Aug. 3, 2006 - Elephant Sized Dreams
Our eldest daughter has had a lifetime dream of riding an elephant. Bizarre really and highly unlikely in the reality of our lives... but due to this trip, she had the opportunity to fulfill this dream. We went out to the zoo a few days ago to say goodbye to all the animals, and half way round, found a chance for the girls to actually climb onto the back of one of these gentle giants and have a little wander around. Their faces were a picture. The elation my eldest felt made me tear up as I thanked God for allowing her such moments of sheer joy in the midst of the hard times. It has been a challenge for me to grasp that it is okay to just hold my kids securely like little vessels and let God do the filling up. Sure, they have desperate aches and heart-breaks. And I have to take my urge to interfere to my heavenly Father, and sit on my hands so to speak and allow their hearts to be moulded by the King. This glimpse of blessing that overflowed my daughter's heart made me realise afresh that the Creator of the Universe does a much better job of parenting than I do!! I am still learning and God is still faithful with his grace in my weakness as a mom...it sure can be the little things that mean alot; that bring such tremendous delight in the reminding of his great goodness and love for me and my family.
Aug. 2, 2006 - Fighting Farewells
Today I loved Singapore. I loved everything and felt myself shift inside from the yearning to leave to the yearning to stay! How confusing! I am beginning to tremble in my heart at the thought of saying goodbye to this nation yet I know a few days ago, I was so excited to consider the delights of going home. It is a mystery to me that I am unable to hold firm to one thread of thought but that I swing between the two extremes. Regardless of how tempted I am to call a halt to life so I can sit and sort out how I feel, things are marching steadily on and the desire to stay static is not an option. So instead the days slip by in a blur of last minute memories and I stood on my verandah this morning with my coffee in hand, watching the warmth of the dawn light glowing over the waking city, listening to the squawk of local birds and breathing in the soft tropical atmosphere blinking away a sharp ache of farewell.
These photos are of the girls at TCC, one of our favourite cafes, having a last hot chocolate.
Jul. 26, 2006 - Breath-taking Simplicity
Jul. 26, 2006 - Singapore Science Center and Singing the Blues
Alone. Again. This time for real. I am suspended in my bubble of 'nowhere' without a thread holding me to anything. I neither dangle nor grow upwards. I simply exist in a static vacuum-sealed state high above the myriad of tiny city lights glimmering on the empty city face around me.
When my DH has travelled before I have cushioned myself into the comforts of home life, the house is suddenly my own; the bedroom becomes my sanctuary and books get dusted off the shelf as there are empty quiet lonely hours to fill at night, soup is made for cosy yumminess, the phone sleeps under my pillow. It is like a pause button in a cosy hollow. Sometimes I used to clamber out and seek shelter in another environment, like my parent's home. I usually feel raw and hollow each time he packs his bags and looks at me deeply before turning away for the last time but I used to endure it quite successfully; apart from those heart-thumping middle of the night horrors when I am sure I can hear footsteps and heavy breathing but am too terrified to move a toe, let alone fling on a light switch.
But in Singapore this whole being alone thing takes on a completely new slant. There is no home. We stay in an impersonal apartment with nothing around us that bears any meaning to anything except that it really shouldn't be damaged because it isn't ours. There is no soup nor are there batches of scones, muffins or cookies for the kids to lick battered fingers and blow on oven hot lumps of sweet steaming cake. There are no recipe books to curl up in a patch of sunlight to flick through, no fat treasured books on a shelf, no friends to chat to over a coffee, no mum to run home to, no familiar coffee mugs (why that matters I am not sure), no tv programmes to yabber on in a native tongue to fill in the empty spaces, no garden or park to sit in and watch butterflies, no car to drive to the beach or park or just OUT. There is nothing that is dear and special and comforting, and I miss those little things.
I place incredibly important value in the warmth of the children's soft sleeping forms at night, when I go to check them and kiss their smooth foreheads before I turn in. That's when the guilt monster creeps up and tries to overwhelm me and the lack of balance of anything else that holds value to me teeters precariously before I shake myself and place myself under the authority of the Creator of the Universe. His presence is sincerely a balm to my soul as it is the only other thing I have here to turn to...what a blessing in disguise this opportunity really is.
I do pathetically long for my creature comforts and especially my bed linen. I know (sigh) so weird, but my own mattress, pillows and piled up duvets are sorely missed when I lie under a tight sheet on stiff mattress here. DD remarked the other day that her bed "felt like stone". I could not have agreed more. So we sit, like the Cat in the Hat waiting for time to hurry up and pass so that we can swirl back into the warmth of life again, mingling and blending all the delicious things that make up who we are.
