Reflections on Day 2

Written on 7/26/12

You don’t have paperwork for your new home alarm and you don’t know the code, so you alert the whole neighborhood to that fact. You call RSO and they have an FSN call you back and when you can’t work together over the phone to fix it, the FSN will come out and tell you that the batteries are low. You will consider asking if he replaced the batteries, or is going to, but decide not to and wonder why after he left.

If the smoke alarm goes off in your kids’ room at 4:30 a.m. they will wake up. You’ll be really happy the kids slept that late and wonder how late they would have slept until if that hadn’t happened.

You’ll allow your children to watch a movie after your husband goes to work his first day. Then another movie, and then they’ll start the first movie again. You’ll allow it because what else are they going to do when you don’t have much in your house except dangerous appliances and a few small toys they brought in the plane?

You’ll ask your sponsor if his maid knows someone who can come watch the kids while you go somewhere that has wifi. You’ll go to your sponsors’ house to use the internet (because you have a good sponsor within walking distance that gave you a key to their house and also sent his maid to watch the kids). You’ll forget to bring your wallet, so you can’t shop. You’ll forget to write down what you went there for in the first place, and you’ll rush home worried that something is going wrong at the house/with the kids.

You’ll put clothes on the kids, get them in the strollers, and go outside to go explore and then are approached by your sponsor’s maid with a friend whose employers are on R&R and can iron your husband’s shirts (because you are not great at it and don’t want to do it). You’ll ask said maid if she’d go on the walk first and then come to the house promising payment for as much time as you have her. 

Then you’ll look down the road to see a very white family walking down the road smiling.

You'll meet the other EFM and her kids who live about a five minute walk from your house, and are coming over to bring cookies and introduce themselves. You invite them on the walk and then are instead invited back to their house where there are toys and there is air conditioning (which of course there is not outside). You eagerly accept their invitation, and smile when you realize that your six year old is already talking excitedly with your new friend’s kids. You ask if it’s ok to bring the maid that now seems to be following you where ever you’re going to take her.

You'll go over to the house and somehow two hours go by in which your new friend has made lunch for you and your kids and you’ve bonded over shared experiences in the Foreign Service. You leave at nap time and bring the maid and your kids home. You finally set up the maid to iron your husband’s shirts and notice that she’s doing a much better job than you did at 5:30 a.m. that morning.

You'll put your kids to bed and then get some more organization done. You then sit down and start blogging and wonder if the first half of the day is taking so long to write about…how long will it take to finish the rest of the day?  

**six hours later**

You’ll let your children watch more movies after their naps (which you woke them from after three hours had gone by) to make sure everyone stays happy.

You’ll jump off the couch when the doorbell rings announcing the arrival of your husband from his first day of work.

You’ll discuss your days with each other and decide to order Hungarian for dinner after making the kids sandwiches. You’ll call City Delivery after many tries and wrong numbers and after calling the restaurant directly and them telling you to call the delivery service. You think you ordered the right thing, but you think it’s possible that the wrong thing will come.

You’ll put the kids to bed and then a few minutes later you’ll receive the order and not tip. Then you’ll wonder if you were supposed to tip and hope that the delivery guy understands that you’re a newbie. Especially since you didn’t even know what a centigram was.

You’ll pull out the Hungarian food to realize that you indeed did not make yourself clear and that your husband has less food than he wants. You will selfishly eat all of your own food only giving him one bite.

You’ll clean up dinner, and then watch as your husband starts to clean the pool and while getting him a towel decide to go in with him.

After swimming you desire a warm shower (it is rainy season here, and the pool is a bit chilly), but you almost flood the guest bathroom that you’re using until you get a shower rod for your shower and decide to forget it.

Then you sit down to blog.

No? You won't do all of that on your second day at Post? Oh…must just be me.