A.M.

 Some mornings when Gabe and I wake up long before everybody else (not, obviously, when Terry is out of town as he is now) I take him out so his morning exuberance won't wake them up. We go down to the street, buy some bread or byrek (phyllo dough stuffed with cheese and/or spinach, onions, tomato, etc.) and then go to a cafe where we can eat and I can get some coffee.

He likes to help me put sugar in my macchiato, and then spoon up the foam and put it in my mouth - or sometimes his own! I think in these photos he was pouring the coffee dregs into the cup of cold water that you normally get along with your coffee.

We usually make a mess. Which is why we are big tippers!

Dy

This is what Gabriel does when you ask him "how old are you?"

(Oh, and I bought that shirt for Valerie, but she refuses to wear it - and those are her outgrown shoes... being the opposite sex doesn't save him from hand-me-downs!)

Field Notes

So Terry is away on an evaluation trip for the coming two weeks; he left Saturday night and will be back next Friday. So far we're coping pretty well; V keeps saying things like "Where's Owl? He will come back very soon to see us." On the other hand they got lots of Mama-time on Sunday and slept fairly well last night, so we're good on that score. 

Here are some excerpts from Terry's first e-mail recounting his trip, in his own inimitable voice: 

***

[Someone took him out for ice cream in downtown Jerusalem]…it was all open walkways, cool old city streets and modern malls built in a very outdoorsy grape-viney fashion.  So a cool combination of modern convenience coupled with Arabic architecture and Jerusalem history.  Plus awesome views.

In downtown Jerusalem there's this beautiful open, green space and lots of casual walkers enjoying their lives - and just over the hill out of sight are the Palestinian settlements clustered behind high fences of razor wire.  Downtown are the Jews and the Israeli Arabs and out of sight are the majority of the population crammed into these little barren hillsides - and getting more crammed as religious Jewish settlers encroach bit by bit on the "good bits" of the Palestinian territory. 

As we were driving back from the airport (an hour's drive) I kept thinking "why?  HOW is this type of thing allowed? - it's insane":  I told that to a passing Israeli and he said "oh, you're right - we never realized.  Okay, we're fixing it all now.  Sorry about that".  I felt good that I could make a difference - all it takes is an external consultant coming in and pointing out the obvious :)

Okay, that didn't really happen.  But it should have…

  

In terms of environment, it's a lot more deserty than I expected.  Well, we know the Middle East is desert, but still.  Driving back from the airport - I kept thinking "hot and rocky - with lots of olive trees everywhere".  However, the olive trees are a lot more scraggly and toughened than the ones we see in Albania.  Kind of like they are dug in and holding on by the skin of their rootlets in a hostile environment.

There's also more open space than I expected.  There are a LOT of people in Israel in terms of population density, but they are heavily concentrated to make better use of limited resources - it's cheaper to maintain people clustered tightly together in terms of services.  So you'll have these barren hills and then "poof" a thick cluster of apartment blocks of a settlement...and then "whoosh" back to barren hills again. 

  

There's LOTs of light.  That clear desert sky and light that's really cool.  Also, because it's desert, it's hot during the day, but at night it gets cool and comfortable.  So the time we were out for ice cream - everyone was out walking around and hanging out as the cool of dusk set in.  I really like that kind of scene.

Food wise - it's awesome - everything Arabic - humus, olive oil, pita bread, cheeses, falafel, etc.  So I was pretty happy on that score too.

Walking around the old walls of Jerusalem was kind of cool.  Lots of history there and I kept imagining Christ from the Mount of Olives (where WV headquarters are) saying "oh Jerusalem...." I can't remember the rest of it, but something like "you're great, but you suck". [Ed. note: Luke 13:34 [NIV]: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"]

***

 So that's Terry's Impressions of Israel/Jerusalem for you. Further updates as events warrant!

Pool Time!

Pooh in her happy place - potato chips! 

 Single ladies of Tirana, please take note:

 These are Shpresa's boys - they're so good with G!

Apologies to the random people who got caught in my lens...

Birthday Boy: 2 years old!

Aw, Little Dude!  

How was it you were ever so small?

Look at those tiny little fists... that nose... oh sleeping baby!

One turn around the sun, 

Once again the heat of summer,

Here you were: one year old.

My sweet little boy!

 You are SO. MUCH. FUN.
You are playful, mischievous, friendly and a flirt.

You are cuddly and sweet;  sa i dashur the ladies say.

You are curious, delighted, full of laughter and enjoyment of life.

 You've been places!

 You love to monkey around. 

You're way more coordinated than any other kid you're age that I've met.

You are a budding artist!

And comedian!

You love music and dancing.
You have a natural sense of rhythm and exuberant response to music.

Happy birthday to my favorite son. We are so blessed by having you in our lives.
I love you more than I can say. Hugs and kisses, Mama.

Happy 4th!

I almost forgot, happy 4th of July to US readers!

The Swing of Things

Can I just say, jet lag SUCKS. I don't think I felt quite right in my body until Saturday, our 7th day since getting back, and I woke up with a complete sense of well-being from head to toe. I almost didn't realize how weird I felt until the feeling dissipated.