When my DH is away and I am here, I regretfully seem to become shadowy. Like my sizzle has been sucked dry. I feel peace often enough, but sometimes little of anticipation of joy. Parenting becomes all of a sudden such a quagmire that I can hardly lift my sqelchy feet high enough to wade through. I am pressed in by my little people...I know...I only have two, but their piping voices and fretful disagreements and pleas for treats seem to rise in a tide that just rushes in my ears and I can hardly discern the words nor the meanings.
One great bonus of living in this building is that three times a week we have to vacate our apartment while they clean it, pest control it and strip the beds. Some days the lack of a purposeful thing to do/errand to run/person to visit is deeply unsettling and I am forced to sort through the rattle of feelings until I find a logical solution to the problem of being ousted from our quarters. The children dread this intrusion. They beg for me to tell them it is not "that day". The bonus comes in when I realise that it is such a blessing to have to get out there in that big world and actually find things to do. So far, this week has held the Science Center. Now, I am not a huge science buff...biology is very interesting I grant you, but physics and chem blur into a fog of incomprehension in my brain, how I managed to pass these subjects at school is sheer fluke. But the children have voricious appetites for anything scientific so off we went, me slightly gloomy and sitting Eyeore style in the cab for the drive there. Once there, the heat shimmered off the tarmac and we broke out into instant prickles making a rush for the right building and its air conditioning. On the way we passed a fast food restaurant. It was nearly lunchtime and a tidal wave of short little students was fast approaching. I ducked in there with the girls just in time and bought them some lunch before we attacked the center proper. What mayhem ensued with the screaming chatter of hundreds of local school children swarming about us. It was nerve-wracking and I sipped my coffee as fast as i could so that we could vacate our greasy seats in what sounded like a war-zone. When we entered the Science Center I could tell the school kids were on their way out - PTL, but it meant we had to swim upstream, so to speak, which added to the melee of the first exhibition which happened to be optical illusions and the like. Mirrors, trapdoors, peepholes, floating spheres, conical arrangements, stripes and tricks all flashed and the girls began an ecstatic yo-yo motion from one display to the next. I began to feel dizzy. I realised I could not teach them anything. There was simply too much for them to take in, so I walked slowly, calling to them everynow and again, and they scampered after me like kittens on catnip. The place is huge. I lost them repeatedly. I tried half heartedly to answer their rapid fire questions which tumbled out before the answer had even formed for the previous question in their mother's feeble brain. They were delighted with the T-Rex exhibit. I was not. By then I was clutching the handles of the (empty) stroller and focussing on putting one foot in front of the other. They had a ball. The closest I came to a morsel of delight was when I weighed myself (dubiously) on a scale in the Human Body exhibit. The results were most pleasing and not beyond the ridiculous as I have been a very good girl lately. However, this morning's soujourn down to the little gym-room to walk on the treadmill with the kids following my every move, led me to weigh myself on different scales. This was a disastrous move and put my weight nearly 10 pounds heavier than the Science Center's reading. I was hardly surprised. It did seem to be too good to be true to have started seeing any sort of result and the failure niggled at the back of my head like a burr. I realise how shallow this all is. But today was just one of those days when silly things like that are all it takes to sink your little craft as it bobs along in survival mode. I have learned not to climb on any scales of any kind while my DH is away. It is obviously a weak area that instantly crumbles my strength. Again....vanity and pride have led the way today. I sink down inside with humble crumble and offer the mess of my day to the Lord for His master craftmanship to glue me back together, so that His light can shine through the cracks. And also I have learned not to force outings that make me wilt inside - I am afraid I will not be able to protect my girls from picking up on my slack attitude towards certain subjects that might affect their own views. I should have gone to the zoo instead and walked around the majesty of God's miraculous flora and fauna instead of staggering around aviation capsules and mind benders. I will leave the science stuff to DH from now on - he would have loved that place. Perhaps another visit, another time, another year...
K-Lou and the Dino Femur
On a dig...note: they were not allowed by staff to remove their shoes. Nor was I allowed to take photos (I later read on my ticket!) 
Not exactly Miss Universe is she?
A big space-y weird physics thingy hanging in the atrium of the Science Cnt.
Felt like I was on the set of a sci-fi series.
Jul. 20, 2006 - The Lizard's Lament
Tonight while doing the dishes I merrily washed a 3 inch long custard coloured gecko. At first I thought he was an extraordinarily long and stubborn strand of grated cheese which was stuck in the cheese grater. But nooooooo. He swam galantly to the fore once removed from the grater and bobbed in and out of my washing up brush bristles as they swished him back and forth on a child's plate. It was when he rose out of the suds to ascend the safe ground of my wrist that I screeched (demurely of course) and ran out of the kitchen, having shaken his warm, half dead little weight off my hand back into the water. DH was most alarmed. He leapt to my aid but had no idea what in the world was wrong with me. I had a hand towel found draped over the back of a dining room chair stuffed into my mouth and my toes had curled under and I was gasping and gagging and hopping. Finally I managed to stutter "L-l-l-lizard" and he propelled me to the couch where I curled up and cried with a cushion clutched in my arms and the touch-memory of the feet of the creature on my skin. He spent a few minutes searching our sinkful of dishes before he fished out the very drowned little body and sent it down the rubbish shute. He is now re-washing all our dishes in silence as I sit here, shuddering occasionally, typing my woes.
