It was hotter at the campsite than at the beach. The wasps are around you from dawn till dusk. The first day we arrived, we made the horrid mistake of attempting to cook hamburgers. We were attacked by a swarm of wasps. I litterally had my hamburger on a fork and was walking briskly to keep ahead of the wasps, since I was being trailed. We never cooked during the daylight again. There were always about 5 wasps around us as we ate breakfast, as I cleaned dishes, etc. They would fly into my body and bounce off me, fly into my face, land on everyone. Miraculously, no one was stung during the entire 2 weeks!! We brought a picnic salad with us to the beach everyday. We realized we forgot to pack tupperware, so there we were all 5 of us spooning salad collectively out of my cooking casserole pot and spooning the food directly into our mouths. I don't think our children ever ate as healthy as during those 2 weeks off of different kinds of salads. They normally don't like lentil salad, etc, but suddenly when hunger strikes and there is nothing else, they can't stop saying how good it is!! We couldn't eat chocolate because it was so hot, it would melt into a river.

After 1 week of camping and swimming in the Mediterranean and playing on the beach, snorkeling, etc, the kids had enough and started asking to go home. They didn't want to see another beach. We also wanted to go home. One night our blow up mattress broke so we deflated within the hour. I didn't sleep real well that night. We had to buy a new smaller air mattress since we couldn't fix the old one. One day we went to Quick for lunch, just to escape the wasps and have AC for a change. The kids were very happy until we said it was time to go to the beach again. That's when all the moaning started.

It's funny at any other time the kids always ask to go to the beach. 1 week of excessive heat, excessive wasps and beach, and the kids have had enough. One day towards the end, we made the mistake of going to one of the local mafia run restaurants on the beach. A few signs of shadiness: 1. it was almost always completely devoid of customers 2. there were the same 2 men sitting at a table at the entrance all day every day during the work week, reading magazines, smoking and drinking beer. My question is, how do they live? What do they do? Even mafia can't make much money off 5 customers a day. Xavier said he had coffee there and he saw some local people get a great meal so he wanted to try it.

How does one spot local mafia? Well.....I'm just going to give you an educated guess at the following description. When we were there, we saw 2 families. 2 fat older tubby men each with very, very young, as in half their age kind of skanky looking wives. Every single person was covered in these gaudy thick gold chain necklaces, including the 2 yr old baby. To increase the confusion in new money, poor taste, the skanky young wives wore, bsides their bikinis showing off their stretch marks, large diamonds wedged inside their belly buttons. Given Corsica is isolated and seemingly poor, and since it has no industry outside of 3 months of tourism and some fishing, and everything costs 2X as much as the already overpriced mainland, it makes you question???

My one and only meal at this restaurant by the way which was part of the "lunch special" and costed a whopping 20€ was called grilled chicken. Imagine what you would envision as a 20€ meal of grilled chicken for a moment....... This was my meal: 1 overcooked thigh from an anorexic chicken (A chicken thigh, as you may know is the CHEAPEST part of the chicken to buy) and about 20 french fries still swimming in grease, yes actually counted them, 20. There was more plate than food. I was really pissed but wasn't sure what to do. Other restaurant options were limited, kids were hungry and this retaurant had the ONLY toilet on the beach, which I'd been using for free for the entire 2 weeks!

During our 2 weeks, a weatlhy french entrepreneuer was shot dead by a sniper on his own boat. At least one person on the island has skills I suppose, be it as nothing more than a hired sharp shooter.

We met some nice people, hiked up to one of the waterfalls inland, canoed on the Mediterranean, and snorkeled. I took some photos of the kids. It was an interesting vacation and I don't need to go back. However, I must say Corsica is a truly, truly beautiful place. I have never seen a more beautiful place. If you have a choice between Corsica and Sardinia, go to Corsica. Sardinia has terrible beaches. Corsica beaches are large and pretty. Just remember to bring your own toilet. Corsica is a part of France and therefore toilets are few and far between and no one will share theirs willingly. Most beaches don't have toilets and therefore if you want to use one in a restaurant, then you have to buy something. At least the beaches and parking are for free. Otherwise, we'd be REALLY broke after out trip. A family of 5 at Quick (McDonalds) was 40€ ($55).

http://www.google.fr/search?q=corsica&hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=Kn4&rls=org.mozilla:fr:official&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=yWONTtGBMYeZhQfAnbAH&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CCgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=665

Morocco: OK if you can still stomach reading, the REALLY BIG news. Xavier has accepted a new job in Morocco. He leaves October 24. He will come back every other weekend. It will be hard to be without him. I was very worried and panicked to be on my own in France. I was worried about stupid things like if my car breaks down, if I can't get the computer to work right, or if I get sick. I have friends, but my stand by back up will no longer be here. My computer techy husband will be gone and I will be forced to deal with the PC alone not to mention the French Administration. I'm feeling better now though.

The goal is for us to move to Morocco for the next school year, only if things go well for Xavier there, only if the region seems stable enough, if it's safe and if he thinks we will be happy. He has to find a nice school for the kids. It will probably be in only English. Which makes coming back here difficult, since the kids will then lose at least 1 yr in French. We'll see. So far, Xavier's contract is for 2 yrs. We have 3 2 week breaks coming up, X-mas, Feb, spring. I just found out my sister's getting married, so we will fly back to Chicago during the summer. I will have to stay behing in Gréoux to get the move into order. School here ends July 5. It will take maybe 2 weeks of packing and camping here and moving our things into storage and shipping the rest to Morocco. I think I will see if I can give the kids to Yvette during that time. We want to sell the cars. I will lease a small crappy car there. I don't want the hassle of shipping my car. Then we can be free to go wherever we want afterwards.

Xavier's contract is for 2 yrs. He won't really know the situation or the needs until he gets on the spot. He is going to be head of project management for a phosophate mine or something. I'm not really sure what he will be doing. The job is in and near Casablanca. The Sahara dessert is in the south. I've always wanted to take a camel ride through the Sahara!! That will be first on my list of things to experience. I will need to learn Arabic. I would like to speak and read some Arabic. I've always been very curious about that. I also need to work while I'm there. It is very important for my mental and emotional balance. I had depression since I stopped working and during the past 10 yrs have slowly reflected and figured out the specific balance I need in my life in order to be happy. I'm not sure how it is for others, but I've learned that I need 1. constant intellectual stimulation 2. feeling of positive production (meaningful work, not JUST work) 3. family 4. lots and lots of socialisation 5. being busy (also sport) 6. accomplishment in some form, or working towards new goals 7. travel. When I moved to Dresden, I was totally deprived of 1,2,4,5 and 6. I was completely depressed. When I went to school the first month, I was totally happy and could deal much better with being in a new place because I had so much socialisation and mental stimulation, but once that month ended and we couldn't afford for me to continue, I fell into a horrific depression. Sometimes it takes us to have difficult situations in order to learn more about ourselves. I've also learned I am an Expat no matter where I am and that's ok. I don't need to fit into the local culture because I will ALWAYS be an outsider, which is ok too. The people I will most likely become friends with are expats and locals who have travelled and who have also experienced expatriation. They also feel out of place with the other locals. It doesn't matter to get involved with the locals and or to be accepted by the locals. You will have a hard time becomming friends with the locals, but have a much faster time becomming acquainted with the expats because the expats are all in the same boat. They are ALL away from their families and have no back up so you become each other's back up. It is like have a large transient extended family constantly surrounding you. It is very good and important.

We have an appt with the US consulate Oct 12 to get our passports in order. Hopefully we will be able to get our passports by x-mas. Xavier is going to Paris this weekend. Then next weekend is passports in Marseille, then the following weekend is the first weekend in the fall break and goodbye to xavier. Being away from my husband isn't such a bad thing since it will force me to stand on my own a bit more and become more independent, which is never a bad thing. The goal is to slowly introduce the children to Morocco in a positive manner so we can move there next year. 9 mos alone is 1 thing. 2 yrs alone is a lifestyle. I want my family to be together and I think this is a wonderful way to visit Africa. I have always been curious about Morocco. I have always wanted to go to Morocco and have recently wanted to visit Africa. Of course Morocco is just the Maghreb. While we are there, I would like to extend his contract if possible so we can stay at least 2 school years there and take the time to visit the rest of Africa like Kenya or something. I've always wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro since I learned about it in college. It has been on my list of things to do before I die.

I'll keep you posted. Today is the first day I'm actually home since school started Sept 5. Craziness.

Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania Africa
http://www.google.fr/search?q=mount+kilimanjaro&hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=ptO&rls=org.mozilla:fr:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=VluNTtZ7g7qEB_rmnfoP&ved=0CEwQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=665

Casablanca, Morocco
http://www.google.fr/search?q=mount+kilimanjaro&hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=ptO&rls=org.mozilla:fr:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=VluNTtZ7g7qEB_rmnfoP&ved=0CEwQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=665#hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=9uO&rls=org.mozilla:fr%3Aofficial&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=casablanca+maroc&pbx=1&oq=casablanca&aq=1&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=85182l87563l0l95435l10l10l0l4l4l1l724l2399l2-2.1.2.0.1l6l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=5d2108b9fb05369&biw=1366&bih=665

By the way, I don't anticipate Casablanca to be pretty or anything. I figure it will look like a run down version of Marseille. At least they speak French. I think it goes like this. The common blue collar majority will speak Arabic (that means all shopping, food, etc). The university educated people will speak both Arabic and French. The higher educated people (doctors, higher degrees, Moroccan expats) will speak Arabic, French, and English. Either way, I think it is important that I learn Arabic. I started writing my first novel called Isabelle in July. I have to hurry and get that finished because I want the heroine in my next novel to speak Arabic. But, I cannot start that until I finish this first one. I have to make it a habit to write EVERY night after the kids go to bed in order to get my novel finished, otherwise it will just sit there and not get done!!!

March 2011

2011-03-25T03:18:00.000-07:00

Apparently I haven't written since November!! Yikes!

It's nearing registration time again at the International School in Manosque for the kids for next year. We'll see how that pans out for Nicolas. We are as usual worried. This time we are worried he may not get into the school next year. I think we'll have to go through the usual paperwork and just find out.

Work is going great for me. I am very happy teaching at the school. I have a good team that I work with, lots of nice and talented people. I couldn't be happier. I think we all work well together. I work only in the maternelle this year so I can only account for us. When I work, we have all the foreign language teachers together on the same day, so it is very varied. We do music and sing songs in English, French, German, Italien, Chinese, and Japanese. It is a lot of fun, though difficult for me outside of German and French.

Working part-time is really great. I feel like a mommy with a hobby. I didn't like staying home full-time. It was boring AND really stressful. It is more fun going to work. At least the art projects I do with the kids I can test on my own kids at home at first. That seems to work really well. I can bring in their examples to show the kids the end results. My kids enjoy doing art projects and cooking.

Sitting here there is so much to say, yet not sure what to tell you. I don't want to bore anyone to tears!