Valerie, though, is still struggling to get back into her rhythm. During our second week in the US she dropped her afternoon nap completely, and slept soundly and well every night. But coming back here, working through jet lag, she's been napping every afternoon and then waking during the night for at least 4 hours. So starting on the weekend we've been trying to keep her awake all afternoon. At MCC it was easy, we'd just take her to the Toy Room and she'd be happy as a clam (where did that saying come from, I wonder? Has anyone ever actually measured the happiness of clams? How would you tell?) Here it's such a deeply ingrained part of her routine to go to bed when Gabriel does (especially when Shpresa is here) that it's been hard to create a new routine. 

Yesterday, however was a triumph! Shpresa took both kids - with help from her boys, whom my kids adore - to a pool nearby where they played from like 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.! She packed a picnic lunch and snacks and some toys and off they went. They staggered in just before supper - Valerie took 2 steps into the apartment and threw herself on the floor waiting for someone to take her shoes off for her - Gabriel stumbled over to me holding up his arms and crying "Gak gak! Gak gak!" - neither of them took a nap (G for the 3rd day straight, but he did take one today then). They had so much fun. SO much fun. Valerie was telling me all about the dolphin fountains and elephant slide. It's a little pricey for them to go every day but I think at least once or twice a week for the rest of the summer would be good! 

They slept so well and so long last night, I wish they could go every day. And I got so much work done, too. with the apartment to myself all day! I missed the little boogers, though. 

(Despite what the conjunction of text and photo implies, I didn't knit at all yesterday - this is a sock I knit during the sessions in Akron - a gift for a friend here who's about to have a baby. I'm making matching baby socks too.)

Great Aunt Gin!

These photos are not great, but our moments with Aunt Gin were spectacular. Yes, I'm still talking about our trip to the States :-). Aunt Gin received mail-order packages for us in anticipation of our visit, then organized two family get-togethers for the weekend we were there. She opened her box of toys saved from when her own kids were little and let our kids run all over her house and yard. She cooked delicious food that the kids both ate with gusto, and even watched them for a couple of hours, along with Great Aunt Sheri, while Terry and I went out for a "dinner" alone! (We went to a fast food chain, so I won't call it an actual "meal" with actual "food.") This was possible because both kids took to her immediately and enthusiastically. The words "Aunt Gin's House" were right up there with the magical "Toy Room." The people Valerie warms up to right away are few and very far between, and Aunt Gin is one of the lucky few. Thank you so much for sharing your home, food, toys, hat collection, and heart of gold with us while we were near.

Saying goodbye right before boarding the van to the airport

Bug

Playing tractors with second-cousin H. at Aunt Gin's house!

This is Gabriel's birthday week! Wow! Two years have gone by so fast. But I should save some mushy-mama-ness for the actual birthday post.

I just love this little guy so much.

A couple stories - one afternoon in Akron, he woke up from his nap, sat up, looked at me in that very serious sleep-dazed way one has just after waking, thumped on his chest and said "Bug! Bug!" Pause. Look around. Think. Then looked at me again and averred, "Bug!"

Since watching Kung Fu Panda, Valerie named us all after characters in the movie: Gabriel is the Bug (Mantis), I'm the Bird (Crane), Terry is the Turtle (Tortoise) and she named herself Fox (really a red panda, but he looks kind of like a fox). It was funny to me that he has embraced his nickname and alter ego. Although he will refer to himself as "Gabe" or "Gabe-uh!" he most of the time now corrects me when I call him that and says very firmly, "Bug."

He's talking a ton these days, mostly in English although he knows a lot of words and phrases in Albanian too. And, like his sister, still uses the Spanish word for water - agua.

Coming back from the US, we had a layover in Rome, and on the concourse by our gate there was a little cafe with a play area for kids. Genius! Every concourse in every airport in the world should have one of these. Coffee and a play area. It was so good for the kids to be able to run around like maniacs after enduring 9 hours confined to their seats (or the near vicinity thereof). They were so sleep-deprived and manic, but it was so good for them. There was a little girl there whose mom told me was about 2.5, but much closer in size to V than to G. Valerie called her "the mouse" as they chased each other around. At one point the girl came over to our table and took a drink from Valerie's cup. Her parents immediately jumped up saying "no no no no!" G was startled, then looked at me and very earnestly and seriously said "Mouse! Agua! Val-Val!" Pause. "Da-da Noooooo!"

I fear he may be dropping his afternoon nap already (second day in a row today). "Fear" because the mid-day lull is so nice. But if he sleeps better at night as a consequence, I won't complain too much.

Impressions

Gabriel loved watching the airplanes passing by overhead - and there were a lot of them!

Whenever I get off an airplane, I'm always aware of my reactions to the sights, sounds, and smells. Traveling between Peru and the US during my growing up years made me aware of how the familiar can become strange through absence. My clearest memories of this are of getting off the plane in Pucallpa, in the Peruvian Amazon, and feeling the warm, humid, tropical air hit my whole body like a soft pillow. Hearing frogs and crickets in cacophony, seeing the tall grasses and mango trees by the side of the road as we drove to the mission center. My other set of memories are the aerial views coming into the States - the enormous swaths of wide, smooth gray interstate highways snaking everywhere below, looping through on- and off-ramps, edged by grassy green.