I am missing my too-cold-for-reptile-habitat kitchens, memories of how I used to pour dishwashing powder into that glorious little square hole and press that heavenly little "BEEP" to hear the gentle hum and swish of water as the divine machine gurgles happily over your dirty dishes (and any small naughty animals).
I know I should be hardened after my childhood on a farm in Zimbabwe, but it freaked me out as much then as it does now. What a pathetic equatorial pioneer I would have made.
Jul. 17, 2006 - Dancing in the Garden
Jul. 17, 2006 - Learning in the Mist
My head contains a mist of ideas, theories and dreams when it comes to homeschooling. But over everything looms the reality-shadow that my children will be slipping back into a classroom environment in a few months time when our stint in Singapore is over.
So I curb the high schemes and reign them in, sadly, to a level I feel will not pull them too far from the learning style of school. It must sound like I am crazy considering putting them back into mainstream education, especially in New Zealand, where the public schooling sometimes falls quite short of expectations. Quite possibly I am completely crazy. But I have a very social daughter whose friendships are dear to her, in a way I sometimes struggle to empathise with as it is not the way I grew up (guess who was homeschooled on an isolated farm in Africa?). She is loyal and thrives on human contact, teamwork and exercising her fledging gift of leadership. I am completely inadequate at providing what she needs at this stage in her life in this department and so right now the school seems to feel right for her. This is however under constant evaluation, especially when I tend to rely on my own strength as a mother and not trust God that He will protect her wherever she is. But she has had amazing teachers so far and I am able to 'sit on my hands' for this season.
But for now....now I have the reins for a few more short weeks. I have attempted grandiose methods, with sticker charts, workbooks and exercises guarantueed to put even a librarian to sleep. But it was like making water run uphill and I have (ungraciously) backed down and let the children trickle off into what interests them and watch where there are flickers of attention and let those areas take flight.
It is scary. Some of the things that have caught their minds are nice and friendly and within my mental grasp. Some things are not. Some things challenge the way I was made to think, challenge my intelligence and challenge my selfish heart!
Daily I am becoming more of an un-schooling mother, an ex-pat mom encased in a shiny apartment who lets her daughters lie in bed reading dragon tales, make intricate artworks on the lounge floor, shun workbooks unless they are about science, and follow the mathmatical concepts of the soccer world-cup series. Nobody wants to write stories, emails or journal entries, learn spellings, recite times tables or sit still. I am good at enforcing these activities, however, unfortunately for me, their creativity wells dry up at the speed of light and glazed eyes stare back at me uncomprehendingly. Instead I marvel at the sparkle I glimpse when we are reading DragonSpell (a christian fantasy book that challenged my probably overworked religious upbringing) or fashioning sculptures from straws and boxes (limited crafts here as we are in limbo), or designing fashion outfits for Barbies out of paper, listening to Hillsong kids songs and watching them create dance steps together.
I quit. I quit the striving and planning for their maximised education in this 4 month window of living in Asia. The realisation has come that it is only because I want to be thought well of by my eldest's teacher that I even care about silly things like handwriting and comprehension. My daughter wants not to practice meaningless lines of sloping letters, but wants to practice calligraphy (done beautifully) as an expression of her art. And she does not want to do comprehension on boring articles I chop out of the paper, she wants to delve into thick chapter books, well beyond her reading years, and talk about their allegory properties with me.
Every day I resolve not to meddle with the world that God has provided for us to all learn from, but each day I find myself doing it anyway. Thus I am reminded afresh of the desperate value in surrendering my flesh and allowing the voice of the King to penetrate the mists and dreams each new day with His inspiration for life.
Jul. 16, 2006 - Makeup tips and times tables
Jul. 12, 2006 - Family Photos
Jun. 29, 2006 - Raffles and Little India
Diary of an Ex-Pat Housewife (11)
This week saw a journey with a camera into a part of
I stilled my senses. I wanted to absorb the magnificence of this dignified colonialism; the Raffles Hotel and found myself transported back to my youngest years. The child in me stood stock still with transfixed eyes on the stooped gardener, wearing an enormous grass hat, perched atop his ladder, trimming the shrubs at the entrance to the hotel foyer into the shape of square pillars. The child in me heard water tumbling from ornate fountains, the clink and chime of glasses in the Long Bar, snatches of classical music spilling from formal rooms, birdsong from the jewel feather-dwellers in pockets of towering greenery. Intriguing shadows were flung out on the tiled floors of pillar bound hallways, where immaculate chefs in their whites glided between kitchen and restaurant. Dark wooden doors, marked PRIVATE made me itch to open them, and I wanted to play on the empty brass porter’s trolleys before their next burden of foreign luggage arrived. I inhaled deeply the smell of wood polish, frangipane scented wind-sigh, and the smell of the sky before it exhales heavy grey breath. But the arrival of ploppy fat raindrops warped me back to being a grown up and I scrambled in my bag for an umbrella before we were completely soaked.