I was grocery shopping the other day in LIDL with all 3 kids, which I usually try to avoid because they are so unruly. Anyway, I end up with a cart full of items which annoys anyone behind me because there is no such thing as an "express lane" in France. I always let anyone with a few items to bump ahead of me in line. There were 2 older men (grandpa aged) behind me and started talking a few lines to me in English. We ended up chatting a bit, then they starting helping me unload the cart which was really nice, then they also started helping me load it back up after the cashier checked out the items. We don't have anyone bagging groceries for you in France and you don't have time or the space to bag a cart full of groceries yourself, so you have to throw the items back in the cart as fast as possible so the people waiting behind you won't get too angry, then once you get to your car or home, you can bag them. I had other Americans new to France complain because they try to bag their groceries on the spot, which is normal because that's how we do things in the states. However, they feel the pressure of the other patrons waiting behind them and try to work as fast as possible while holding up the line. Meanwhile the cashier will just sit there and stare at you and watch you work, but won't offer to help. This comes across as very strange for an American, because part of the cashier's job in the states is bagging groceries. In America, we find it odd when a customer is bagging their own groceries. It's a big no no in the US.

My first job was bagging groceries in the states. I was 15. I was already tired of baby-sitting and wanted to get a "real job." Who knew that after taxes and union fees, I would earn so much more babysitting!! As a teenager you want to go out with your friends and not babysit children on Friday and Saturday nights. I liked my job. I worked with immigrants who could barely speak English and with mentally handicapped people. I don't know of any other country that would allow mentally handicapped people work. I think it is very important for them to hold down a job. It gives them stimulation and independence. During my time working in highschool at the grocery store, I learned about a social constraint that I call the "foodchain mentality." About 80% of the customers who came into our grocery store were nice, polite people. They would talk to you, say hi, etc. However, there is that unfortunate other 20% who subscribe to the "foodchain mentality." These are the people who rate your, their and everyone's value based on 2 apparent objectives. 1 The amount of education you have. 2 The amount of money you make and/or are subjectively valued. If one of the said individuals comes across another who is subjectively deemed their equal or superier, then they will treat that person with respect. However, if they come across an individual who appears "inferior" to themselves (most immigrants will automatically fall into this category especially if they cannot speak English), then the "foodchain mentality" person will allow himself free licensce to treat this person differentially and without respect. The key commonality between all of my experiences with the "foodchain mentality" person is that they undoubtedly ALWAYS thought of themselves as quite high up on the foodchain, like a lion or a shark. As a teenager who was employed as a lowly bagger and then later promoted to cashier, you can only guess where I fell on the foodchain. My youth didn't always exclude me from this disrespect. I found that in general the "foodchain mentality" people only remained with the educated upper middle class. Men were more likely to be of this group than women. When a woman does subscribe to the "foodchain mentality," she can alomost be worse than the men.

This doesn't mean that all middle upper class people are rude. Like I said, the remaining 80% are always very nice and polite.

I have to say I am really glad I had this experience. I am glad to work with mentally handicapped and with immigrants. It was very important to learn about openness and acceptance. And more importantly, I always vowed that no matter what I do with my life, no matter how high I achieve, I will NEVER be a "foodchain mentality" person. I will always be one of the nice and polite customers. When I did go to work in large companies later, I made it a point to talk to everyone, especially the housekeeping, though I couldn't really speak much Spanish. It is important to treat everyone with mutual respect because at the end of the day everyone is the same. People fall in love, have families, and work. I don't see why anyone should think they have a free license to treat anyone different or lower than themselves.

News November 2010

2010-11-19T04:46:00.000-08:00

Hello all. I know it has been a long time since my last blog but that's because there isn't much news to share. So I'll just dive in....

Over the summer we lost one of our beloved cats, Rocky. We went to Lyon to visit Xaiver's mom and when we came back, Rocky wasn't here. We suspect he disappeard shortly after we left. I was very upset and stressed about his disappearance. The kids didn't seem to care much, only Anaïs has been sad and still talks about him. All of the kids first words was either cat or Rocky. Nicolas still calls Zoé, Rocky. For him all cats are called Rocky. In one moment of particular shocking callousness, Anaïs asked if we could trade up Zoé for a hamster. I said no. They want another cat since Zoé isn't particularly friendly to kids. Again, we said no. We're not ready to add another animal to take care of. I'd rather do something else.

Xavier got a work promotion to PVC I think, which means project manager of something. I don't really understand what he does, but he is very happy and really loves his job. His contract comes to end this time in Feb, so he'll have to wait and see if he can get it extended again. I am very happy for him. He joined a gym and works out regularly and still goes crewing and canoeing on the weekends at Lac d'Esperron. I joined the same gym this year and can only go 2 days a week that I have free of children, so it's not much, but it helps my back pain.

I received a job offer to work at the int'l school part-time (2 days a week) this year and it is really great! I teach ESL for pre-schoolers PS and MS (3-4 yr olds). It is a lot of fun. Teaching is truly the one job I've had that I really like.

Anaïs: did some pony riding over the toussaint break. She seemed to enjoy that alright. She's been asking to pony ride for a year now, so that went well. We'll see what we'll do for winter break. She is in CE1 (2nd grade). She seems happy. still sruggling to read in French and English. I worked with her over the summer just in English to help her with phonics and reading in general. I didn't push, I just wanted it to be fun. I also do soutien with her during my lunch breaks when I'm at school and I don't have meetings. She seems happy. I do soutien with her in English and maths. Her maths has greatly improved over the summer because we worked on that together as well. She desperately needs to do sport, so I have to find her something. Gréoux doesn't offer a whole lot of options. Sadly dance and gymnastice are not a part of them. She is limited to tennis and martial arts. We'll see. I don't consider pony riding as a sport, it's more of a bourgeois hobby.

Austin: in GS (kindergarden). He is learning his letters, though that seems to be coming slowly. He is fairly stubborn, but wants to work with me at night. There may be a bit of jealousy with Anaïs. So, we work a little on letters and numbers at night. I discovered recently that he can't recognize numbers beyond 5. So, we can work on that I suppose. He also needs sport, but I haven't signed him up yet. He is an out-doorsy boy and would love fishing and rock climbing. Boy scouts exist in Manosque, but is has a weird reputation as a far right wing religious exclusive group. Not something you want to be a part of. It comes across a little like a milder version one of Hitler's youth groups. So, needless to say, austin isn't a part of that. I need to get more info anyway, plus I'm not keen on driving to Manosque on my days off. That would be too much driving!!

Nicolas: going well. he is in daycare 4 days a week. He likes it and seems to have some friends. he is sweet and I got him potty trained over the summer!!! Yeah!! Caca is still a problem, but at least he can wee wee in the potty. I think it is easier to train boys that girls. You simply let them run around naked during the summer and let them wee outside on plants, trees, bugs, etc. They learn quickly it's fun to wee on stuff. Gives them a goal, not to mention aim.

One of my students from last year lost her mommy over the summer about 1 week before school started. It was horrible. I have never seen more people cry at once in my life. It is horrible to see children in such pain. It was almost unbearable. It was august, hot sun, so very hot. The church was so full about half the people had to stand in the back. One young woman passed out during the service and got carried out on a stretcher. That's the first time I've seen that. I brought Anaïs with me. I wanted her to be there for my other student, since they know each other. I think it's important for children to support other children. It's bad enough to lose a parent, but it doesn't help to be surrounded by adults on that day either. Her brother played the violin when they laid their mom to rest and it was truly one of the most beautiful and saddest moments of my life. I'm sad but grateful to have been able to be a silent whitness of such love and beauty.

I read a great book called Night by Elie Wiesel. It is about his experiences in Auschwitz. It is haunting. I started doing some research about the holocaust afterwards which is also a little too vivid and hard to digest that a country could systematically murder and torture sooo many people and children for a few years and that no one said anything and just allowed it to happen. I see the people in Germany as silent whitnesses, just getting on with their lives and not asking questions about what goes on behind the barbed wire and just allowing it because they have other more important things to do like go to work and make money to feed their families. Remember this was during the time of the great depression. My mom and I visited Dachau while we were in Munich. I'm glad I saw that. It makes more sense to me after seeing that. I've seen photos of Auschwitz and it feels like I've already been there.

Genocides have happened since then, the Congo for example. There will be more as long as no one says anything. Look at Guantanimo. We know this is wrong, right? They are holding children there illegally and other adults. Yet, who of us have stood up and said something? Not I. I am ashamed of this. I have strong feelings about injustices and things that make me sick, pretty much everything that George W Bush did during his presidency, yet I never said anything, nor did I march in the street and demonstrate. I am no better than a silent whitness to crime. Perhaps, real crime is all of us who are aware of injustice, yet we are guilty of not moving a finger to stop it or to speak out against it. I don't see how anyone of us can judge the German people during the war anymore than we should judge ourselves, for we are no better.

Thanks for taking the time to read about our news. I finally bought a new camera, so I can share some photos of the kids soon.

Cheers,

Jennel

News May 2010

2010-05-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

Some news to share:

I am still teaching at the International School and will continue until the end the the school year on July 2. I kept waiting and getting permission to get an extension. The time kept changing. Finally, all is okayed. I don't think the woman I'm replacing is coming back to school this year. I have an appointment with the school director Monday to see if I can secure a contract for next year. I would really love to continue teaching. It is a great job! I don't work on Wednesdays and we have 8 weeks of vacation during the school year. I work at night and on the weekends though to get my classes set up, but I've worked a bit in advance, so that makes it easier. I don't have soutien anymore during lunch, so I will have 2 hr lunch breaks to get photocopies done and things organized. I also am officially in the public french school system I think. So, I am technically building retirement, I think. I also have just recieved a French social security number.

Anais's first grade french section won a trip to Paris for writing a book. There was a contest with a publisher with 600 first grade classes all over France to write the story of a book and create a cover. Anais's first grade came in 3rd place. They are going to get their book published and will have some kind of ceremony in Paris. The kids are leaving by train from Aix-en-Provence this Tuesday early and will stay in a hotel overnight and come back late Wednesday night. They will see the Eiffel Tower and take a Bateau de Mouche on the Seine. They are very lucky.

I will now start doing some translations for the school soon. When my kids are ill and I take off of work, we have to make it up and one way that everyone is forced to do is translating, since the school has no official translator. So, I am the only person yet to translate. At least I will be able to put that on my resume. This Wednesday I have to work because we will be testing about 30 kids for their English abilities. It is only for pre-school, 3-4 yr olds. But this is my first time doing this. We have a friend whose son is getting tested, there are few spaces available, but I will see what I can do.

I'm going to get my papers together for l'autoentrepreneuer. It is a status for people in France that is easy to begin and become self-employed. I want to buy some educational books for school for references and for me to save time getting my classes set up each time. If the school doesn't pay me back which is likely, I want to be able to deduct my costs if possible. I will have the whole summer to work for myself as well.

I got Nikki into the local daycare here full-time, thank goodness and so far, found one person who is reliable who can watch Nikki when he's ill. I also offerred a set up to pay her to fold our laundry and iron our clothes. I'm overwhelmed with housework, laundry taking up the most amount of time. I don't want to spend my free-time doing laundry. Next on my list is find a cleaning woman to do the dirty work and I'll be all set.

Other news, Xavier got corrective eye surgury 2 weeks ago. He is not yet completely healed, but is seeing already pretty well. Austin will be going on an overnight exchange as well with his pre-school class soon. I still have to get his teacher the papers back.

