Ex Patria

Moving on, part xxixv or so

Two days before shutdown began at Doug's project, USAID Kiev finally got around to granting the NCE (non-cost extension) until December 23, 2011.  I don't know if that was just something that ended up in the slush pile or if this indicates their general work style but in any case, that was close.

So now we know we are shutting down on December 23, not on November 15.

Our visas expire on November 15, though.  What fun!  Did I tell you I got arrested and speed-tried when I left the country earlier this year three days after my tourist visa expired?  Even though our permanent residence visas had been in the works for months?  Even though same visa was granted the very next day?  I had to pay a fine, too.

So you can imagine I am very twitchy about this, "Oh, we think you can just dip out and back in and it will all be fine."  No, siree.  I want this in writing, with a big fat stamp from someone very high up in the government, best handwritten on pergament with illumination and fancy signatures.

Then there is the move which is scary.  How did we end up with all those books?  Oh, yes.  This reading habit we have.  I have to tell you that I'm really proud my boys filled notebook after notebook this homeschooling year but it all weighs a ton.  Maybe you remember that we have this odd restriction of 20 inches?  Because we get an air move not a ground move, and it seems the planes flying in and out of Moldova are really small, so they only take 20 inch cubes on board.  We need to get rid of quite a few things - the white board, the table and chairs, Leah's high chair which I got at a sale at the International School and which I love (it's from Hungary, solid wood, so lovely).  Unless we can somehow stuff it into the car. 

Being clever, we thought we fly the kids to our home in Germany, have a nice Thanksgiving, then Doug goes back and stays until the end.  I fly back before Christmas (thus burdening my Mom with the kids for a few days) and we both drive the car.  Air luggage!  (Six people!  Six bags!  That's more bags than we actually have here!) plus an empty car that can be stuffed to the brim.

Alas, it's not going to happen.  Our lowly status as Short Termers doesn't allow for Doug to fly his family out.  We have to drive.  Bummer, really.  I would have preferred not to drive with four kids over snow-covered hair-raising serpentines in the Carpathian mountains but obviously USAID doesn't think that's dangerous at all.  I will trust they know their stuff.

So we are driving, on Thanksgiving.  Why so early?  Because we figure the weather will only get worse, and Doug has two days off, so we are not wasting precious days on the drive.   He will then return on this free Air Moldova ticket (that's another story for another time) and stay until the project is officially, finally done.  Whereupon he will fly back to Germany and spend Christmas with us.  Whatever comes next, we have no idea.

Do you have a nice job for us?  Maybe not in a landlocked country, or one that is ravaged by civil war, or famine, or abject poverty?  Because those countries pop up a lot lately.

So, instead of planning this move which is scary, or dealing with the visa issue which is done by the project, I am procrastinating.  Like, shooting photos.  That's also nice.

 

 

Slow down

The sun is shining, the skies are blue.  It's a beautiful spring day outside and the skies are blue.

Wait a second.

Blue, yes, but something is missing...

You see, normally, the skies above us look like this:

We are in a very heavy over-flight zone -- it's not bothering us as the planes are really high up.  But the sky is always criss-crossed with condensation.  However, yesterday and today, the sky looks like this:

And why?  All because of the Ash Monster!!!

Volcano cloud plunges Europe into chaos! Our chancellor stranded in Portugal! Trains are overrun by dumped flight passengers! Mail piles up! German airspace closed until 2 pm today!

Our very own tabloid "news"paper, the Bildzeitung, has it all summed up perfectly. Well, it made me laugh.  This is a problem, a big one.  But catastrophes look different.

Truth is that the volcano has impacted our lives here in Europe in unforeseen and unforeseeable ways.  All German airports are closed, all Lufthansa flights are cancelled.  I am scheduled to fly to Dulles on Monday at 1 pm and I'm not being overly optimistic that I will actually be in the US on Monday.   I am going to Mannheim with my brother and his fiancee (hah!  Forgot to tell you about that, didn't I?) on Sunday evening, and if nothing goes on Monday, I will come back home and try again next week.  No way I'm sitting around waiting for days on end.

I suppose there will be a lot of enforced "eating local" in the next days -- lots of our veggies and fruit come from Spain, Morocco or Italy by plane.  Not sure whether they can switch this all to road traffic on short notice.  Already the streets are crowded.  The trains are stuffed and "everything that can roll does roll", as the speaker for the Deutsche Bahn said, after they hauled out even the shabbiest and oldest cars they have in storage.  The airport rental places have long run out of cars.  The Chunnel to Great Britain is completely booked out, as are many ferries.  Our land transportation isn't devised to deal with an additional couple ten thousand travellers. 