Chijmes is an old convent fortressed in thick protective walls in the midst of shiny synthetic modern city buildings and is across the road from the hotel. It was not hard to imagine the nuns slipping up and down worn wooden staircases, and through huge ornate double doors into the hush of soaring chapel. The upper balconies had curved gothic windows that opened out onto paved courtyards and fountains below, and despite being in the middle of a busy traffic zone, it was quiet and peaceful in the heart of the convent. I was faintly unsettled by the mix of old and new, like the Hog’s Breath Café operating out of the religious architecture and sitting side by side with the chapel.
It was magical exploring dark but quaint local shops tucked into little rooms off the outer passageway with its uneven brick floor and smelling faintly of spices. Rowfuls of costume jewellery reflected their lights onto soft stacks of rainbow inspired pashminas and silk scarves. Thai celadon ceramics glowed luminous in the half light and china bowls with domed lids in wet shiny colours nestled into tissue lined boxes while marching rows of carved Asian elephants passed below rows of pearl strings. It felt like we had entered a treasure trove of delight and I could have browsed there for hours, fascinated by the movement of the years through the patina of history in such quaint surroundings.
From the gentle stroll through these grounds we decided to travel to Little India and leapt out of the taxi onto a screeching road, running the length of this famous part of town. It was a riotous attack on the senses the second we set foot on to the narrow pavement, with a cacophony of shrieking noise and blinding colours. Small narrow shops led off one side of the person-width pavement, to the other ran a jumbled line of various cheap goods for sale and contemplative beggars. Bright yellow gold jewellery displays jostled for attention with ceiling-high shelves of saris in every hue imaginable. Tinny music and loud foreign conversation dominated all senses and the aroma of overripe market fruit and the reek of burning incense made our stomachs turn. We spotted a huge sunglasses display in one little shop proclaiming to be the Cheapest Shop in
As we negotiated crossing a terrifying side street, clutching each other in knee buckling laughter, we made the mistake of directing our mirth inadvertently at a local man wearing a blue shirt. Unfortunately he decided to follow us and what was quite amusing to begin with became frightening after his relentless pursuit. Ducking into various shops to hide only resulted in him triumphantly hunting us down again. We fled as fast as we could, weaving in and out of doorways and doubling back on ourselves, only to spot his blue shirt bobbing in and out of the crowd just behind us.
A dash across the road finally shook him off, and we pinkie promised each other we would never go down to that end of town as we waived down a taxi from the hot, crumbling pavement. Still gluttons for punishment, we got the driver to drop us off at the Bugis Markets, where we sweated our way through the crush of stalls and foot traffic, fighting aching feet and dehydration. This detour did not last very long and soon we were desperate to get back to the cool interior of the apartment to shuck off filthy sandals and recover in the quiet cool. It was a day so full of highs and lows that I would not have traded it for the world, but it took us a good few days to work up the enthusiasm to explore again!
Jun. 28, 2006 - Photos of Raffles
Jun. 19, 2006 - Chijmes
Jun. 18, 2006 - Renditions of Narnia in Kuala Lumpur
Another trip to Sentosa, this time in the form of a company function, the Family Fun Day. It was a brilliantly sunny day – heat shimmered off the sand too hot to walk on barefoot and perspiration dampened us the moment we left the interior of the taxi. The function was held on Tampong beach and we entered through a makeshift gate heralded by colourful vertical fluttering tubes that were air-forced into standing like sentries over ten foot high. The day was planned superbly and we had nothing but admiration for the event organisers as it was a huge job catering to over a thousand people. They had little stalls of activities for young and old, candyfloss and hotdog huts, sandcastle competitions and several hired entertainers who did their acts on a stage under an enormous white marquee. One of the most memorable observations I had was that nowhere did I spy the Company name or logo, never was it mentioned and there were security guards posted every few meters along the perimeter of the area we were in. The reality of working for a global oil company meant that we were potentially a target to the public and that thought did take a little getting used to. The turnout was massive, although very light on the ex-pat side and we generally kept to ourselves and pottered around, mostly sitting under the shade of the marquee as the heat was so intense. They did provide complimentary sunblock for us (130spf) and free water bottles which we were able to fill from the chilled water points dotted around the edge of the marquee.