My next goals are to get l'autoentrepeneuer set up Monday, get the education system figured out. I want to get my translation certification and go back to school and get an advanced degree. Most education is afterall free in France, so I want to take advantage of that. I'm going to keep my career in education because my kids are small, I want to have more time to spend with them. I have a hard time making choices regarding career and I know I choose not to compete in the traditional way, ie. kill myself regarding working hours. I want to have a well rounded life. I still want to write novels and become published, but it is more important right now to get my career started and stabilized a bit. Writing will come later. We also want to buy a house here, though the costs are staggering and the size is nothing more than a human box. That is a little frustrating. I knew I wanted to go back to work. I just didn't realize how badly I needed it. I like getting out of the house and having a purpose. Educating kids, you actually see them learn and increase their knowledge. It is nice. I'm learning a lot. I really wanted to work for myself, but lacked the self-confidence, because I had very little experience. That was my problem. Now, I feel much better, even though I've only been teaching full-time technically for 2 months. I've learned a lot in 2 months. One of my American colleagues said the English teachers got together and all support hiring me on full-time for next year. They are giving me a positive reccomendation. I had a very rocky beginning, but I think everyone does. I still have a lot to learn about teaching methods and more importantly for things that don't come nearly as naturally as teaching as controlling a classroom and children. I'm buying books now about classroom management and sort of reward systems and punishment for naughty kids who are disruptive and don't learn. There
is a huge amount yet that I need to learn regarding teaching. It's nice to use my brain again. Xavier is much happier as well. I finally have a perfect balance in my life. I feel much better and am soooo thankful to be able to work again and really, truly have the perfect job for the current time in my life. I couldn't imagine anything better than what I'm doing right now, including the hours. It is really great! I am very happy and have luckily shortened the length of depression one associates with moving to a new country. The first 4 months being in France were difficult, being socially isolated. But we have started to have friends now and I feel much more integrated. I am very, very fortunate. The international school is a bubble and the international people are well educated and well-travelled. I don't want all of our friends to come from this bubble, but I am soooo thankful to have access to this bubble in the first place.

Have a good day!

News March 2010

2010-02-28T01:51:00.000-08:00

I finally have some news to share. I finally have a job teaching ESL (English as a second language) at the International School Manosque where my kids go to school. I am replacing a woman who injured her knee and has been out for a few months now. The school got permission to hire me for 1 month. I will be hired like a normal teacher in the French public school system. I got the job as of Friday morning and I start tomorrow. I'm scrambling to find daycare for Nikki. They can take him all day every day but fridays at the daycare, so I am looking for a Nanny for Fridays and so far cannot find anyone. I'm very stressed about this.

I will be teaching 4 yr olds, 3-5 graders. Some are beginners like they never learned English in their lives, some are intermediate. I will be supporting the English teacher for 3-5 graders. They have almost zero supplies and no money to buy some. They have a computer, but I must find out if I can get an access code. I also need an access code for the photocopier, which I do not have. The school kids have work books and the pre-schoolers have nothing. I still have my book that I purchased in Germany for the kindergarten, so that will work out. I have no CD player for music. I will have to see if Aude the director of Primary school can hook me up with the materials. What is odd is I think I will really enjoy this job. I am sooooo happy to go back to work and this has all been extremely short notice.

I really hope I will be able to stay permanently, so we will see how I do. They said they will have no money to pay me after march. I'm not sure how the bureaucracy works in France, except there is a lot of it. I was welcomed on the staff by everyone, so things are moving along. I was praying that they would hire me for March to take over Sue's spot. I am stressed and worried, but very happy. It feels like when I worked for Sphairos in Munich, they just drop you off on the spot with little direction and zero supplies. It is pretty crazy. You just have to go with the flow, except I want to coordinate with the 3-5 grade teacher to support her curriculum.

Other than that, things are ok here. Anais is having a hard time with numbers. She can't grasp anything past 10, I don't understand why. She fails her spelling bees EVERYTIME no matter how much we practice at home, every day, she still fails. So I'm working with her on that.

I would love to remain onboard the school permanently if possible, get the kids set up for daycare and take care of things. That would be great. It is very hard to plan anything in advance when I may or may not have a job for April. They will probably let me know on March 31 if I can continue into April. Craziness. Unless the other teacher comes back, then I will be out of a job, but may be able to secure an ESL teaching job for next year, since they will be expanding their ESL pogram. They are creating a European school in joint with the international school. I'm not sure what that means, but they did tell me that if I do a good job I might be able to come back and teach in the fall for a yr long contract. I hate being stressed like this, but it's normal. I was soooooo happy to get this job. Things couldn't line up any better.

Xavier is not as stressed about his job either. A friend of ours gave us a line about Fusion for Energy which is part of the European commission, good salaries, no tax. They are based in Barcelona Spain, but our friend has a contract here in France for about 5 yrs. Xavier seems just fine with the prospect of maybe moving to Barcelona. Let's just try to get him this job first. They will be publishing their jobs in the next few days. Xavier negociated to work 1-2 days a week out of the Altran office in Aix to put together a large scale risk and project mgt sales pitch-contract for Altran for large scale projects. The rest of the time he works here at ITER. This way he was able to extend his contract until June and now his boss at ITER said he's going to try to get his contract extended until Sept. So, at least now he still has a job until June. After that, we will see. If I could secure a job for next yr for Sept, that would really help us psychologically.

I really wanted to start a company teaching English on my own but had very little work experience and thus don't feel confident enough to do it. I really want to get more work experience. I started teaching a few korean friends French, so that helps to give me confidence as well in working with adults which is different than working with kids. I work a lot on confidence. When I get experience, I feel more confident and will be able to do more later. By the way, one reason why I got this job at the school is because they are looking for ployglotts. Most people can speak about 3 languages fluently. They needed people who speak French fluently and also German or Spanish. I also had ESL certification, probably the only logical decision I made in college. Anyway, this feels like a psychological springboard from which I can re-begin my adult career and finally get rid of my children, god bless their little souls, and do something for myself. Re-establish goals for myself, finally!!

Cheers!

Well we made it to France

2009-11-08T04:47:00.000-08:00

So, we made the journey from Germany to France on June 13, 2009. It was a long, long, long drive. We left in the evening and stopped someplace in France just beyond Switzerland at around 1:30 AM. We were bone tired and all the hotels made us take 2 rooms because we have 3 kids. Next time I will lie about the number of children I have. It is ridiculous. So when we got to the rooms Xavier and I had an argument as to where the kids would sleep. He won and Anais and Austin slept alone in a room, while XAvier, Nicolas and I slept in our room. So I heard lots of mischief and had to be cop for awhile. Finally, I thought they were asleep around 3 AM and went to sleep myself.

It's a good thing I can smell smoke in my sleep....

When I awoke to smoke fumes and I heard Anais and Austin giggling in the next room. I flew out of bed as pictures of the hotel burning down flashed across my mind, I wondered why aren't the smoke alarms going off? When I got to their bedroom, they had shut the adjoining door and also shut the door to their bed. When I got inside, smoke was pouring out of the lit table lamp next to Austin and he was standing there stark naked laughing. I asked " What is going on in here?" as I ran to the lamp to stop the fire. He answered, "We're baking a cake." : )

I turned off the lamp and pulled the smoldering clothes out of it that were wedged inside the lamp shade. I found Austin's PJ's closest to the light bulb. There were holes and it was covered in embers. I attempted to blow the embers out, but they merely flew off his jammies and landed on the bed. Naturally, starting a fire on the bed is a really bad idea, so I put his PJ's, smoldering embers and all in the sink. Needless to say, his pyjammas are ruined, so he was forced to sleep naked for the rest of the night. I put him in the cot next to Xavier and I went to sleep with Anais in her bed. All was well for the rest of the night.

The next day, we drove another 7 hrs to get to the gite since we didn't have keys to get into the house. The weather was already better in France, the vegetation had changed and it was a lot warmer and SUNNIER!!!!

Oh the sunshine, dry air and the smell of lavender. Oh happiness, oh joy. My nose was in shock. I've had a sinus infection since the year 2004. My nose tried very hard to get a sinus infection. I kept sneezing and sneezing and waiting for it to come, but it never happened. I just sneezed and was well again. How crazy.

KIDS:

Anais spoke French right away and understood that here she doesn't speak German or English. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with her attitude. Sometimes she would cry and say she missed her friends and Martina, her teacher. She also missed Lukas and Eva our neighbors. I felt terrible for her and wanted to get her to make friends as soon as possible. I put the kids in summer camp locally for July and August and started Nicolas in daycare as well. Anais made a few friends in camp and was ok happy. We met the only other American in Greoux, she is from the East coast and is a writer. I thought I was going to faint from joy. I always wanted to meet writers, but I never know any. They always seem so mysterious. Our kids made friends with their kids, so the summer went by without too many hitches.

Austin hated camp and hated France. He wanted to go back to his friends in Germany and asked a lot after his best friends. I explained he won't be able to go to their house because Steingau is too far away now but he'll make other friends here. He didn't much care for that answer. The camp counselors had a lot of grief with Austin because he made no pretense about hating camp. He couldn't understand and would refuse to join the group. He told me no one likes him and he tried to speak to the other kids in German at first, then English. Some of the camp counselors could speak English and tried with him, but he was also unresponsive.

Nicolas reacted ok to daycare. It took the entire summer to slowly get him acclimated to going to daycare, starting at 15 min and finally getting up to 3 hrs. That was a little frustrating. The daycare ladies had an issue because Nicolas doesn't speak French. Mind you, Nikki was barely a year old. They wanted me to speak French to him at home. It was bad memories of Kinderpark with Angelica all over again. I told them I will not speak French to my son, but will do baby sign if they like. Having already taken a course, we quickly ran through the different signs. Well, guess what? German baby sign is totally different from French baby sign, so I had to learn their sign language and practice it with Nicolas. I told them to keep speaking french and using the sign together so he will learn quickly. He's a clever little chap afterall. He can't speak much but can say "It's what?" and "What's that?" That took me a long time to understand. He would point to things and ask what they are. So, when I finally got it, I would tell him the words and repeat them and he would laugh and laugh.

The house is ok. We live in a village of old people. The old and ailing come here to Les Thermes. It is an old Roman Bath House filled with doctors curing every need. So, in the summer Greoux is flooded with silver haired people. I heard the numbers are this: Greoux has 2,500 permanent residents and in the summer we have 40,000 residents, all of whom are retired and ailing. At least it's not Lourdes. Lourdes, France is an interesting place to visit at least once in your lifetime. If you can stomache thousands of people working for the Red Cross, monks, and thousands upon thousands of nuns and little dime store shops of the virgin Mary paraphanilia, and of course the worst form of the sick and ailing, all of whom are very close to death. It is a famous and sacred place where some random farm girl claimed to see the virgin mary appear like 20 times. There is a natural spring that has become holy, so the sick and ailing cue up to be dipped into the holy water to be cured of their ailments.

I just received my carte de sejour so I am legally able to work in France now. My sisters came to visit for about 1 month total. Rhonda kept me very busy as we discovered the area. My favorite is still canoeing in the Gorges du Verdon. Sharone and I went hiking in the Calanques near Marseilles. that was really fun. Oddly, I had never visited the Calanques before. So, I think we had a good time. Life felt very calm after they left.

I haven't experienced much culture shock, just with everyone smacking their kids around. That was a little shocking. No such thing as time outs in France, just smack, smack, smack. Walking across the street, bam. Walking through the grocery store, a little yelling, then smack. Out on the play ground, the kid doesn't come over fast enough or share his toys, smack. The amount of light and semi-frivilous smacking was a little shocking. Beyond that, people were so nice to me. They always talk. There is a lot of banter. I think banter is important with people in the south. It is important to chit chat, who'd a thunk it?