I have ordered a few items to take home from the US -- mostly fabric and DVD's.  If I can't go to get them, they won't come here -- no mail is arriving from the US, either.  Our chancellor is indeed stranded in Portugal, as our defense minister is stranded in Istanbul.  Mr. Guttenberg, I can tell you for a fact that the drive from Istanbul to Germany takes 60+ hours of driving.  John Cleese was stuck in Oslo and apparently needed to get to Brussels very urgently.  He took a taxi.  The bill ran to 3,800 Euros ($5,200).  Someone else took a cab from Oslo to Paris.  Say what you will, those guys did arrive eventually.

Someone suggested a cruise ship to the US.  I'd love that but I'm afraid that the refund of my flight ticket won't quite cover that kind of trip, which is really too bad.  

Personally, I am of two minds.  I love the idea that a natural phenomenon can simply obliterate all air travel in Europe.  There is something science fiction-y and dramatic about this that appeals to me.  On the other hand, I'd be very bummed if I couldn't make my trip.  But there is nothing I can do, so there it is -- life slows down a bit.  The average person in Fladungen has not felt the consequences yet.  I'll go and buy bananas now, just in case.  A certain girl needs a banana for her breakfast most mornings, it won't do to run out, you see.  Also, I better take good care of my seedlings, so eating local won't be a problem in a few weeks...

By popular request - a few lines disguise as a blog post

Well, okay, one request.  Heh, that's better than none!

Things are, of course, hectic.  And how not, with four little ones and the husband gone all the time? (In Senegal this time, next up are Uganda and maybe Armenia again.)  It's all that I can get the laundry done in a reasonable manner.  Which means that if the kids run out of pants, I do a load of laundry.  We've got enough T-shirts to cycle everyone through a month without washing, courtesy well-meaning neighbors.

I did manage to go and visit a garden exhibit with my Mom where I bought a climbing rose called "Raubritter" (robber knight) for the garden.  We planted it so it can climb up our plum tree - I can see it from my study which is nice.  I find the name made this rose utterly suitable for a three-boys-and-a-wild-girl household.  It's also very beautiful.

Speaking of a wild girl (because that's what she turns out to be, not surprisingly) -- she's just about to make the jump from baby to toddler.  She's crawling/creeping a lightning speed and pulls herself into a stand when- and wherever.  She's like those Australian animals that go up any vertical structure* -- anything will do: mother, father, brothers, dogs, chairs, tables, stairs, stools, drawers... really, anything.  She's terribly proud of herself, as you can see:

Today, she adamantly refused the evening mush and made such a fuss until even her brain-dead mother got the message and gave her a share of tortellini for self-feeding.  This girl will rule the world one day, mark my words.

Otherwise, we're scrambling along.  Next week is my Dad's 70th birthday which will be celebrated with a giant garden fest.  Which reminds me of a story that I will post separately.

A final picture from yesterday evening:

What can I say to top this?  Nothing.

*I forget what they are called. Goannas?

What you do when the sky falls on your head

I guess you panic.  And I'm not panicking.  Which means the sky is not falling.

We've just lost a few leads on prospective and/or fairly certain short-term/long-term jobs.  The fact that I'm not in panic illustrates the ultimate faith I have in my husband's abilities to find work, and his brilliance, and that someone will see this brilliance and offer him a wonderful job.  Because that's exactly what will happen.

So, there, fate.  Bite me.

(Doug will wince. He's part Irish, and Irish people are superstitious, even if they are not, if you understand what I mean.)

In other news, I finished another project.  Going off on a not complete sequitur, here comes one advantage when your relatives don't read your blog: you're free to talk about them, and to show birthday presents in advance without a care that you might spoil a surprise. 

So my niece is turning 7 in a week, and she'll be celebrating in Florida with her family and my in-laws.  That's entirely wonderful and they will have a great time, I'm sure.  We asked what we could give her as a present and the answer was uninspiring:  Books.

Don't get me wrong, I love books.  I buy a lot of books.  I read a lot of books. But I don't see the little girl in question more than maybe once a year, and I have no idea what she's read and what she likes.  So I had the idea to sew her a summer dress.  She can wear it now as she's in Florida, and she can wear it in two weeks when it gets hot and humid in DC. (Just kidding.)

I chose a very simple design, and a beautiful fabric.  Alan picked out the ribbon that I appliqued on the dress, and voila!  The perfect summer dress.  The nice thing and the bad thing all wrapped up in one: I learned a lot (zippers!) and I had to fudge a bit.  But it turned out like it was intended, and I think it's a nice enough present.

The Phantom

For several years, the Phantom has had Germany's imagination and police force tied up in knots.

We knew she was female, and a criminal of no bounds.  Her DNA has been found in over 40 crime scenes all over Germany and Austria - robberies, drugs, even murders.  And "harmless" stuff like break-ins, car thefts.  Her DNA was found on a toy pistol and on murder victims.  She was everywhere, she was elusive, she seemed invisible.  Even when her partners were arrested, they claimed to have no knowledge of her.  She was the ultimate criminal.  Entire police departments hunted her. 