When the event had officially closed mid-afternoon, we joined the throngs and caught an island tram which trundled us off to a bus stop. From there we squeezed ourselves onto a bus (picture Richard Scarry’s story of the train commuters piling in and out) which took us to the cable car station. The cable car ride back over the harbour to
A week or so after that was our trip to
When we finally all tumbled off the bus at the hotel, cramped and tired and grumpy, it was to find we had minimal time to unpack and find Greg’s work attire, iron his business shirt and send him off to a meeting in the company's KL office. The girls and I wandered around the hotel after he had gone and tagged along with a church couple who invited us to join them to take the kids to an indoor theme park. This was impressive and completely foreign to us and was such an experience for the children. Even an adult sized, stomach-hurling monster of a roller coaster was suspended indoors and occasionally roared overhead, accompanied by high shrieking and much waving of arms from the seats inside it. While the girls were in the theme park with the children and childminder of our friends, I walked around the mall with the parents. The shops were amazing but dizzying and soon I felt completely mentally overloaded and just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Greg caught up with us just before we left and joined us for the half hour wait on the baking tarmac for our complimentary shuttle bus back to the hotel, really a rattling little white minivan with no air-conditioning and a door that wouldn’t open from the inside. Once back in our room we had to change the children for bed and get ourselves ready in double quick time to attend the first evening meeting of the church camp.
The following day was spent in the meeting room with the speakers who spoke a sincere, simple but rich message that we found life impacting. We were also split into teams and had to perform a drama or song involving every member of the team no matter how young or old, based on the Chronicles of Narnia. This was a challenge without props or half the team understanding the story line, but we gritted our teeth and played our part in a mangled rendition of the search for Aslan, me dressed as a Geisha in the hotel robe and Greg as a rebellious youth. Don’t ask how those fit into the storyline, I’m not quite sure I understand it yet myself. There were some hysterically funny moments to be had; our Mr Tumnus was a sidesplitting rendition of the original and our Mr and Mrs Beaver caused paralytic laughter, enhanced by the fact that they had no idea what beavers were. Our mascot, Aslan, completely stole the show wearing an elaborate headdress fashioned from crepe paper, feathers and fronds from a local broom. I have no stomach for acting and no talent whatsoever in that area, but I did enjoy watching Greg’s antics as his acting talent came to the fore and he pranced around with the Snow Queen getting riotous applause from the crowd.
It was quite an experience and to top it off, we went off alone on our last free morning to the massive aquarium by the famous
Jun. 17, 2006 - Animal Lover
Jun. 10, 2006 - Looking Up
May. 25, 2006 - Sentosa Visit Number Two
Yesterday we went back to Sentosa, the leafy little island just off
Our first trip to Sentosa was made by just me and the girls while Greg was away in
It was very odd being at this resort without a man to order the drinks, scare admiring strangers off, shoo away the lizards, carry three suitcases at once, argue about the bill, feign polite disinterest to a friendly European chef and hail a cab, but with adrenalin flowing just under the surface the entire time he was gone, I somehow made it through without too many mishaps and was elated to get back to Singapore. Among my moments of sheer lip-biting stress was the heart stopping view of my girls struggling in the depth of the adult pool, which they had inadvertently crossed into. Maddy was well out of her depth and Kenzie, bless her heart was rescuing her, but was being pushed under the surface by Maddy’s flailing arms and legs. I watched in horrified slow motion, and everything around me slowed to a dim swirling blur except the crystal clear point where my two children’s half submerged heads were seen just above the water. After only a few seconds they reached the barrier between the deep and shallow part and climbed onto it, Maddy choking and screaming and Kenzie pale and shocked. I was close to the edge of the pool and beckoned to them and they ran to me along the shallow barrier wall. I was in complete control of the part of my brain that had been about to launch my fully clothed body into the water, that was rubbing them briskly dry, that was speaking in an upbeat “isn’t this adventure fun?” voice but I was a spectator to the other part of me that felt physically ill with the scare, and the need to just howl out my fright. However, no such opportunity existed, so I sent them back into the water, shallow side only this time please little darlings, and sat on my lounger, frozen in my vigilance of them.