That is all the news there is here. Oh yes the kids got into the international school in Manosque. They are in the English-French section. So they have English 2 days a week and French 2 days a week. They are also in FLE which is French for foreigners to get their French up to speed with the other kids. Hopefully the next news I will give you, I will have a job.

Talk to you again soon. I do think about all of you often. Take care everyone!

Love,

Jennel

It is moving time again

2009-06-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

Forwarded address:
we have no house number yet, the house is brand new.

Chemin du hameau du Plan
04800 Gréoux-les-Bains

France

don't have a phone number yet. movers come this friday and we will be on the road by saturday. we should arrive in Greoux sometime btw sunday and monday depending on whether or not we stop over at Coralie's house. the neighbors are giving us a good-bye party with the neighborhood on friday at 4 PM. not sure what to expect. Anais and austin will have a good-bye party on wednesday at kindergarten. as usual i have too much to do before friday. xavier flies in thursday night on his birthday. i have to do some presorting now and have accomplished most of what i need to do so it is ok. the kids have off on thursday so not sure what we'll do. i still have to call friends here and say good-bye. not everyone knows we're leaving. some people are sad, some probably not.

i'm not sure how i feel. i don't really feel anything to be honest. i have some friends here and i will miss them but that is about it. i think i will miss some things about germany and about bavaria. bavaria is really beautiful with the rolling meadows, green pine forests and mountains. when it is sunny, it is heaven. it's just sunny maybe 1 out of 3-4 days. i won't miss the rain. what can i say, there is a reason why it is so green. it is cold when it rains even in the summer, so a summer day can be quite extreme in temperature based on how much sun there is. i will miss the recycling attitude, germany is very pro-environment. i might even miss its directness. i had a hard time with people telling me what to do. i was always extremely affronted, but after 5 yrs, i'm used to it and find myself adapting to it. people are just trying to be helpful when they give you advice off the street, they don't mean anything bad by it. i'm not offended anymore. i found that my biggest problem was MY intolerance. i was the one who would not tolerate german culture and i had to adapt. it took a good 3 yrs to understand the culture and be able to adapt to it. it also helps when you make a lot of progress in the language then you can actually communicate and there is less room open for misunderstandings, which happens all the time at the beginning.

everyone thinks we'll be happier in france. xavier seems happier despite being away from the kids. he has been gone now for 1 month and i think for him being away is very tough. for me it has been interesting. i miss xavier and his companionship but i have been quite busy and socialable so it hasn't been that hard to be honest. i was sad during the time before he left but accepted it to be as it is and it was ok. i'm happy and looking forward to seeing him again soon. the kids really miss their papa. i feel a little odd not being too sad. it's kind of strange. i was very very sad when i left texas, but that was also my friends, my surrogate family in austin, and my family and culture knowing i was going to be cut off for a long time. yes, i was very very sad to leave the US and i did start to cry in Jill's car when she dropped me off at the airport. it was hard.

moving to france will be considerably less difficult. my main worries are not knowing where i am or where to shop for groceries, cat litter, things like that. we'll have lots of things to change over like car registration, insurances, kids schools, etc. it's not the end of the world, it's just a lot of work. xavier has already been working diligently on the papers and school registrations on his side. we are trying to get anais into the int'l school in manosque. we'll see if we can pull it off or not. i hope it's free but we don't even know if there is a price.

beyond that everything is more or less normal here. i'm getting anxious to get out of here, kind of antsy you know? i just want to get it over with. it is still really odd not to feel sadness. i don't know what's wrong? i don't feel joy either, just mostly little stresses and worries. i'm worried for anais more than anything else. she will feel the move the most and i don't like taking her away from her friends. even if we stayed here, she would have to go to a different school than her friends anyway because we live out of district and i couldn't get her into holzkirchen where she is going to kindergarten. i find the people feeding into the local school a little dorfisch (too small town) i feel much better with the holzkircheners. my friends are either ausländers (foreigners) or people who have lived abroad. i'm sure it will be the same in france. xavier already has more friends in france in less than 1 month than he has had here in germany in 5 yrs.

germans are very reserved. socially it's like doing a waltz, you don't really touch anyone and you keep dancing around in circles but never get really close. americans don't dance around in circles. there is no formality to making friends. we don't have walls that you need to climb over. we either like each other or we don't. not sure how it is in france. i think it is inbtw US and Germany socially. my language inability was my largest single barrier to creating friendships and relationships. it was very difficult more than anything else. the one thing i have truly learned in germany is isolation. my 9 months in dresden were probably some of the worst if not THE worst 9 months of my life. a woman with no ability to socialize in any remedial way with ANYONE, day in and day out, not able to speak to anyone or have any friends is like taking a flower and depriving her of water and sun. I don't EVER want to experience that again. it is isolation to the fullest and it is hard. you don'T make an effort getting into any social organization if even one exists in dresden because you know you are leaving soon, you just don't have the exact date. the stress i have now is peanuts compared to what i experienced in dresden. xavier and i were like puppets on a string being pulled in every direction and not knowing when the strings will be pulled by his boss and by the restructureing of his company.

moving employees around happens a lot in germany. if you want to get ahead then you have to move the minute they decide they want to put you in Dortmund, Dresden, Frankfurt, you name it. many families end up split. the wife and children remain in one place while the husband moves to another city for a yr or 2 while he works for the same exact company, just because some boss in his company decides it. he has to be a good soldier or his career will suffer. woman only follow for a time until they stop and plant themselves and their family because it's not fair to the children. everyone agrees this company culture is stupid and accomplishes nothing, but that is the way it is, so people have to just accept it. it is very specific to german culture, not sure why.

the good thing about germans is their impeccable tidiness. you can literally eat off their floor. you can eat off any part of a german's house, it is so impeccably clean. germans are clean, organized, perfectionists. the gardens and lawns are tended to with perfection and love and care. wood logs are stacked evenly and covered appropriately so as to not get wet when it rains. clothes are mended and ironed. homes are cleaned at least 1X a week and floors are swept at least every day. toys are organized into their appropriate boxes as well as papers and mail. i have never seen a country so organized in my life. people take great pride in their homes and in their work. a housewife is a job and is upheld to perfection. cakes are all homemade. homework is overseen by mom. kids are taken to sports adn music lessons by mom. acutally men go to work and women do everything else. i say men work but women make the world go 'round. i'm very impressed by german women. they do so much, most of which is never paid. they don't complain or anything, it's just normal. i have the impression though that they believe their work to be inferior to that of a man's. i alone seem to hold the opposite view. in america we would call them supermoms. the minimum bar is just held so high as a mother it's kind of impressive. a lot of mom's still work part time. i think most feel it too much of a strain to work full time, which i understand. imagine an entire country of perfection. men go to work without question and do whatever their companies ask of them, sacrifice everything for their work without question or standing up to authority, good soldiers. women taking care of the welfare of the family, children, home, education, and some work on top of that. it is a very efficient country filled with pride in every identity. everyone takes their work very seriously no matter how menial a job, no matter how little education one has, all work is done with pride and accomplished to perfection. i think i will miss this the most. the pride, the perfection, the cleanliness, the reliability of germans. when a german says something, they mean it. if a german says they are going to do something, or invite you to their home, they mean it. they are wonderfully reliable. i hope it is the one thing i have learned from them becuase i always felt myself to be flaky and unreliable and late. i hope i have changed for the better from germany.

we will soon see. france is a very different culture. i'm curious to see how i will react. it's been 10 yrs since i lived in france and a lot has happened in those 10 yrs. i think i've matured a little i suppose, not sure in which way though. sometimes you are sure of certain things you need to experience in order to advance in life, you know? being a mom will advance in a certain way because it has its challenges. the next step for me is to work independently for myself and hopefully employ other people. this is my next goal in france. that will afford me a whole new learning experience and i have more skills that can be sold in france than in the US. my biggest set backs now are lack of concentration or making choices, lack of focus and fear. i will have to make a decision adn get over my fear pretty fast. i have until christmas to get my situation cleared becuase xavier has a job only until then for sure. worst case scenario he will be unemployed again by christmas. i chose to be stable now. we want to buy a house in 1 yr. that is the goal, so i plan on sticking to it. i want to have a pied a terre in europe and one in the states, minimum. i think it is important and completely feasible.

that is all the news there is here. anais had her birthday party yesterday. i think it was a big success. her best friends are very sad she is leaving. i think anais is sad too. she has made it very clear she does not want to go to school in french, she wants to go to school in english and if not english, then german. i told her she will have to learn french anyway, but we will see what we can do. if we can get her into the int'l school, it will be half english half french, which would be perfect for her. i think she would be soooo happy with other internationals who are all in the same boat. her 2 best friends are internationals. 1 mom is polish living in germany, the other is german but lived in hong kong for 3 yrs and went to an english speaking kindergarten. interesting. i can't blame her, i'm better friends with both their mommy's as well.

i hope this blog hasn't been too negative. i have been getting a little criticism about my negativity. don't mean to be whiny or anything, sometimes i just put out some of my frustrations on paper i suppose. i hope you are all well. and i will be dropping off the radar for sometime until we get the phone line straightened out. with the moves and paying double rents, we are going to be very short on cash, so the phone line might wait until july or even later. so i will let you know when i get back online. i hope you have a nice summer and don't worry if you don't hear any news for awhile, this is how it goes i suppose. speak to you again soon.

love, jennel

News: We're Moving to France

2009-05-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

wrote some long winded blog for the beginning of may, but didn't send out the link to anyone. new course of info. xavier accepted a job as setting up project mgt in the south of France for a nuclear fusion research thing. it is in an area called cadarache, about 20 km north of aix-en-provence, near marseille. It's in a large area generally known as provence. it's about 1 hr drive to the mediterranean. kids will be able to go to a beach that actually has sand. here the closest sandy beach is in Italy. I haven't had the chance to visit much of ITaly, I'm sorry to say. There are places to visit like the Dolomites and the Adriatic coast. We drove through Tuscany once and it was really beautiful. I wouldn't mind living there. The south of france is supposed to be one of the best parts of france, so I'm happy. I visited Aix-en-Provence once 10 yrs ago and I really liked it as far as cities go. It was clean, sunny, warm and bourgeois, what's there not to like?

Xavier already left. He signed the contract a week ago monday and took off that saturday. I am staying behind with the kids mainly because we haven't found anything to rent yet. We have to pay 3 mos notice here which brings me to the end of July. I figure I will move anytime btw the end of June and July. I've agreed to work here the last week in may and the first 2 weeks in june. It will be very hard now that Xavier is gone. I have no back up and I have to get to munich somehow and find a nanny for Nikki. Travelling, the Nanny, and the extra hours in kindergarten for anais and austin are basically costing me what I will earn in income. But for me it is important to try to see how it goes. This scenario has been one of my biggest fears about going back to work, trying to figure out how to get it all together.

So, will let you know when we have an address. Not sure if Xavier can come back and visit or not. It'S very hard on him. He misses the kids and is very sad not to see them. He is going to miss Nikki's 1st b-day and Anais' 6th b-day. We will also miss his 41st b-day and our 7th wedding anniversary. Apparently June is a very busy month for our family. Austin keeps asking about dad and I think he misses him a lot. I call Xavier at night when the kids go to bed so they can say goodnight to him. I try to explain the situation to them, but I'm not sure how much they understand. So far, nothing has changed much for them except papa is away.