At some point in my 20s I had gone back and forth enough that the familiar just stayed familiar. Or maybe I was transitioning more often. It's been a long time since I've spent more than two years within the boundaries of any one nation.

But I did have some fresh impressions of the US on this last trip, and of Albania upon our return.

Driving to the heart of Pennsylvania from Newark, again I was struck by the vast swaths of smooth gray interstate edged by grassy green. Everything was so very, very clean. Not a scrap of litter to be seen anywhere. The road was so smooth and wide. Then, in Akron, again everything so clean and green. But the coffee!!!!  Pale brown dishwater! Weak and tasteless. I felt like I had not actually drunk any coffee, just something warm and coffee-like. And even though I was thrilled beyond belief by the plump, sweet blueberries we had almost every day, the carrots and other produce seemed tasteless in comparison to what we've become used to here. And the fruit juice selections were always a bit disappointing - apple, grape, or orange, and never any pulp in any of them. I missed our wide selection here which includes the kids' favorites, sour cherry and apricot!

When we landed in Albania, memories flooded back about our first arrival almost two years ago. I remember scrutinizing every detail from the moment I could begin to make out the shape of the landscape from the airplane, the whole drive into the city. I remember that time looking for things that seemed different, strange, exotic - things that would tell me I was in a new place the like of which I had never been before. I recall being a little disappointed that it wasn't all that different - concrete block buildings, people, oleander bushes. The main thing that stood out to me then (besides not being able to decipher any of the signage) was all the laundry hanging out to dry from every window, it seemed.

This time, I was looking for a sense of familiarity - recognition - the feeling of coming back to a known place. A comfortable feeling. And I found it.

It's been interesting processing our trip with Valerie. She mostly talks about N., a little girl her age that she played with a lot, especially towards the end. She talks about the toy room, and about the airplane trip itself. And always she concludes with these words: "And then we went home. To Tirana."

~::~

The next few months will be interesting. Maybe "interesting" isn't the right word... we'll see how things pan out! Terry's contract here is up in mid-September. We're planning to move back to the US at the end of August - at least the kids and I will, he may stay on to wrap things up a bit. We'll be staying for 2 months back in the 'Burg, and then in early November we are to begin a 5-year term with the Mennonite Central Committee in Colombia! This decision came about very quickly over the past few months and so we are still in a way processing all the implications of it. We had a great orientation session at the MCC campus in Akron; it was especially fun trading stories with all the other outgoing volunteers (we'll be national program directors, it's a shared position, so everyone else there was also going into leadership). One thing I learned through the trip to Akron was that my kids are way, way more resilient and adaptable than I give them credit for being. They did so well during the trip and during our stay there (of course there were a lot of factors that played into making both successful), I was encouraged tremendously to see that. So, stay tuned, it's sure to be... interesting!

Akron and Back Again

This post is mostly a random collection of photos and thoughts, I'll try to put up something more coherent later this week.

We had such a good trip. It was hard; 9+ hours on an airplane will tire anyone let alone a sleep-deprived toddler. But it was nothing like the original trip 2 years ago. The return travel was equally tiring and yet overall uneventful, which is a good thing.

The kids - and by extension their parents - LOVED the MCC campus. Green, clean, kid-friendly, safe, and BUNNIES!!!!!

The blue building is the guest house we stayed in. The kids loved the "hammock" chairs (as we called them).

We were able to borrow this double stroller - until the back wheels fell off! We're hard on strollers, I think. It was great during the first few days of jet lag to be able to take the kids out for walks before breakfast (there's not much else to do at 5 a.m. when you're trying not to bother the other guests!)

Oh my gosh. THE TOY ROOM. The child care during the seminar was so, so good. The kids would wake up saying "toy room! Toy room!" every morning. They bonded with the staff and with the other kids - there was a little girl Gabe's age, a boy Valerie's age, and two little girls aged 3 who all played together and it was awesome how much fun they had.

 This is what my kids do when I say "Smile!":

Coming soon: the reason for the trip, what the seminar was all about, and finding Kitty at Aunt Gin's house!

So homemaker-y

I finished a pair of socks! These are "Frankensocks" cobbled together from two different colorways, interspersed more or less at random. I love them. But not as much as I love those chubby little feet!!!!!

Here are some more shots of Valerie's haircut:

This is their latest thing: they are pretending to drive a car. With two steering wheels. Sometimes it's an airplane.

Speaking of which, we've been role-playing "airplane" a lot because Saturday we're flying to the US! What? Didn't I tell you? We're going to be in Akron, PA for 2 weeks attending meetings at MCC. More about that coming soon...! For me and the kids, it will be the first time on a plane since we landed in Albania! So that will be... an adventure, I am sure.

We won't have much time for visiting people but if you're in the Akron area give us a call (at MCC, our cell phones probably won't work there) or drop an e-mail and we'll see if we can get together.

p.s.

I really did think yesterday was Friday! We'll call this a Gabriel photo fest.

 Can someone caption this one for me?