Summertime Val

Jantzi Christmas

When this post goes up, I'll be on my way to Japan for my cousin's wedding! Meanwhile, I realised I have very few photos of the Jantzi grandparents during their visit to us for Christmas and New Year's. The kids were extremely excited. 

I think there is a grandparent hiding in the photo below: 

I think Terry has some more photos - I'll have to bug him for them...

Southern Africa

Continuing to fill in the blanks... in January I got to visit southern Africa for 2.5 weeks, where I added two new countries to my life list and nearly filled the last blank page in my passport. When I got back there was literally one blank side left. 

Bear with me, this post has a LOT of photos!

Lesotho - man in the background is my colleague Vuriyayi Pugeni

Again Lesotho, Growing Nations Trust

Debating details of conservation agriculture

Some food

A bit of material culture - I am fascinated by missionary subcultures; these books in a mission guesthouse really  index a time period

A farm in Mozambique

The Zambezi, view from the hotel we stayed at

Future garden site for a school in Zambia

This was a work trip, but we had some fun too, managing to squeeze in a half-day at Victoria Falls.

Bulawayo 

I didn't get many photos of Zimbabwe - I think I was just really tired by then. This is part of the Cape to Cairo thing. The African continent is really, really big. 

It was a good trip; it felt like way too long to be away from the kids and Terry, but it was a good trip. 

Time to Revive the Blog

It's Spring in Tirana - what better time to revive the blog? 

Everywhere there is new life blooming. 

Flowering trees counteract the odiferous canal

It's a thrill to watch the grapevines that twine up the stair railings to our balcony leaf out after a vigorous pruning.

The day after spring break, we arrived at school to see this exuberance of wisteria greeting us:

And we have found this balmy mound of earth covered in daisies, about halfway home - a respite to sit and read and eat snacks en route. 

It was a busy and often difficult winter and early spring; the week before break the kids and I were all sick just as I faced down a deadline for a consultancy I did. I am hoping here to catch up a bit on the highlights - Christmas, Jantzi grandparents visit, my trip to southern Africa, and so much Lego action. Next month we will celebrate Val's 10th birthday, I'll go to my cousin's wedding in Japan, and my parents will visit to celebrate my dad's 75th birthday! Terry and I are hoping to get out of the city on weekends with the kids to see and enjoy more of the country while we can. Meanwhile, I leave you with this photo of the kids, from when it was still cold out: 

Two minutes later: 

Just kidding, it's posed :-)

Things We Do

Take a rest break in Pazari i Ri and do some homework 

Explore parks near the Pyramid

Do homework while dressed unconventionally

Spend Mother Teresa Day in the park

Stop and admire the flowers

How our days go

A view from our balcony

We have begun to fall into a predictable daily routine and rhythm of life. The first two days of school, the kids were still jet lagged and extremely unhappy about being woken up. So after that they were much more motivated to go to bed early and we've been doing much better. Usually we wake up around 6:00 when it starts to get light, and read Calvin & Hobbes (or something, but that's the current favorite) until breakfast - cereal, fruit, and scrambled eggs. There is tons of amazing fruit all around, especially stone fruits are ripe and in season just now.

Pazari i Ri, recently renovated - yellow building at right is Stephen Center, where we stayed one summer

We leave the house around 7:20 for the 1-mile walk to school. It's a gentle downhill to the canal/river, then a few more blocks uphill, and our best time so far has been 28 minutes! The time passes faster with stories, questions, or verbal games. The kids are complaining a lot less now than they did last week!

After I drop them at school (Terry usually walks with us too), Terry and I grab a quick coffee before he heads to his office and head back home. It's a nice time to catch up with each other. On the way home I usually do the grocery shopping, then at the house putter around with whatever I have on my to-do list for the day.

Our hosts' grapevine

At 3:00 or so I head out to pick up the kids again. The walk home is leisurely and can take almost an hour, with stops for a snack or if we need to use a bathroom at a coffeeshop on the way.