We are not sure if it will be cheaper to rent or to buy, so we'll have to wait and see. If we can buy, then I would. I don't need to see the house to buy it, I don't really care. I do however care about the taxes. They supposedly have some new tax saving laws specific to housing, like you only get rebates when redoing the inside, or building new, or adding on an extra room. It's important that we will be able to rent it out later if and when we decide to move, that's my other main concern.

It's kind of sad to leave now. My German is finally getting good enough that I'm comfortable expressing myself and for the first time in about 4 years, I actually feel like myself. I have finally integrated into the culture and have friends. Now I have to learn how to write properly. You can wing speaking but not writing. Still it has been the first time I'm sort of on my own and it's a nice change. I thought that I'd be more responsible and more proactive and lead my life instead of feeling like I'm waiting. It's hard to have no back up, but it's also a good education. I thought I'd be more stressed or sad, but I feel kind of free. I did start to cry before Xavier left, for about 30 seconds and then I thought "hey why am I crying? I knew this day would come, so why not just try to make the most of this situation?" I think I'm going to be totally stressed when I will be working, so we'll see. All that will happen right in the middle of anais and nikki's b-days. That's going to be rough. normal moms do this kind of thing all the time. not sure how they cope? here they call it "power frau."

What we consider in the states to be "super moms" here is just considered normal ordinary housewife. All moms volunteer with the schools, some are crossing guards, some work part time. All drive their kids to sports and pay for music school or ballet lessons, ski lessons, horseback riding lessons, and swimming lessons. I signed Anais up for gymnastics 1x week at the turnhalle, and 1 X normal indoor sports at the turnhalle so she could go with her friends Magnus and Martha. I also had Austin 1X per week at the turnhalle at the same time as anais. The Turnhalle thing was hell because I had to sit there and wait with nikki and bring snacks and all that. 1 hour sports meant 3 hrs of stress for me. when anais didn't want to go to the turnhalle anymore, I was pretty psyched.

All moms cook for the school festivals or volunteer to work during the festivals and make all homemade goodies from scratch. no one buys instant cake mixes. that would be a travesty. when your kid has a birthday in kindergarten, you better bring a homemade something to school to celebrate. "super moms" don't like keeping their kids in school or kindergarten for too long lengths of time. They like their kids to come home at lunch so they can feed them. Here the biggest meal is lunch. That's when you really cook. That means your freedom ends at 11 because you have to cook lunch so the kids can eat at noon. I don't have the super mom thing. At least, not on purpose. I make homemade food for the kids on their birthdays because the minimum bar is raised so darn high, it'S the least I gotta do. I sign up to bake for the festivals, because I certainly don't want to work selling cake and because like 50 people sign up to bake and it's a lot of pressure to take part. I taught the English course at the school because I was really the best qualified person to do it, since I'm the only native English speaker and I thought it would help my resume, give me some experience since before then I had none and give me a little weight to help get Austin into the kindergarten this year because I'm out of district and don't normally have a prayer getting into this awesome kindergarten. I taught the English class again this year because it was the least I could do to say thanks for getting Austin into this school and I promised them last year I would do it again, plus it's fun. "Super moms" and "Power Fraus" That's being a mom in Germany.

News May

2009-04-28T04:05:00.000-07:00

We may be moving.

Xavier has found a job in the south of france. we're still waiting on the contract, but they want him to start working in 1 week. we've been interviewing moving companies, so this is feeling quite real. I told the children there is a good chance we'll move to france soon. they didn't seem to care either way. anais didn't want to be separated from me. she said "but i need you." I told her we would stay together as a family. I've already agreed to work here in munich for the last week in may and the first 2 weeks in june (holiday called pfingston) so now i have to find a tagesmutter to take care of the kids since there is a good chance i will be alone.

until we sign a contract, i will continue as though we are staying here in germany and we are living on unemployment. we have to give 3 mos notice for our house rental here in munich, which means we ought to at least give notice may 1.

when moves go, they go fast. when we left texas, it took maybe 3 weeks from the day we signed the contract to being on the plane. it was fast and you are never prepared. this time my friendships aren't that deep in germany considering i've been here for 4,5 yrs.

at least now i know what to expect regarding moving with children, the conplications with language, so and and so forth. i need to get a work permit in france. we will do that straight away. i think france is better set up for women to work. it might be easier, plus everyone works so i would be alone by myself anyway. it's hard to move. i have a better idea as to what i want to do now though, so that's already something, not just trying to survive the day. anais will need a lot of help with school and we won'T be able to move again now or at least remain in english or french languges regarding school for the kids. i wouldn't mind after a few yrs taking a sabatical from france and going for a few years in india or something like that. that would be interesting.

our next goal is to become stable and no matter what happens settle in the south of france. we opened a savings account last yr to buy a house in france. that will mature in 2 yrs. these accounts secure a low interest rate when you buy. we need to rent for 2 yrs and give us a chance to visit the area and see where we want to settle. i think we're following my friend barbara'S path. they are german and lived in CA for about 7 yrs. her husband wanted to stay in CA but Barbara was home sick. her husband found a job in Zurich. they thought Europe is Europe so it shouldn't be a big deal. they lived in a village and had trouble integrating and they realized that Zurich is not Germany, so after about 3 yrs they moved again, this time back to munich. they decided not to live in a village because though spacious and calm, there is a lack of infrastructure, so they decided to go to a town and build a house. we went from suburbia usa, to city dresden, to village munich and i suspect we will end up in town in france and buy a place. we cannot buy here because 1. cost, but mostly because when we move again, we don't have a good enough command of german to be able to write contracts and rent it out. i don't feel comfortable doing that. plus your mortgage is 2X what you can receive in rent so financially it doesn't make any sense. here there is no tax rebate on owning a house, just a lot of money out of our pocket. everyone becomes house poor when they own. we have to learn about the tax benefits in france. i guess they have some new laws now that give tax benefits.

first of course is wait for the contract. in the meantime, anais is set up to go to school here locally in the fall. she will be going to Dietramszell. she only knows 1 person there so moving to france won't be such a great upset. she will have a hard time at first in france because she is very far behind in french and the german kindergarten is behind france in education. kids in france start learning in kindergarten, while in germany they only learn to count to maybe 10 or 20. french kids already learn letters and cursive in kindergarten, so anais will be behind on top of the language difficulty. I work with her on the alphabet, but she seems to learn better in school. i'll put the kids in speech therapy again in france. i have a lot of papers to update here like passports before we leave. still haven't done it.

austin had his 4th birthday yesterday by the way. we had a party. i asked him who he would like to invite from school and they were all girls. so i invited them plus a few boys. i think he had a good time.

we do have friends here, just like we did in TX, but i know we'll make more friends in france as well. it's just hard to keep up. my friendships haven't been that deep here because of the language barrier. mind you a german speaking english is the same as me speaking german, our conversations are limited to our vocabulary. expressing complicated thoughts requires a richness of vocabulary so conversations are always limited. it can be frustrating. sometimes its also personalities that you just can't get deep or thoughts out of people. my neighbor is lovely and british, but i can't get anything deeper than surface conversation out of her. i've known her for 3 yrs and i don't think she's ever expressed much of an opinion on anything. it's a little frustrating.

i have some photos to share so i'll post them if i can figure it out. i hope you're all okay and i'll let you know what's going on here. not sure when xavier will start his new job. the company wants him to start may 11 or the 18th, but we have no contract yet and no place to live in france, so i think they're a little confused about reality. we will need to go and look at the area as well. this time we have to take all 3 kids with us. it will be difficult. we can't ask my mother in law to come and watch the kids alone, it's too much for her to handle being alone in Germany. And my father in law cannot help her anymore. I need to visit schools and see if we can get the kids into the free int'l school in Manosque. i need to make a home now. no more transition lifestyle. i want my own place with a little garden. i think it is much sunnier in the south of france than here and the kids keep asking to go to the beach. the nearest beach here is Italy. if i ever lived in france i would want to live either in the south, massif centrale, or les landes. so it's good.

will let you know more about news when something develops. I will also write a blurb on Germany, but only positive things. I've had a bit of criticism that my blogs about Germany are supremely negative. I don't mean for that to happen. there are many good and positive things here. I'll give examples. I think so far, I've given an entirely unfairly negative view point about germany, so i will be more fair. talk to you again soon.

Germany News March 2009

2009-03-20T05:45:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well and that the economy in the states isn't hitting you too hard, for those of you living there. For those of you living outside the states I know there is an economic recession hitting all over Europe as well, so I hope you are not getting hit too hard especially if you are an expat. It seems the expats are some of the first to get laid off.

Firstly, the kids are all good. Nikki is 9 mos now and has 2 teeth. Anais will start 1st grade in the fall. Getting her into school in Holzkirchen looks like a no-go, so she will probably have to go to school in Dietramszell, the local village school. She will have an in-school prufung to see if they think she's ready to attend. She already had an exam by the speech therapist who said that Anais is more or less ready for school. Her German is still coming along. The teachers say she has no accent. She is starting to correct my pronunciation, which I do need help in. Austin is flying along in German. I think he might be gifted in terms of languages, or perhaps just gifted in general. The speech therapist said he has the same German capacity as that of a normal German 3 yr old. The difference is he's been in school only for 7 mos.

We are still very unstable and not sure where we are going next. Xavier has been laid off. We received no bonus this yr and salary will officially end in 1 week. He looked for jobs with companies for awhile to no avail. He had a job interview in the south of france which went nowhere. He is setting himself up to become self-employed and getting his company ready. Yesterday, Xavier got contacted by a company located in Aix-en-Provence (south france) for a job and he will be flying there wed and staying for a week. This one looks very promising. It will start mid-April if it does happen, but he will take a pay cut, but it will still be much higher than unemployment, which will not suffice for our basic needs.

I have been looking for jobs here in Germany and have had 2 interviews so far. Both interviews have passed with flying colors. However, they are both for free lance work and will not bring too many hours. But at least, if I can work, I know it will help us eat. I will be teaching English and perhaps French as well. The jobs are with 2 different companies, both private foreign language schools. I have a wonderful niche here having English as a mother tongue. I've been teaching the english class at the kid's kindergarten for the past 2 yrs now and I feel very confident with my capacity for teaching 5 yr olds and have taught a little private English for adults. I really want to teach business English because that's where the money is and that's where I lack experience. My last interview was today and I offered to teach French as well. The owner was hesitent because I had only studied French. Then we started speaking in French. Yes, she is German who is fluent in English and French. Well, after that conversation, she's got me on the list to teach French as well. She told me I have no accent in French. I said, "you're very kind." So in perparation for today's interview I bought my very first suit this week. I got it used and it still smells like someone's basement, but it fits. All my business clothes are hand-me downs from highschool. I think it's time I invested a little in updating my wardrobe, even if it's from second hand stores. My body has changed a lot after having kids (mostly for the worse), so my clothes don't fit right anymore. I hope to start working soon. Xavier just might get this job in France, who knows. No matter what happens, I plan on having the kids finish this school yr. I'm not going to get my hopes up for this south of France job, though I wouldn't mind living in France. I plan on going back to work no matter where I am. I love my kids, but I need to have other activities outside of them. Anais' kindergarten is also giving us foreign mom's a German course for 10 weeks. I went to the first one wed. I enjoyed it. Half the women are from Turkey, 1 from India, 1 from Italy, 1 from Croatia. 1/2 speak German well. The other 1/2 hardly speak German at all. I'm actually in the half that speak well, but I totally identify with those who can't speak. That was my life 4 yrs ago and it's horrible. There is no worse feeling than not being able to function within your immediate environment. You are really handicapped and only a lot of time and some work will get you past it. It always takes more time than you want. It is very frustrating. I am finally at the level where I can make small talk with other moms. I have found that I am relatively well known, considering I spoke so little with people in our area. There is something important to having contacts here. Everyone knows everyone else and when you are tri-lingual American, you do stand out, for the better. I think it will help when I try to get work, especially if I work for myself in the area. The more contact I'm getting with the locals, the better off I feel. It's odd, but there is immediate results to networking here.

