The Plunge Down Under

Costa Rica House Build, First Day

I'm hopping back into this space after nearly two years away to share photos from a trip I am currently taking with 12 students and two teachers to Costa Rica.  Today was our first full day, and although I was initially dubious at what our team would be able to accomplish given our collective lack of construction experience, I think you will agree that we made some progress.  It was a good first day, with many opportunities to work hard, to interact with our house build team, and to practice speaking Spanish with the children and adults that live in the neighborhood where we are building.

First I will jump back to include a few photos from yesterday.

After arriving at the Pittsburgh airport in the middle of the night for an early flight out, followed by a delay in Fort Lauderdale due to mechanical problems, it was a relief to set foot on Costa Rican soil midday on Saturday:

It's always nice to be met by someone when you exit from an airport in another country.  Below you can see our local guide giving us instructions:

First bus ride:

Since most of us hadn't eaten a proper meal all day, dinner was a very welcome experience.  

Our first course was chorreadas (corn pancakes) served with natilla (a type of sour cream) and cheese.  ¡Sabrosas!

Getting up for a 7:45am start on Sunday was not terribly difficult due to the two hour time difference.  Most of us enjoyed a breakfast of gallo pinto (rice and black beans), fresh fruits including papaya, and scrambled eggs.  Then it was off to the neighborhood where we are helping to build a house in three days.  We were able to have this opportunity thanks to the efforts of four of our students who raised enough money by organizing and hosting a dance-a-thon last year.

We were divided into three teams, a painting team, a wall building team, and a roof truss team. The painting team had lots of help from local children:

First wall coming together: 

Instruction in how to properly pound a nail:

Miss Cline hard at work with the circular saw:

First wall in place:

Second wall in place:

There was great excitement amongst our local helpers when we brought out the blue paint for the roof trusses:

Taking a well-deserved break:

Between the sawing, the hammering and the crowing of two roosters, communication was often a challenge:

More progress:

Our workday ended a bit early due to rain, but we felt satisfied with what we were able to accomplish. ¡Gloria a Dios!

 

Melbourne Revisited

I returned Monday from my seventh trip to Melbourne, a visit that reaffirmed for me that it is a city that will always remain close to my heart.  I will share several photos in this post, but many of the best parts of the trip were not captured with a camera.  Those were the times I spent catching up with some of the friends we made during our four years in Australia.  I also enjoyed wandering through my favorite haunts reminiscing.  At times the remembering contained more pain than pleasure, but even so I am glad that I went back again.  It helped to be thoroughly spoiled by so many dear friends--to be treated to coffees, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, to be picked up and dropped off at airports and train stations, and to be driven around from place to place.  I am truly thankful.

About Those Return Visits

I have started writing a post that describes my recent trip to Melbourne.  I will probably finish it, but right now the words seem a bit ho-hum.  That's likely due to the fact that the post is more or less a blow-by-blow description of where I went and what I did, with a few photos thrown in for illustration. It fails to address the emotions behind the trip.  Now that I am out of the habit of writing (and therefore of thinking) about expat issues, it is difficult to organize my thoughts in a coherent way.  Generally I try for about five minutes at the most before I give up and go back to scrolling through social media feeds.

End of Another School Year

It's the middle of May, and that means many things for American moms of school-age kids.  The first word that comes to mind is hectic.  That might be why I am taking a minute or two today to stop, take a deep breath and gird my loins for what is ahead in the next couple of weeks.  Prom is this coming Friday night followed by high school graduation one week later.  Even though we don't have a child graduating this year, we have been receiving lots of invitations for graduation parties.  Graduation is followed by final exams, with multiple awards ceremonies, picnics and end-of-year celebrations all falling in the same four days following Memorial Day.  Then there are those teachers that are still assigning projects.  What are they thinking?  Oh wait, I happen to be one of them.  What was I thinking?  I guess I will be grading projects in-between parties and hoping that parents forgive me some day, ideally before the summer is over.

My Grandmother's Hands

We buried my grandma today.  The crowd of friends and relatives that gathered both last night and today is testament to the many people that loved her.  In this post I will share a few pictures, plus the text of the talk that I gave at her funeral.

Winter Wonderland

The fervent hopes of our youngest child were granted this week with a day off from school due to winter weather.  The brutal combination of rain, freezing rain, and snow arrived with impeccable timing at the tail end of what was already a three day weekend.  After a relaxing Monday spent at home in honor of two of our presidents (George Washington and Abraham Lincoln), we fell asleep with the knowledge that there would at the very least be a two hour delay the next morning.  Happily the delay turned into a cancellation, and the celebration in our home began in earnest.

