First Week of School / Tropical Storm Irene

First Week of School

August 17 --The orientation weeks are over. Now it’s time for the real thing: the first day of school at Santiago Christian School! Mattais and Kaelie are eagerly waiting on the sidewalk for the Dioni bus to arrive. “There he comes!” Kaelie calls out, when the bus comes into sight at 6:45. She’s quite excited to be going to school officially for the first time in her life. Mattais is happy to have her along, and together they dart for the back seats once they are on the bus.

It’s a convenient service for our whole family to take the bus, which does a morning and afternoon route for all the teachers and their children. The route takes us through Villa Olga, the suburb in which we and about a dozen other teachers live, and then to La Moraleja, a suburb a few minutes further, where several other teachers live. Mattais and Kaelie are happy to have their new friends on board, and the excitement among the new staff is also quite audible while we head for school down the Autopista. At quarter after seven we arrive at SCS, and another chapter of our life in Santiago begins.

Waiting for the school bus in the morning

 Outside Mattais' classroom. -- He is happy to see his name included on the door. And Kaelie likes the hippo, of course.

Kaelie is right in her element, once she walks through the Pre-K4 door. This is it! There's a pile of interesting stuff here: books, shelves filled with blocks, games, puzzles, and an aquarium where you can fish for magnetic numbers. Her teacher, Ms. Kirsy, welcomes her, and then happily hands her a little fishing rod so she can start with some fun. Kaelie's first day is off to a good start.

So far, every day, after we have come home and we ask her how her day went, she tells us about her friends and what they did. When we ask her what their names are, she usually has a different set of names for them every day. She makes us laugh. She really enjoys pre-school so far, and has already told us that she wants to "stay here for 10 months!"

 Kaelie on the skippy ball during recess.

 Mattais is in Grade 2 with Ms. Metzler, is excited to have an additional two subjects which are typically not offered within the Canadian elementary school system, at least not in Chilliwack :)  : Espanol and Sociales (Spanish Language and Dominican Social Studies.) This week he proudly showed us his first Spanish Language worksheet on common language expressions. He's probably going to be speaking Spanish a lot quicker than we are, and so will Kaelie! In the classroom, the language used is English only (except for during Espanol and Sociales), but outside on the playground, the elementary students mostly speak Spanish. We're quite sure the kids will outdo the parents on this one!

 Mattais and his grade 2 class.

No School -- Tropical Storm Irene

Things are slowly falling into place. The first half week of school has been busy, with late afternoons and later suppers. The kids are happy to have the Saturday for a relaxed pancake breakfast, playing with their Playmobil, and going to BON for an icecream later in the day.

We tune into Reverend Klaver's service at the Chilliwack HRC, on Sunday morning, and we enjoy our day of rest as a family. Later in the day, Eileen Baas, our elementary principal, phones and tells us that there will be no school Monday since tropical storm Irene is approaching off the east coast. Nobody is certain what effect Irene might have on the Santiago area, even though we are not near the projected path of the storm.

On Monday morning, we see a thick cloud cover toward the eastern mountains, and by the early afternoon the wind picks up a little. We decide to do some extra grocery shopping and go for a short drive through Santiago. The Toyota van which we had bought from one of the SCS teachers is serving us well, especially on a day like today, when you don't really know what to do other than waiting it out. While we drive through the busy streets of downtown Santiago, rain begins to fall and we can tell that Irene must be somewhere far or near. We just hope and pray that we'll be on the fringes of the storm.

 A Monday afternoon drive through Santiago, as we wait for Irene to arrive or pass by.

 Moto conchos (motor taxis) are a popular and inexpensive means of transportation for local people. You pay only a few pesos to get from one point to the next. Mopeds and motorbikes are around by the hundreds here. More so even than in Holland!
And these guys (and their passengers!) are getting soaked by the rain. No rain gear. A piece of cardboard serving as a mudflap. But hey, they are a lot faster in dense traffic than a van!

 Signs and billboards are everywhere around here.

A little Daihatsu truck which has been well used.

 This humanoid (guy with a billboard) keeps dry underneath the busy overpass of Estrella Sadhalla, the main thoroughfare in downtown Santiago.

 A Haitian doing some cleanup along the road. (There are quite a few Haitians around here.)

Not bad for an average power pole, eh? Would you know which wire is which? Something like this would get awfully messy when it comes down in a storm.

By early Monday evening, the wind is blowing strong and the rain is coming down like a sheet. After Mattais and Kaelie are in bed, we stand on the covered balcony of our aparment and watch with fascination and awe. God is a God of wonders, and the storm shows His great power and majesty. Our balcony is getting soaked and we have to close the windows to keep the rain out. We talk to several teachers on the phone for a while, and Eileen tells us that school will still be out for another day, Tuesday, as we don't know what the night will bring. All night the strong wind blows and the rain falls by buckets. There's an occasional roll of thunder and flash of lightening, but we thankfully sleep through most of it all.

Early in the morning, as the wind begins to die down, our power goes out. Thankfully our inverter kicks in, and we use our battery power to toast some bagels and boil some water for tea. During breakfast the wind seems to die down completely, and the clouds break up a little. Irene must be on her way out. A few hours later, the sun peeks through the clouds, ensuring us of a brighter day. Thankfully we have no wind and rain damage. God has kept us safe through the storm.

Like most other teachers, we decide to spend a few hours at school that morning, seeing that we do need some time to replan our schedule for the week. Yes, of course, in Canada it's the snowdays that upset a teacher's schedule, and in the Carribbean it must be the hurricane days.

And so, we've finished another short school week, full of new impressions and excitement, experiencing above all God's love and grace toward us.