I suspect we will have much more good news to come shortly. We shall see. Or starvation.... : )
I have learned some things in Germany. I've learned the true meaning of competence. The entire country is competent. When a German says they will do something, they do it. If you make plans next week on Wed, expect them at your door at the exact time discussed. They have complete follow through with work, even if you need something from someone who is absent. Their collegue can leave them a little sticky note and my God it will actually get done. There is a total pride in everything and things are done to the utmost perfection. Homes are kept up with orderly and cleaness (ok, mine aspires to that but still has a long way to go). It has had a positive effect on me. There are things I've tried to adapt to myself, things that I feel I lack that I want to be, like competent and reliable and perhaps to a lesser degree, keeping a perfectly tidy house.

So that's the news for now. I have to say, I'm feeling very good about myself and very positive and I haven't felt this way in a long time. This unfortunate situation of Xavier's has really afforded me new possibilities for the first time, especially in terms of working. Xavier can watch the kids and help when I have interviews. I didn't have that luxury before. I was totally on my own without knowing a baby-sitter. It's a totally different situation when your man is available to help you, and there is no greater motivation than when you're facing imminent starvation. : )

I hope you are well and I give all of you my love.

Pouchain Family News Jan 2009

2009-01-22T02:00:00.000-08:00

Well the outlook is not so good for us currently. Xavier is suing his company. He did not take the severance package because if he had, he would not be able to sue the company. And as we are finding out this week, if he had taken the severance package, he wouldn't have recieved a dime of it anyway.

Suing the company was a choice we made and each option had good and bad points at the time we had to make this decision, we tried to make the best decision possible with the all the information we had available. Qimonda may not exist anymore by the time our law suit will be finished. We thought Xavier would be able to continue working at Qimonda (best case scenario) during his law suit, however, 3 weeks ago, he was walked out of work with all his personl items confiscated. Now he will be paid until the end of march, then we will go onto unemployment.

As of this past Friday, Qimonda has filed insolvency (chapter 11), so we may be entitled to nothing if the company even exists in the future. On top of that, they will not be paying any bonuses at all that are normally due out in Feb, which is a very large chunk of money. No one is happy about that and I'm not sure how that's legal, but evidently, Qimonda is unable to meet payroll. They are also capping salaries for the next months in existance, which means we will get even less money than Xavier's normal paycheck through the end of March. This is actually much worse than our worse case scenario. We also bought a bunch of Qimonda stock thinking their assets were worth more than the stock price. I would like Qimonda to survive so we don't lose all of our investment. The lowest recent value of Qimonda stock is 5 cents per share...Oops.

Xavier had an interview in Toulon, the south of France on the Mediterranean, but that didn't work out either. We did have a lot of hope riding on that job. He interviewed with 5 people that day, one being the head of his division; a new head of division whom Xavier would have worked directly under and who had started that job one week prior and had a different idea for the direction of that dept than the people who wanted to hire Xavier. This new guy would have been his boss, so it was pure luck that he shot the idea down during that interview. Had we moved the entire family there, Xavier would go through a 6 month trial period, and would have been fired like within a week of starting that job solely due to a change in bosses and his ideas for that dept. Our lives are deeply affected by something as trivial as a change in managers. It's really horrible.

The market is pretty bad right now and a lot of educated people are out there floating around. It's not the best time to be unemployed and it's not the best time to be unemployed and foreign. In times of economic crisis all countries save jobs for their own people. It's only in times of surplus do they give jobs to foreign workers and immigrants. Xavier would do the best in France. However, irregardless of the rest of the world, France seems to have been able to maintain itself in a consistant economic recession of sorts since the Reagan era.

I went to the Arbeitsamt last week to get registered to start looking for work and getting answers. It seems as though I will have a hard time finding a job and am better off being self-employed. I was worried about my German because I don't think it's very good and I never really went to school to improve it. I write how I speak which is not correct. There is a spoken language and a written language. I just don't have enough practice reading and writing German. In all honesty, 2 years ago I would have had a hard time going to the Arbeitsamt in the first place because I wouldn't have been able to understand anything the guy said to me.

Living in Germany is like being a fairly intelligent, cognizant person trapped in a retarded person's body. You react to your environment like a retard because you don't have the verbal skills yet to be intelligable. You cannot understand your immediate surroundings and are completely aware of that fact, yet are helpless to do anything about it. As a result, the people immediately around you treat you as though you are retarded because you are incapable of verbally making anything known of any intelligence. You are intelligent and completely conscious of this, yet uable to do anything about it. You can speak beautiful sentences in English all day long, but if the person you're trying to speak to, (i.e. the vast majority) and they speak little or no English, then to them you might as well be speaking Chinese because they won't understand a word of what you're saying either. I am not one to make tons of hand gestures and believe me, this is a culture that doesn't use hand gestures at all. It is the most reserved culture I've ever lived in in my life. It's like living in a cubby hole and being just a cube inside this box. Everything has it's place and nothing out of place will be tolerated. A few examples:

-You are allowed to laugh, but not too loud.
-children are not allowed to stand on any kind of seats with their shoes on (restaurants, trains, etc) you must take their shoes off. Can you imagine a kid taking their shoes off on the 'L' or on the Amtrak?
-You are allowed to play music in your house as long as the neighbors cannot hear it if the windows are open and you are absolutely NOT allowed to play the radio outside in your yard, even if it's on very low (forget the average american barbecue)
-laying down in the grass and playing with a child is just plain bizarre, and I've never whitnessed it
-no german will sit on the floor directly no matter how clean or on the step of a building, they would rather squat
-kids are allowed to swim in the pool, but not jump off the sides of the pool, splash, or play on the rope dividing the shallow end and the deep end
-A woman has 2 choices in life here, a career, upon which she will be a man for all intents and purposes and even dress like one, or have children, upon which her career comes to a screeching halt because she is expected to stay home and be a housewife, or she can work part-time, but kiss any career advancement good-bye. You cannot even become a mgr if people know you have children, b/c they will hold you being a mother against you. When you apply for jobs, it is tolerated for the interviewer to ask you the ages and number of children you have, and yes they hold this against you. School ends btw 11 AM and 1 PM, so the mother is expected to be home from work by then to cook a hot lunch and help educate the children in their homework, because a child spends more hours doing homework than physically in school
-dogs are allowed, but must be leashed, if they poop, then you better have your poop baggy ready. IF you leave dog poop on the ground, you will be in trouble by EVERYONE
-grocery shopping is preferred to be done without children present. If children must be present, then they are not allowed to be loud, or run around the store, and not allowed to laugh. They will be shooshed by everyone, other customers and employees.
-when you enter someone's home, you must take your shoes off before entering, or right upon the entrance at the door.
-When in someone's home, food is restricted to the kitchen or other designated eating area, if you drop a crumb, pick it up
-children are absolutely NOT allowed to touch the windows or any other glass in someone's home, which is difficult since all the doors are made of glass
-when shutting a glass door to someone's home, meaning the door going to the garden, you must only touch the wooden frame
-children are not allowed to have tempertantrums and throw toys because they can dent the fake wooden parket floors
-children are not allowed to put stones from the driveway onto people's terraces, if they do, you are expected to reprimand them, romove the child from the scene, get your broom handy and start sweeping
-you must take your shoes off before jumping on the trampoline in the yard, even when the trampoline is located in your own yard
-you are not allowed to play in the fields of dandelions in the spring because the pollen will stain your clothes
-you are not supposed to sit down on the grass in your yard or anyone else's, even when it's on a blanket. It's just not done. All Germans own expensive patio furniture (except us) because we're the only ones in the village laying on blankets in the front yard.
-you are not allowed to sit in the fields in the village or in any other village, even when the farmer is just growing weeds. I've been yelled at for sitting in the field of wild flowers at the edge of our street with my kids. It's all little girls dreams to roll in a field of wild flowers.
-short shorts are not really worn here. Even when it's 90 degrees people wear pants to the knees
-If you need to wear a bikini in the summer, then you must be laying down sunbathing on your expensive patio furniture, if you need to walk around, then you must put something on over your bathing suit, even in your own yard (everyone can see into our yard)
-however, when you go to the sauna, you must be naked, but must wear specially designed sauna shoes but only up the the outside door of the sauna, then leave the shoes by the door and walk into the sauna barefoot, but you must sit on a towel (there is only 1 sauna for all people together, men and women)
- you can forget about joining your kids on the waterslide and hooting wildly, playing and having fun for an adult is just not done when sober
-adults are only permitted to have fun after drinking a few maß of beer and usually they will be wearing Dirnd'ls and Lederhosen. One Maß is equal to one liter of beer. In other words, adults are only permitted to get loud, laugh and have fun when they are physically located in areas specifically designated for "fun" and only when they are drunk
-you're not allowed to mow your lawn on Sundays or any Holiday
-in some places, you aren't allowed to vaccume inside your own house on a sunday or a holiday (these days are considered ruhe tag)

and the list goes on.....

I don't know any foreigner who is happy here. They mostly seem to be slightly depressed. The ones who are married to Germans, seem to accept their fates with silent resignation. It's like we all have these wonderful glowing spirits, then we come to Germany and our spirits are confined to a box, with thick walls that we are unable to break out of. It's no wonder everyone is depressed.

Something typical happened today, yet I'm still not sure how to deal with this kind of situation. We went to the grocery store and pulled in next to a car in the parking lot, like normal. It was a little tight, but no one meant any harm. Xavier went inside to pick something up with Austin, while I stayed outside with Anais and nursed Nikki in the front seat. An older man came out and had a hard time getting into his car because our cars were parked close together, mind you xavier was perfectly centered in his OWN parking space. This man starts griping at me through my window and yelling at me and glaring at me and staring at me as though I did this on purpose. He didn't ask me to move, he just griped loudly the whole time and griped directly at me. I wasn't sure what he wanted. I'm thinking he didn't expect me to move the car, because doing something nice for another person like that is unheard of in Bavaria and politely asking for someone to move the car is even more unheard of in Bavaria, so my guess is, he wanted me to know he was upset by being aggressive to me, but he didn't actually want to resolve the situation or have any help in the matter. He just wanted to be aggressive in a bizarre kind of passive way. So I looked at him a little, then ignored him, then decided just to stare at him and smile as he backed out while he glared at me. Sometimes I think about trying to politely discuss things with these people, but I have the impression they don't want to learn or understand and certainly don't want to be polite or nice in anyway. They are just miserble and want to gripe and extend their negative energy as far as they can. It's like they exude huge quantities of purely aggressive negative energy. I can honestly say I have never experienced that kind of negative energy in my life before Germany. It really repels me and it happens with a lot of German men. It's like they are dark entities. It kind of makes your skin crawl and you just want to move as far away from these people as possible, but you keep running into them inspite of yourself.