The unexpected time at home meant many things, including a double batch of cinnamon rolls and siblings actually playing board games together.  It also resulted in a few photographs--the primary purpose of this post.  

The day after the storm

Dear Australia

In honor of Australia Day, here's a post I wrote nearly two years ago:

Dear Australia,

You and I had a rough beginning.  I had never thought about you much until R came home one day and rocked my world by telling me there was a great job opportunity for him in Melbourne.  I thought that I had prepared myself for this big moment, only I expected the job would be in London, Brussels, Paris or perhaps Berlin.  But Melbourne?  Was there a city called Melbourne outside of Florida?  I gave myself five seconds to consider it.   Absolutely not, never, no way, not us.  I told R he wasn't allowed to even say your name again in my presence.

McConnells Mill: Beauty in All Seasons

Our last full day with our Australian friends before they headed back to Melbourne dawned gray and bleak.  I am pretty sure the weather managed to achieve the maximum level of bleakness possible for a sun-less day in January in Pittsburgh.   Around about 3pm we congregated around the dining room table, some of us exhausted from the endless chauffeuring that weekends bring, others exhausted from packing and re-packing suitcases, and all of us with spirits that matched the weather.  Fortunately Gillian happened to scroll back to a photo of McConnell's Mill I sent her last year, and when she showed it to me, I said, "Let's go."

My expectations, frankly, were low.  I anticipated muddy paths against a background of boring grays and browns.  It wasn't the way I wanted them to experience one of my very favorite places.  But it had to beat moping around the table, we figured, and sure enough it did.  In fact, McConnells Mill did more than that.  It surprised and delighted all of us in spite of the overcast skies.  A thin layer of snow increased the natural beauty of the setting, and as the light began to fade, more flakes began falling.  It added the perfect touch to a day that suddenly seemed beautiful rather than dreary, peaceful rather than tense, and invigorating rather than dull. Not bad for this modest-but-lovely little corner north of Pittsburgh.

Hanging Out in Washington DC

When we lived in Melbourne, we spent so much of our time sightseeing around Australia that locals joked with us that we knew their country better than they did.  There may have been some truth to those claims.  We were certainly motivated to see as much as possible, and it was exciting to explore in a different hemisphere. We have not done nearly so well taking our kids to see stuff in the United States.  They have toured the capital cities of both Canada and Australia, but Washington D.C.?  No, at least not before last week.  I guess it's appropriate that it took the encouragement of our Aussie friends to finally take our kids to the American capital city.  Visiting D.C. was in fact not only their idea, but (I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit) we relied on them to serve as our tour guides as well.

Reunited in Pittsburgh

Five years ago, the word Australia was the elephant in the room.  I had forbidden my husband to mention it ever again, particularly in front of my family.  The word itself signified for me not so much the stereotypical images of kangaroos hopping in the Outback or surfers on Bondi Beach, but rather a deep dark hole of fear.  If I allowed myself to consider the possibility of transporting our family there, I was fairly certain it would be a disaster.  The potential losses were too great.  The potential gains (exploring the Great Barrier Reef? international adventures? family bonding moments?) were too nebulous to offer any comfort.

Looking back I can see that I was both right and wrong.  The losses were indeed great.  We hurt our family members and effectively ended friendships that had been of great importance to us.  We subjected our kids to lifelong impact by removing them from their home country for four impressionable years, and yes, the family bonding proved to be more nebulous than we had wished.  All too often it turned into family fighting and bickering.  

What I failed to anticipate fully were the potential benefits.  Certainly I did not expect to find a family away from home.  I did not have enough faith in the God who had sustained us this far in our lives to see us through the changes, nor did I envision the lifelong friendships that were forged as we carved out a life on the southern hemisphere.  

What a joy, therefore, to spend time with such lifelong friends over these Christmas holidays.  We have undertaken more than one excursion (photos below), and tomorrow we head off for an adventure in the U.S. capital.  But mostly we have appreciated the opportunity to hang together once more.  Knowing as we do so well the pain of separation, we are doing our best to savor every moment.

Niagara Falls, Canada:  With four parents representing four nationalities, it only seemed appropriate that we spend one day of our holidays crossing an international border to visit one of the world's great wonders.