Day 58

Since our children felt very left out seeing all the world book day pictures from friends yesterday, we decided to have our own book day today. It was a great success & now they want book day tomorrow too, even though it's Saturday! We had a book hunt in the corridor, made our own library & did lots of fun things with our favourite books.

Our home school family friends visited this afternoon & Ray was able to begin his long weekend a few hours early so all in all it was a good day.

Ali

Being one of the very few families in the new cohort for NU is strangely isolating. We’ve written about the problems of other families at NU being housed at two other locations in Astana and then the division of families who are sending their children to international schools, those that are trying the local schools and those who are home schooling. So it does take effort to get out to reach another family. But the other effect is that the many other members of staff who are either single or married (and without children) then would band together to go and do things. Understandably so. A niggle of frustration resounded in my mind when these “no children” Riverside residents / NU staff were organising their trip out this evening to a restaurant and not one invited us. Perhaps it was a misconception that we would be busy doing family things. Or perhaps inviting a young family out would cramp their style; I know I have embarrassing eating habits. Perhaps we are unloved by them, though I doubt that is true.

Whilst we do have each other, the Whitby does need social interaction beyond our quintet. Ali had a family from Highvill over. Another homeschooling family in Astana, takes the total up to 2! It is unsurprising how precious it is to find a family with similar aged children that also happen to have similar temperament too.

Had a short day in order to start the International Women’s day celebration. It is a big event over here and they take it seriously. We had a School-wide gathering on the balcony, with formal presentations and speeches. Whilst I am all for celebrating the fantastic job that women do everywhere, I do somewhat object to only leaving it to a single day per year. However, when in Rome...
 

Now heading into a 3 day weekend and we really don’t know how to spend that time. But time together is always appreciated. We found a cool app and having fun. Today attack of the spider, tomorrow alien invasion.

Ray