Xavier and I go from being totally stressed out and worried, to being just happy that Xavier is home and we can spend time together. Honestly, I really enjoy spending time with Xavier. We both agree that he has really needed a break for a very long time. In a way everything he has wished for has come true. I really believe everything will be ok. I can feel it, you know? I have this peace inside that tells me, don't worry, keep working at it and be patient. Everything will work itself out. Just try to enjoy the ride being home together as much as you can.

I hope you are all well and that the economic situation hasn't affected too many of you in the states in a negative way. I pray for all of you who have lost their jobs. It's terrible and frustrating and stressful. And it seems to happen to everyone at least once.

I know this sounds like a cliche, but I do feel blessed to be able to share my life with another person. It's hard at times, but it takes so much stress out of life when there is someone standing by your side. I hope Xavier can say the same about me. We went through so much hell coming to Germany. I was pushed to my limits on what I can take, on total isolation and being consciously handicapped. It's been 4 yrs and I still have a hard time even making small talk. The first 2 yrs in Germany was a horror. I had no friends. Not one. I had no one to talk to besides Xavier in the flesh. I couldn't communicate or understand my immediate surroundings. It is very trying to be in that kind of a situation. It isn't fun and it goes way beyond the idea of adventure. Afterall, adventure is supposed to be fun, right? Some people cannot understand the choices we've made. My answer is, "apparently, we like stress."

I hope you are all well. Take care.
Love,
Jennel

More News Germany Nov 2008

2008-11-30T04:02:00.000-08:00

There was some question in the last blog why I didn't mention Nikki. Oops, I kinda forgot, so I'll give you a little more updated info this time around.

Yesterday, Xavier got his exit lay-off interview. He got nothing special and yes, he's going to lose his pension. That makes me the angriest. We have to stay until Nov 2, 2009 in order to get that pension vested, and yes it is a lot of money. No, they will not give him the pension he has earned up till now. Next question, how do we get the most amount of money we can? Option 1: He walks away. They pay 3 mos notice, which he will have to work every day during those 3 months and walk away with a small lump sum of cash and then go directly onto unemployment. Option 2: He walks away. They pay a smaller lump sum, forego the 3 mos pay (I think) and goes directly into the transfer company, where he will receive retraining if he needs it and help for re-employment and will stay in this transfer company for up to 6 mos with 80% of his net income, then if he doesn't find a job, he will go onto unemployment. If he does find a job, then he will receive 20% of his net income for the remaining time he would have been with the transfer company. Option 3: Fight. He will get no money, not sure if he will be able to go onto unemployment and will sue the company to keep his job. Suing takes an avg 14 mos in Germany and in the end he may or may not win. Option 4: Fight. Sue. But during the suing process Xavier will have to go to work and in the end he may or may not win and he will get layed off again the first chance they have. Option 5: Our preferred: Fight. Sue the company. Company keeps him home but with his full salary. The suing takes us past our date of Nov 2, 2009 upon which the pension will be vested by law, then they may offer another severance package for Xavier to walk, another lump sum which he will take and leave the company. During the time he is home, he can look for other jobs or even better, research and get set up to start his own company.

Complications: Company might go bankrupt before Nov 2, 2009. Next week there will be a meeting and we'll find out if Saxonia (German govt) will pay Qimonda money to keep it afloat. Currently, Qimonda only has enough money to pay people through March 2009. If that's the case, why aren't more people being layed off? Only 2 out of Xavier's dept of 14 are being layed off.

Xavier has until next week to accept the severance package. Xavier is upset because there are supposed to be laws protecting people supporting families and Xavier has 3 small children. About 1/2 his dept are single. Xavier's lawyer says he has a very good case to fight. Next week, we'll find out if the German govt is going to bail out Qimonda. That's what will make our decision. If they get bailed out, we will fight only if Xavier will be allowed to get paid during the fight (no unemployment). A judge decides that before you start the law suit. You file a petition and it takes 2 weeks for a judge to say yay or nay to remain working for the company during the law suit. We feel in our souls that we need to fight this one. There is a time to learn how to fight and experience fighting. I think this is it. Our goal is to 1: buy time in order to both look and find a job 2: get our pension that was part of the original negotiation when Xavier was first hired. Xavier has been looking for jobs now for about 3 mos and hasn't found anything yet. He is worried about having to take a pay cut and not being able to find a job before money runs out.

Having children makes everything much more complicated. The kids are finally stable and in a good situation. They go to a great kindergarten and uprooting them again will hurt Anais badly, I think. We have very little desire to uproot again. The mere thought just gives me stress. Moving to Germany has been one of the WORST experiences of my life. I know what it means now to do it again and I really don'T want to. There is good and bad about every country, but moving from one country to the next is so daunting. In all honesty, I have much less complaints about Germany, than I do about the US. Our neighbors in Austin were a surrogate family for me and moving away from them hurt me the most. I cannot get close to anyone here because of the language barrier. It is very isolating. I'm not sure what would make me happy anymore. I feel as though travelling has made me completely spoiled and now I'm too exigent where there is no perfect fit. Family, ocean, mtns, sandy beach, nature, sunshine, good food, good social, 6 weeks vacation, good schools, excellent cheap kindergarten, good health, low cost of living, nice affordable house, capacity to have an actual retirement at 60, quick access to my family in Chicago and Xavier's family in France. Oh, and being able to communicate would be nice. If any of you know the answer to this, please let me know. We also want to raise the kids in a French/English school environment. Germany fits into many of those criterion.

Anais is now requesting to watch our American movies and cartoons in German and when she plays make-believe by herself, she speaks in German. I guess that's normal. I've learned that my children's capacity to socialize is directly related to my capacity to socialize, which I have been doing very poorly since we've been here. I have to make an effort now to socialize with specific friends of my children and their parents. I don't make much effort currently and that is my fault. I need to have goals to invite a kid for each of mine over to our house 1X a week. Austin seems to have tons of friends in kindergarten, which surprises me. He seems very popular, especially with the girls. It makes me feel very good and very proud.

We went to a party last sunday at one of Xavier's french friend's house. He is divorced and came to germany to escape his meltdown with his wife. Anyway his kids are already grown and he has another french girlfriend whose in the same situation roughly as he his. Anyway he saw Xavier Monday after the party and told Xavier that I was a great mom and really stable emotionally and with my head in the right place. I think that is the greatest compliment I've had since I can remember. As parents we do our best, but we're always afraid of really screwing up our kids or hurting them unintentionally. I love my family very much and they are the most important in my life. I just want everyone to be well-rounded, happy and healthy. I think when you are well-rounded, then you will be healthy and happy. It's hard to maintain balance. We struggle with that all the time.

Other family news: Anais joined the choir at kindergarten. I think she will be singing in a X-mas concert at the school on Dec 18. I signed both kids up yesterday to bake x-mas cookies at the school. They seemed to really enjoy that. The kindergarten also has a kid parlament where each group has representatives that vote representing the children's interests. It's a nice idea, but I have no idea how it actually works.

Nikki is totally huge. He must weigh now at least 8 kilos. He'll turn 6 mos on the 8th of Dec and is already wearing clothes for a 12 month old, but that might be deceiving because my dryer shrinks everything. I have to buy 1-2 shirt sizes bigger for all the kids, in order for them to be shrunk to the right size for the kids. Nikki laughs a lot and eats a lot. I give him solid dinners now at night. I read Anais a story last night in bed and Nikki seemed to enjoy it more than Anais. He was touching all over the book, really looking at the pictures and trying to eat it. He can grab things very well now and holds stuff in his hands. He can grab his pacifier and put it into his mouth. He seems to be able to express himself pretty well. I believe he tries to say mama. When he cries for me, sometimes he says ma ma ma ma. I think he is beautiful and very smart. He loves his bath and adores being taken care of by both Anais and Austin. Anais gives Nikki lots of attention. She helps me feed him at night and likes to take his bath with him. She sits next to him in the car and is patient when he cries, whereas Austin yells "stop crying" at Nikki. Nikki plays with toys now. If they light up and make noise, he's very happy. He enjoys his walker and is just learning to move forwards instead of just backwards. I think he is very smart. When I took him into the doctor for his second set of shots, he laid on the bed and took one look at the doctor and immediately started crying. It appeared as though he knew what was coming. Last time we went to the doctor, Anais had a 5 yr development check-up. The doctor asked Anais to hop sideways back and forth over a line on the floor and she started hopping to show what she wanted Anais to do. I was sitting in the chair with Nikki on my lap and he just started cracking up when he saw the doctor hop back and forth over this line. It was hilarious. He was at most 5 mos old at the time. It was sweet. We all had a good laugh.

I think that's it for news here. The English class in already filled to start next month. I asked to have an option for a third class. I want all kids to have the option to take the English class. I'm afraid people won't push because it's already full. The list was full within the first week it got posted. I ordered a book yesterday to help me with this class. We'll see if it's any good. My syllabus is all set from last year. I might try to vary it a bit this yr.

I hope you are all well for x-mas and the new year. We are staying home this yr in an intimate family set up. Xavier's parents wanted us to come to Maubeuge. Xavier's sister was going there as well the day after x-mas. We cannot handle the stress of all those people in one house. We cannot afford a Gite this yr so we would have to stay there. I cannot handle my in-laws fighting and Daniel getting drunk. Xavier agreed it would be too stressful. We decided to stay here. I think his parents are angry so they don't want to come here, they would rather stay in Maubeuge alone if that ends up being the case. When they come here the same issues just extend under our roof. Yvette takes control of my kitchen and she cooks great, but then we're forced to spend every bloody day waiting on Yvette to cook. She never cooks on time and the kids are always hungry. We end up eating btw 1-2 PM. Dinner is at earliest 7 PM. It's a nightmare. The kids need to be in bed by 7:30PM in order to get up on time for school. Our schedule gets all screwed up because we have to go on Yvette's schedule. I've tried to make her comply to ours, but it ends up being all out war and in the end it just isn't worth the fight. I still lose the fight in my own home anyway. I've learned a long time ago to give up control right away when Yvette comes. It's the easiest way to go. When the kids get hungry, I send them to Yvette. IF she wants to cook twice because she won't eat at the kid's schedule, that's her problem. I refuse to cook twice. That was the source of one of our first wars. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother-in-law as much as a daughter-in-law can. I appreciate her good qualities and we actually do get along. However, not sure how much that is saying. If I am capable of getting along with Anglika (even after months of serious dislike), the teacher of the kids pre-school in Linden, a Bavarian village, then as far as I'm concerned, I can get along with just about anyone. It was hard to get along and to accept Angelika for all her ignorance and bull-headedness.

I hope all of you have a wonderful x-mas. If anyone feels like popping over to Munich over the holidays let us know. We will surely be here.

Germany News Nov 2008

2008-11-25T03:33:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone. I decided to try the blog thing again for news so that everyone won't have to be tortured into reading too much if they don't want to.

