A crazy week...

Greetings to all, with special greetings to Rab and Marina who have taken the plunge to go online - Kia Orana!

I don't know where to start...backwards may be easiest. Yesterday was the first day of school for The Shahs - Bailey in Grade 3 and Jamie in Pre-school with Sienna tagging along. They are attending the Tekaaroa Seventh Day Adventist school, a primary school which has 3 classes plus a pre-school class. Being an SDA school, Monday morning starts with Chapel and songs sung with great gusto. Then notices and prayers....all in CI Maori.... By the time Naomi the head teacher asked Bailey and Jamie to come to the front for introductions Bailey was on the verge of tears and wouldn't speak. Oh dear - not an auspicious start. I nearly cried myself! Jamie had no problems.

Off to class, with a friend Collette who works at the resort, taking the little ones to the kindy class, and I went with Bailey. Fortunately Bailey's teacher Matieo is wonderful and spent a lot of one on one time with him. The other kids are a bit shy but are quite nice and the day improved quickly. Lunch time came along - at 10.30am - and I had a crowd of kids wanting to chat, wanting to show me the best mango and guava (tua ava) trees which seemed to break the ice a bit. Bailey was happy for us to go after lunch and we picked him up at 2pm. (The kindy class finishes at 10.30). Today was much better. I saw him mucking around and prancing around with the noisy boys - must have a word with him on that! I parked the car outside the kindy class under a tree and read my own book while Jamie and Sienna wandered in and out. On days other than Monday there is only a short sing-song and prayers in the classes, though I impressed everyone by dragging the words to one song from my long-forgotten sunday school mind!

So, we have been in the new house (Retire's house - everyone knows it!) for nearly a week and it is just great. Big bedrooms for the kinds to play in, on the flat with a paddock next door, 100m from the beach and Mama Nicholls next door bringing us fruit every other day. There are screens on all the windows, never more than 3 mokos (geckos) in the house and the mozzies are under much better control. The kids love that Mama Nicholls has 5 cats next door and want to spend all day over there. The beach near the house is pretty good. There are a lot of shallow areas for the kids to play in, plus a channel which is deeper for us tall people. There are a lot of pretty little blue fish and zebra fish, and the boys are just starting to get the hang of goggles and will float on their boogy boards taking a look.

It is such a small community, And already we have connected with a lot of people. Everyone knows there is a new manager at the Pacific Resort, and we are his family. We were taken out on the lagoon last Sunday by Teina and Annie Bishop. They run Bishops Cruises, and Teina is the local MP. What lovely people they are and the kids warmed to them very quickly. Annie and Teina have 3 daughters at boarding school in Sydney. We went snorkling in the lagoon - lots of fish, giant clams and a coral nursery - and very warm water. We then went to One Foot Island where we met Stephen and Poppy, another lovely couple. We have been made so welcome. Once the tourists left(!!) and we had the place to ourselves we had some beers and snacks and the kids hunted up DOZENS of hermet crabs. The swimming was fantastic and it was a lovely relaxing cruise back at sunset.

So we have cell phones but are awaiting international call access to the house phone, which will come this week with the broadband connection (though I use that term lightly). Some days are good, some days are hard, and being out of contact is difficult, but I hope everyone at home is safe and well.

xxJ