And then, they found her.

Her story?  She's your average normal person who her neighbors would describe as "normal".  She works in a company that produces cotton swabs.  You know, the cotton swabs that forensic teams use for sample collection?

Yeah.  That's what I thought.

Tonight, Germany is laughing about the phantom that never existed.

Geez, my life is full

I really don't want to let this blog die but somehow, posting is just another thing on my to-do list, and it's rating rather low these days.  I'm just so darn busy and I keep promising and the next thing I know, another month has gone by.

So, in between laundry, dinner, boo-boo's real and imagined, phone calls, screeching baby (teeth + cough and cold = intense unhappiness), some pictures of the past months -- from August 10 to December 6, to be precise.

I will try to be better about the writing but I ain't promising nothing.

Paranoia

So, how creepy is it that shortly after I post a link to the blog of the Transportation Security Agency I get paid not one but four visits by the DHS?

Or is this just a coincedence?  Surely, they have better things to do and this is just a nice person who is visiting this blog during work hours and somehow likes my writing? 

One never knows.  But the fact that it makes me twitchy is sad.

Simple calculation

When we arrived in Armenia, the exchange rate bought us 450 Drams for one Dollar.  A liter of milk cost 780 Drams, or $1.73.

Today, the exchange rate was 297 to 1, and the price for one liter of milk rose to 830 Drams, or $2.79. That's an increase of 62%, if I have this right.  In 18 months.

We used to pay our nanny  $450 a month.  At the current rate, and with a pay increase to cover the rising costs, it is now $800.  We don't want to let her go because she needs the money.  But ouch, it hurts. She will also not find a job with Expats that pays equally well.  Whoever employs her after us, will fix the price in dollars, and fix it low.

I've heard, from a friend, that the "goal" of whoever-is-screwing-the-economy-around is 280 Drams/$1 by February.  Yup, looking good.

We are paid in dollars, you know.  This free-fall of the dollar, and the artificial strengthening of the Dram, is costing us more than 50% of our money that we spend here and that's not only milk -- food, pay, gas, heat and electricity, water and natural gas. School fees. (David's school is paid in Drams.) Piano lessons. Repair costs. Tangerines now cost $3.30 a kilo, and they used to be cheap. It's not funny at all.

Ah, I see you've done your homework and you tell me that's what the cost of living allowance (COLA) is for.  Well, yes.  But the adjustments in COLA are slow, and the pace of government budgeting cannot keep up with the ever-faster dwindling of the dollar in this country.

At least, we know we are getting out next summer.  But the average Armenian on the street, with the support net in the US that used to pay for so much of their daily lives, has to deal with it for the unforeseeable future.  That is tough luck.

Those people in charge have no moral bone in their body, not one.

No oil, no money, no headlines

Bangladesh is poor. It has no oil. It has no real strategic value. So, we don't care.

Or so it seems.

A category 4 cyclone is heading directly towards Bangladesh. It's expected to make landfall around 3 am on Friday, November 16. As it approaches land, cyclone Sidr is only gaining strength. The low-lying floodplains of Bangladesh are in severe danger - hundreds of thousands of people are in the path of a catastrophic storm. This will be much worse than Katrina. Much.

Yet, we hear little. Andrew Sullivan does his best to advertise, so does Chris Mooney from The Intersection, as well as the Daily Green. But where is the MSM? Where are the nightly news? The running reports? The updates every ten minutes? Why are the satellite images not staring at us from every screen?

It makes me sick to my stomach how the world is divided into "important" and "unimportant". So 200,000 Bangladeshis die? What's it to us?

Caring about it makes us human. Not caring makes us, well… you decide.

 

Photograph: U.S. Navy

War on all

From the Wall Street Journal:

Under legislation signed by U.S. President George W. Bush last week, travelers from the European Union and some other regions of the world could face delays of 48 to 72 hours between when they buy an airline ticket to enter the U.S. and when they are allowed to board their flights.

The law also says all cargo containers shipped to the U.S. should be screened for radiation at their ports of departure. The EU exported $333 billion of goods to the U.S. last year.

I'm not sure whether that would apply to me as I'm a legal resident of the US but under the current administration, I have learned it's safe to assume the worst, period.

So, if there was a family emergency, I might have to wait three days before I could travel (probably missing the emergency, as those are often of a temporary nature).  Likewise, if one of my kids had to be flown to the US for medical reasons, I could not go right away.  Or if we were to decide to do a last-minute-trip to the US just for fun.  (We are known to have such rash travel plans.)

Speaking of containers, if we ever moved back to the US, our containers could be delayed by months because we could feasibly have bought some shiny stuff in Iran, or so.

I'm not even going to get all riled up about the latest wiretapping foreigners nonsense.  And here I thought the Dems would be a bit more, hm, morally upright.  Hah. Stupid me.