Kid news:

Austin and Anais are both in kindergarten. Austin is doing fine. He has some friends and the teachers tell me he is both very sweet and very bright. He understands a fair amt of German already after only 2 months and he started speaking German the first day. I was pretty impressed. Anais is still Anais. She is doing well also. She has a German class at kindergarten 1X week with other foreign kids by an actual school teacher to get her German up to speed. Anais is in her last year of kindergarten and this is called a Vorschules Kind, before school child. She is learning numbers and shapes and still has speech therapy 1X week and has special play session with a teacher again for German learning 1X week. Austin has the same as Anais, but sees 2 speech therapists and has speech therapy 2X week, but no special German learning for 1st grade prep. We are not sure where to put Anais for school next year. We have to get this going now though and get our decision made. I definitely don't want her in our little local village school. I think there, they completely lack the infrastructure for our foreign kids. I admit I totally look down on the local school. It's made for farmers who have lived in these few villages generation after generation and some of whom cannot even speak proper German (they only understand their local bavarian dialect). Couple that with the local people not going far in school because you don't need much to be a farmer and that results in terror for parents like us. I think our kids would be more or less screwed in that kind of a situation with such low priorities given to education from both the families and the schools. Oye.

The kids are also in gymnastics. Anais is in actual gymnastics with the gymnastic equipment and she seems to really like it. The other one is just an age appropiate indoor physical playing for kids. Otherwise, I'm still co-chairing the international playgroup in Holzkirchen and I'll be teaching English again at the kids kindergarten. I guess it was pretty well received last year and this year they have more interest in the class. And I'm teaching English privately to an adult 1X week for spoken English on the side.

Xavier's company is beginning to tank and he will be layed off soon. He's been looking for another job, but cannot find one as of yet. The CEO and head people put this company into this situation and personally I think they should be sued by the employees and fired. They're going to push hard to get Xavier out the door first. We are going to leave, that's not a problem, but we have a lawyer and we are going to rip them apart on the way out and take as much money from them as we can. Going after Xavier first was a mistake. We have enough experience now that you don't just roll over and let yourself be abused by a company. We are going to go after the company and fight our way out the door. We don't need to stay employed by these people, afterall who wants remain on a sinking ship? But legally they have no right to get rid of Xavier now by law because he has a housewife and 3 young children. They cannot fire him or lay him off by German law. We think they are singling him out because he has a high salary. If there is too much meanness in this company, I want to meet with Xavier'S lawyer and I want to set up a law suit against Qimonda and personally against the CEO and advisory board for poor leadership and putting the company into this mess in the first place. Germans are good soldiers who always do what they are told and are very proud and who respect authority. I don't think they are much used to suing authority. They will soon get a wake up call. We have never fought before, given we have nothing to lose, we are going to go for the jugular this time around and see what happens. A lot of people get screwed out of their jobs due to poor decision making and poor leadership at the top. I think it's these people who ought to be held accountable and who should be layed off like the rest of the company.

We're not sure if we are going to try to stay in Munich or move to a new place. After much thought, our top choices are Munich, Geneva, Vancouver or Austin, maybe Denver. We'll see where xavier can find work. The banking crisis in the US has bled over to a crisis in Europe. Companies are in a panic now and there are hiring freezes everywhere. It is not a good time for looking for a new job. The recession has begun here. The next 6 mos might be very difficult for us. I am tired of this instability. One thing I've learned. The minute there is a financial crisis, all countries close down to foreign workers and save jobs only for their fellow people. Xavier being French puts him at a disadvantage everywhere outside of France and yes the US sadly is no different.

hope all of you are well. I'm thinking of everyone and miss you,

Take care, love,

Jennel

Nicolas Kenneth Pouchain: A Birth Story

2008-06-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

As you know, Sat June 7th was Anais' 5th b-day party with her friends. I woke up around 5 AM and eventually got up at 6:30 when Austin came into my bed giving me his breakfast order of his usual "Austin want chocolate croissant." So we got up, had breakfast, I baked a cake for Anais, started picking up and cleaning the house, did laundry again to get the baby's clothes in order and everything arranged for when the baby comes. I did some last minute shopping for the goodie bags while Xavier took care of the kids that morning. I did a lot of last minute cleaning up until the first kid arrived. I was totally stressed. I had no idea how to entertain 6 little girls for 3 hrs. The weather was crap as well, rainy and cold. The girls still jumped on the trampoline thank goodness. Then Mami and Papi showed up around 5 PM. More chaos. The party went until 6 PM. The kids were thrilled, but some were terrified of my in-laws dog, Rennes. Our house was more or less trashed once again after the party, so I started to clean up some more and do more laundry and start cleaning the attic and the attic bathroom for my in-laws, while Xavier made dinner and the kids gorged themselves on candy. Then I couldn't stop cleaning, I vacuumed the attic and went down to the second floor and continued vacuuming and went down the steps until I exhausted myself around 9 PM, when we started having dinner. I wasn't hungry that night, so I just ate watermelon for dinner. My mother-in-law told me to stop cleaning because she thought I would drive myself into labor, but I couldn't let them sleep in a filthy attic, it's just not nice and Yvette should not be expected to drive 10-12 hrs only to clean her own room when she gets here. At least Xavier changed the sheets on the bed, which really helped. I went to bed around 10 PM completely tired having been going, going, going all day except for about 1/2 hr when I stopped and laid down before the party because I needed to relax and because my back was really hurting. But it felt really good psychologically to clean, so you know...

About 11:45 PM I felt 1 contraction, the baby moved, which hurt and then poof my water broke. I thought awe nuts! Any night, but tonight! I went downstairs and said to Xavier "My water just broke, we gotta go"

I knew it would happen fast and it takes about 1/2 hr drive to the hospital. I usually vomit right away so I was actually terrified of that, so we had to hustle, hustle, hustle. My bag was already in the car, but the batteries died that day on the camera during Anais' b-day party and unfortunately we didn't have any other back up batteries. Mind you nothing is open at Midnight on a Saturday night in Germany, so we can't just pop by Walgreens to get batteries. Of course the car was still filled with groceries that I bought 2 days before, but never unpacked and the front seat was filled with bags of cat litter in preparation for this big event. So here I am, water leaking out my pants, puke bucket in hand and unloading kilos of cat litter from my side of the car. Contractions haven't started yet, again thank goodness. By about Midnight, we were in the car ready to go. That's when the contractions started, mind you they STARTED at 5 min apart.

By about 12:30 AM we arrived at the hospital at the emergency entrance. Xavier dropped me off while he parked the car. A few doctors passing by wished me good luck. I sat in the only chair at the emergency entrance. In Munich you have to walk your way to the Kreißsaal (labor and delivery) on the second floor. So there we were walking through this maze, reading the signs and trying to figure out how to get to the Kreißsaal on the second floor from the emergency entrance. I didn't have my glasses on because a month ago, Austin broke them and I didn't want to wear contacts. We had to stop a few times because walking made my contractions come faster and I couldn't walk through them, they were a wee bit painful.

I guess we got to the Kreißsaal by about 12:45 AM and they set me up for a CDG for 1/2 hr to measure the contractions and the baby's heartbeat. They took out blood and set up a sack of fluids for me to take in order to get a PDA (epidural). They said I couldn't get a PDA until the blood work was done from the lab which should take about 1/2 hr (min). I figured I had time, so I wasn't too concerned and the contractions weren't that bad. My back was hurting, but it was still manageable. I also asked them to do an ultrasound to make sure the baby was still head down. Originally Nikki was breach and they manually turned him around at 36 weeks, which actually worked this time. On a Sat night if he had flipped back, I would have had to been prepped for a c-section, but he turned out to be still head down. So, about 1:15 AM or so I guess, we walked into a birthing room. I sat on this large uncomfortable bed. Laying down on my back or side made my back hurt more. Xavier put on soothing music, which actually helped and rubbed my back for me. He was an excellent labor partner. The mid wife didn't really do much. She checked me at some point and I was about 4-5 cm. Then after a few contractions, I have no idea how many, I started having some that were more severe. The last one knocked me clear off the bed. The position was too painful on the bed and I rolled off mid contraction onto the floor onto my knees. That's when I said PDA, PDA, PDA. She said this is your 3rd child, you may not have time. I was still getting the fluid in my arm and my blood work wasn't back yet. She said I have to check you. I said can you do it from this position, she told me "no." I was sort of having back to back contractions, I don't really know and I didn't want to lean back because of the back pain, but I did anyway so she could check me.

She checked me while I was on the floor and she said "you're open." I said "how much?" She said, "you're open." I said "How many centimeters?" She said, "I don't understand." I repeated, "How many centimeters?" She said "10, you can start pushing whenever you feel like it." Then she said something like, "At any rate it would take about 45 min for the anathesist to get here to give you the epidural (PDA)." I thought about it and figured pushing won't last 45 min and at least the pain will stop after the baby is out, so I might as well push, I certainly don't want to endure these kinds of contractions for another 45 min.

So, the midwife said, "Where do you want to push?" I looked around the room and they have this nifty orb like chair suspended in the air that looks like a training instruments for astronauts. I sat down on that and the midwife said, "lean back." I said, "I don't think so, that was certainly NOT comfortable." So, I got off the astronaut chair took a few steps forwards, dropped to my knees on the floor and said, "OK, I'm pushing." She said, "There?" I said, "Ja." Then she brought me this kind of stool that looks like and 18th century torture instrument. I said, "Thanks" and leaned on it. I think she expected me to sit on it. When she realized I was going to give birth on my knees, she brought over a yoga mat for me to kneel on, which was nicer than the hard floor.

I took off that little hospital gown they give you because it was in the way and started pushing. I was terrified because I'd never experience the pushing part without large quantities of narcotics, so I tried to explain this to the midwife in my terrible German, which I don't think she understood anyway, so I kind of felt on my own for the delivery. I told her I needed guidance in English because I don't know how to explain that in German, but I don't think she understood that either. When you're in labor, you don't exactly want to try to be conversing in German and her English wasn't that good, so oh well....It was kind of hard to think and express yourself in German in between contractions to communicate with the midwife.

I forgot pushing is like playing tennis and I sort of forgot to breath. The midwife was behind me trying the catch the baby as it comes out so she wasn't yelling "Breath! Breath!" at me and there was no one else in the room with us besides Xavier. So, I suppose it took about 1/2 hour to push Nicolas out. I was afraid of tearing, which I did, but couldn't feel, so that was a relief. When she was telling me to slow down or stop pushing, I was terrified I was tearing. Your instinct is to push as hard as you can with total ferocity to literally eject the baby like a projectile across the room. So to not push is next to impossible especially during a contraction. It was a pretty cool experience though and it wasn't so bad at all. When the baby finally came out, he was all blue and looked nothing like me. He looked like a mini Xavier. The first thing Xavier said was, "It's a boy." (We suspected we were having a girl.)

I assume that when you give birth, you're supposed to feel all lovey dovey, but all I really felt at first was, relief. Xavier cut the cord and held the baby first, while I climbed up on the bed to deliver the placenta. When it came out, I got to touch both sides of the placenta. That was very cool. It's not like what you would expect. It was a cool experience. I'm glad to have had it. Then they sewed me up. Again, I was terrified of the pain and yes, I did feel more than I would have liked. After about 1/2 hour Nicolas wanted to nurse, imagine that?!

As usual, Xavier and I could not agree on names and in all honesty, I never really started thinking about names, much less for a boy, so Nicolas went a day or 2 without having a name. We kept calling him Austin. It's weird to talk to your kid without having a name to call him. The good thing is, you could take a name and look at him and sometimes, some names just didn't seem to suit him.

All in all, this birth was by far the easiest I've ever had and the most enjoyable. Time passes so fast when you're in labor. It felt like I only had like 20 contractions total and the time felt the same as a Sunday morning wait at IHOP for breakfast in Austin, TX. In other words, it was nothing at all. The only thing missing was the newspaper (and a name for the kid). : )