Dinner that night was another moment that I could have done with my husband’s assistance as the restaurant was very quiet and posh. The meal was an international buffet, which I would have loved to explore in slow gastronomic delight, but in reality was a dash after the children as they clutched huge white china dinner plates and attempted to load up with exotic looking, entirely unsuitable food. I was terrified a plate would slide to the tiles with a loud crash and the attention would have been more than I could’ve borne, so instead I looked like a mother hen on a caffeine trip as I interfered with each of them as they went between the islands of food. They were eventually seated at our table and I went off myself to get something to eat. It was the most amazing array of Asian, Mexican and western food I had ever laid eyes on. Quite a marvel that they can produce this many different dishes! After the children had eaten their first course, they wandered off to the dessert table. I was glad they had not seen this table before this point. It had at its centre, a free flowing chocolate fountain. There were many dishes around the fountain of delicacies to skewer and roll through the fascinating sheet of cascading chocolate, but I did not fancy my girls setting up a production line in order to consume as many skewers of dipped strawberries and marshmallows as they could. So I forced them to each take one skewer (less chance of being speared?) and a pile of sweet things and I dipped the side of each plate under the chocolate until a puddle of the stuff joined the other food on their plates and went back to the table with them. Alas, they soon desperately needed more dipping sauce, and then more things to dip…and so on, until I gave up and sat there resigned as they went back and forth like greedy orphans, faces wreathed in brown sticky smudges. They got the stuff nearly everywhere, and the polite half smiles of the waiting staff told me we were not flavour of the month and the sooner we left, the sooner they could plunge the table linen into bleach and mop the floor around our table.
The following day I signed the girls into a kid’s activity programme, which they were enthusiastic to be abandoned to, being completely fed up with their mother’s company. Having to check out from the room meant no privacy or escape for me, but I checked the bags into the concierge and sat by the edge of the pool, watching the world go by instead.
May. 24, 2006 - The Rasa Sentosa
May. 12, 2006 - Somewhere out there
Remember the classic kid’s movie, the American Tale, where the mouse is all alone in the big city? Yesterday I was that mouse and although I didn’t sit on the roof and sing to moon about being all alone, I did have strong “I am very alone” feelings and if there had been a roof….
This week has been short, as Monday was Labour Day here and we enjoyed the long weekend. The rest of the week flew by and we had dinner one night with a family from Gisborne who have moved here and have three kids (a daughter Kenzie’s age). We ate at a café suspended between two floors of the Great World mall and after the kids had eaten, they all disappeared down the escalator to the floor below where there was an exercise equipment expo. We watched over the balustrade as they tried to operate stepping machines with their short little legs and arms, and bounce on mini-tramps, and wobble on fat-shakers.
On Wednesday night we met some special friends for dinner while they were here on stop-over. We left the girls with a babysitter for the first time since arriving in
Then the weekend was upon us and Greg packed his bags and left for four days business in
“Hello, it’s me again” in a small apologetic voice.
She walked me through the process of re-setting the safe with its factory code (which I punched in wrong, twice) in her halting English and sighs of impatience on the other end of the phone as I stumbled my way through high security electronic programming. Finally the safe door swung open and I grabbed my passports and money and held them tightly, hardly daring to put them back in for fear I find it hard to get them out again. My heart resumed its normal rhythm after a few minutes and I re-set our pin number and replaced our passports and then gathered the kids to go off and enjoy our Saturday without Dad.
I got it into my head that I would take the girls to a new movie just released called Aquamarine. The movies are below us in the mall, but it seemed that the day was destined for disaster and our movie was not being shown there.
Righto I thought, off to somewhere else. We caught a cab asking for
The movie complex was crammed with young locals and the Eastern pop music competed with the whizzing gaming machines to make a whirling cacophony of noise that filled the 6 storey atrium and nearly did my head in. But I firmly joined a snaking queue thinking that we had come too far to give up now. We had just missed the movie by 10 minutes and had to buy tickets for a show in nearly two hours. Deep sigh.
I led the kids up to a food court breathing to stay calm and fighting a sense of intimidation and discomfort as we forced our way through masses of people to a little table in the depths of a café blaring out an adult action movie from three screens at a decibel level too high to faze out. I sat there glumly eating the salad plonked down in front of me, another uninspiring bowl of iceberg lettuce, dry slivers of carrot and two slices of cucumber in front of me while Maddy picked the chocolate icing off the top of a donut and Kenzie discovered she did not actually think she could eat her KFC mashed potato and cold milo. Despair was beginning to lap at the corners of my mind but I pep-talked us through the next hour brightly until I thought we had killed enough time to go and sit in the theatre and wait for the movie to start. We queued up and bought popcorn and iced tea and Pocky sticks (long chocolate covered biscuits) and tried to get into the theatre. But the official was extremely harsh with us and shouted at us for trying to get in and directed us over to a bench facing the wall. We crept away with our food and sat on the bench looking at the wall, people on either side of us and behind us on the other side of the bench. I could not stop tears brimming in my eyes at the sense of loneliness and isolation sitting there in this teeming, unfamiliar and brash environment. I did not let the kids see me cry and willed the next half an hour to pass quickly because I was longing for the darkness and distraction of the theatre to hide in.
But things went further downhill from there though.
When I thought I was pretty much at my lowest point, I kicked over my iced tea which I had carefully placed beneath the seat. A puddle of what looked remarkably like urine crept along the shiny white floor towards the wall, originating from between my feet. Maddy in her alarm to escape the liquid, dropped her chocolate into the puddle and so there I sat, tears pouring down my face on a bench surrounded by an urban sea of upmarket Asians, looking like I had done both wees and poos on the floor of the movie complex.