Pazari i Ri, on the way home

Eventually they'll be wearing uniforms with the school colors and logo, but at the moment they just wear their own clothes. Shorts on the days they have P.E.

Close to the school

They are fascinated by the few stray dogs we see around, which all have ear tags and look pretty well-fed. We speculated that people at the restaurants give them scraps of food and water. I told them about stray dogs I've seen in other places that are skinny and dirty, and Gabe asked me why I never took them to a vet, because wouldn't that be a good thing to do? Too true...

He also asked about an elderly man we've seen sitting and begging near the new mosque, and wanted to know how much food the man could buy if we gave him five bucks. We looked at posted menus nearby and saw that he could buy 10 pieces of pizza, or five loaves of bread. G also wondered if the man could maybe collect scrap metal and make it into things that he could sell. We haven't seen him for a few days now though so I'm not sure if the $5 plan will go into effect or not.

Val loves being in school, even though it seems like she gets hit on the head with a basketball just about every day at recess, but she reports that she's getting lots of education and can't WAIT to be given homework! These first 2 weeks have been mostly getting settled in and learning about each other, some assessment (testing) and figuring out the routines of the school.

Today our host downstairs was harvesting the very ripe grapes from his vine, and I wonder if he's planning to make raki (grape brandy)? It's very traditional here. It's been a bit torturous walking past those grapes multiple times a day, not so much because of the wasps that hang around them all the time, but because they look so delicious! Our hosts gave us two bunches on the first day and they were so good.

Summer Juggernaut of Fun

Probably the best thing about home leave is hanging out with friends and family. (It is definitely not reading the newspaper, even though I do that as a civic duty.) One weekend we went to a Jantzi reunion in Akron, then camping with our Star Trek group. I totally forgot my camera (for the entire trip) but someone took this one for me:   

This was Bug's first camping trip ever, first time sleeping in a tent, and the first time for both kids eating s'mores! A couple highlights of this trip were looking at Saturn through a friend's big telescope, and the mountain swing (with a 5-point harness). Pretty awesome!

Another day we went swimming in a friend's pool the kids had SO much fun. It was raining, but not as cold as where we've gone in Bochica. We even ate ice cream sandwiches!

I got to see my sister! She was on the East Coast with her two girls, so she actually came to Harrisonburg and the cousins got to see each other and hang out at the park and the children's museum:

Playing with the green screen "invisibility cloak"

Fish tickling their toes in Black's Run

Just before leaving the country, we went to Pennsylvania for another Jantzi reunion:

Three generations of Jantzi males!

 That Saturday, my wonderful sister-in-law drove me five hours to Pulaski, NY, for my youngest cousin Max's wedding! It was absolutely fantastic to see nearly all the family there, I was sad to leave the party early but had to get back to PA to join up with Terry and the kids in order to fly out from DC the next day.

A friend of mine in college used to do something called "Jug Days" (short for "Juggernaut") where you try to pack every single fun thing you can think of into one marathon day of fun. I kind of felt like this home leave was like that. I haven't even mentioned the 14 lbs of blueberries Terry and the kids and I picked, or the knit night at a friend's house, or thrift store bargain hunting, or the library, or fireflies, the city pool, or running into friends at pretty much every turn. 

Nevertheless it's been good to be back in our own space, back in our routine, catching up with work that was hanging over my head the whole time we were away. I still have a few more pics to post if I can find them. We have a team retreat this weekend so it will probably be next week. Onward!

Can you see me and my sis in the background there? Not a dry eye in the whole room!

A Year in the Life of Valerie

Soon after turning 7...

Cousin time! (July)

Tipón, Perú (July)

Halloween costume! (October)

With crochet chain she made (August?)

Twirl Girl!

School assignment

Superhero!

Nuevo Colon, Boyacá (October)

End of school year, Bogotá (December)

Dajti (January)

With friends in Tirana (January)

Cusco (Tambomachay)

With Grandma in Peru (January)

First day of school (February)

Happy 8th Birthday Valerie!