At that moment I wished with all my heart that we were anywhere but there and as my heart sank even further, I went back to the ticket counter, pushed into the queue beyond caring about the evil looks I was getting, and called to the attendant who was dishing up popcorn. I explained there was a spill and tried to hard to sound casual and confident when inside there was a lump in my throat and I just wanted to melt. The lady behind the counter wanted to see what I was talking about so the sea of curious people parted for her to inspect my accident before she bustled off to call the cleaners for the building. I sat there in shame on my seat, a part of me wanting to stand and bow to the gaze of the crowd, point to my cup and mime how it had spilled, Mr Bean style, protesting my innocence of wetting my pants. However, I chose to grit my teeth and keep my eyes down and mercifully a light flashed signifying that we were allowed to enter the movie theatre. We moved fast.
When we got in I realised that I had left Kenzie’s sweater at home. More sinking despair. The temperature in the movies is probably about 16 or 17 degrees. Cold enough to make you have goosebumps and your teeth chatter. So my huge eldest child had to cuddle on my lap for the entire movie, shivering, her heavy body nearly squeezing my legs completely numb. It is a miracle I could walk out of there.
By the time I got home I was so past it that I didn’t even feed the kids dinner but bought them a cherry pink slurpy from the 7-11 and gave them some watermelon. The movie choice was awful and at the end of the day I was heavy with the knowledge that I had exposed the girls to such Hollywood trash, traumatised them with what they thought was a bomb in my bedroom and fed them junk food and dragged them through the streets of hot
I am trying to stay easy-going and go with the flow but I guess I am unfamiliar with having to be brave for so many days in a row. This week has held my most cringing moments to date – and one I will no doubt treasure in years to come was Maddy’s clear, piping little voice in the taxi on Thursday,
“But Mummy HOW do babies get out of their mummy’s tummy? Tell ME!”
It was pure misfortune to have our first excellently English spoken taxi-diver on that very trip and does anyone know how hard it can be to distract a four year old with a demanding thirst for information on the back seat of a car?
May. 2, 2006 - "Mum, you are crazy"
Well, one of the interesting things about last week was that I completely forgot what day of the week we were on. Greg was getting ready for work saying something about it being Friday and I looked lovingly at him, thinking, “Man, he must be tired, it’s not Friday. Poor boy.” Imagine my surprise when the calendar was shoved under my nose as proof and I was made to recount what I had done each day up to this one…slowly it dawned on me. I was completely and utterly mistaken. It was actually Friday and not some half-way version of Wednesday and Thursday that I had led myself to believe.
The revelation was bewildering.
I went into Kenzie’s bedroom and knelt by her bed saying,
“Kenz, Dad thinks I’m crazy ‘coz I didn’t know it was Friday today.”
She didn’t even look up from her book and said in a casual voice,
“Mum. You are crazy.”
That summed it up for me pretty succinctly and I suddenly decided to make the most of my newly recognized disorder and claim all the benefits I could from being forgetful. Problem is, I forget I’m supposed to be clever and crafty and instead I suspect my family have shaken their heads sorrowfully at my demise. Being thirty is very mentally taxing I have found.
The week itself, apart from its identity crisis, was peaceful and enjoyable. The girls and I did our usual thing of finding somewhere new to explore. This time it was Tanglin Mall, an ex-pat hangout which was quiet and upmarket and I almost felt like a fish out of water!!! I definitely do not fit the standard ex-pat model and come minus both the fat wallet and the slender bronzed image.
We also went to the Singapore National Library, a brand new multi-storied building that reminded me upon walking in, of a top CIA Headquarters. We talked in hushed tones to the front desk staff who said we would have to bring Birth Certificates and other various National Security clearance to be able to borrow children’s books. We humbly left the sleek foyer but once outside I turned on my heel, and we went charging back in, past the scary front desks and found ourselves profoundly lost in a matter of seconds. May I just add at this point that we had not yet seen a single book. Nor shred of paper. What we were faced with was a bank of elevator doors and a few escalators leading to who knew where, just somewhere deep in the bland depths of this tomb-like building. A few wrong turns and up and downs in the elevator finally bought us to a glass encased room, full of books and lots of people studying in silence. In fact the silence was so intense that one could hear the hum that all big buildings reverberate with. We crept up to a You Are Here map on the wall and found the purple stripe that indicated English Children’s Books, and after a few dead ends, we actually found ourselves in the right place. The kids section was enormous. A huge cavernous space with about a dozen rows of books, tightly packed so only their piddly little spines were visible, and jammed in so tightly that it was a battle to yank one out to read. Kenzie and Maddy sat together at a small plastic table and K quietly read just over a whisper as there were huge signs on all the walls that read SILENCE PLEASE. It was oppressive and after 20 minutes the girls begged to leave. I obliged with enthusiasm and we burst out of the glass doors into the outdoors with shouts of relief at having to suppress our natural urges to make noise. Maddy leapt up and down with joy outside as inside the library her shoes had squeaked and we kept looking at her sternly with “Could you please walk quietly?” faces.
After that we walked around Bugis Junction, and I bought the girls lunch but half way through Mads needed the loo. Travelling with kids is a whole new experience as you see more restrooms than any other international tourists and I could probably rate them on a global scale. This meant we gobbled up our meal faster than the speed of light and went off in search of a clean Ladies Room in Seiyu, a huge department store.
The girls, Kenzie in particular, has a bit of a nervous breakdown when she has to use a public restroom. It has quite a bit to do with the fact that the toilets here flush themselves automatically and this nearly gave her heart failure the first time it happened. Now her normal plan of attack is to walk up and down peering in each free stall to see which are squatting holes and which are western toilets. Once a suitable toilet is located she waves us in frantically and makes me stay in front of the flush sensor on the wall so that it doesn’t flush while she’s on it. All in all it is a nerve-wracking job and once we were through, we went out and I browsed in the ladies clothing section. Why I do that to myself I can’t think, as it is not a comforting experience, but a fascinating one I have to admit. The clothes are sold in sections of different labels, each manned by their own sales staff and the colours are jewel bright, a sparkling range of soft silky fabrics that are a far cry from the plain black and white in most NZ stores. Lots of sequins and lace and frills and nonsense on these tiny little shreds of clothing, remind me of the Barbie outfits I played with as a child. Maddy’s favourite shopping game is to hide in the racks of clothes, quite a successful mission for her, as neither Kenzie or I can often find her. I have learned the secret though, is to look at the sales attendant’s faces and the one with the most disgruntled expression is the direction to head and 9 times out of ten, Maddy is deeply ensconced in their rack of designer gowns with her sticky little fingers and robust sneakers.
With the excuse of a birthday impending, I booked myself a hair appointment. I chose the busiest salon (must be good) and approached the desk a little timidly as I have the issue of thinning hair and really wanted to disguise the lack of locks I have on the front and top of my head. This was not the moment to be discreet though, as the man who came out of the depths of the shop to greet me was very local and struggled to comprehend my diplomatic references to what I required. Finally I found myself talking to him about my balding head in a manner similar to the way one talks to the garden boy in Zim, who knows only broken English, very loudly, and simply. The ladies in the waiting area heard every word of the woes of my tresses and I walked out of there feeling like I was about one inch tall. My appointment was for Saturday and I drew myself up to my full three inch height and strode back into the salon for my cut, colour and hair thinning treatment. By the time I left 4 hours later, I was in dire need of a loo, could just about speak Chinese and was so hungry I could have eaten the strap of my handbag. But the good news was that my hair had not been dyed purple and I had only mildly commented that I did not fancy a mullet to which he chopped off “my tail” as Mr Tan put it, and I actually felt happy with the change. I had received a head massage that nearly put me into a coma, finished off with the apprentice grabbing great handfuls of my hair and pulling up straight up with enormous force. I had visions of it all being ripped out and having to leave the salon with a Dolly Parton wig on squiff, but thanks be to the Lord, enough of my hair stayed on my head to style and leave without anything that wasn’t my own.
My birthday was a lovely day and I was pampered and spoiled rotten. After church we drove home via the Geyland main streets, with crumbling architecture, dollied up “street women” in sleazy doorways and numerous eateries, all with plastic furniture and advertising Frog Porridge and Pig Organ Soup. Do you know what a mind altering attitude one has to have to go to worship in a building marinated in the smell of durion and Goose Liver Rice? Enough said, except to say that one is reminded very quickly that God looks only at the heart and is no respecter of persons.
On Sunday evening we decided to go for a Singapore River Cruise in a low slung bum-boat as they are called. These are exhaust-fume billowing barges with canvas roofs, and a little man who sits at the back and steers. We sat on dirty wooden benches and peered over the sides at the incredibly pretty vista on either side of the river. We were puttering along a narrow channel with high stone walls, topped on either side with cafés and fairy light strewn trees in front of lolly-coloured street shops. The atmosphere was jovial and alive and one could hear the tinkle of glasses and the muffled laughter of socialising over the motor of the boat and the slap slap of the green water.
The boat had a canned commentary in a broad
There is something so peaceful about being on or beside water and we felt so relaxed by the end of it. We boarded the quay as the rain started and took shelter in an Indian restaurant where we had to spin gloriously long yarns about mysterious rainforest creatures (Fergus the Tree Frog) to keep Maddy still at the table and motivated on eating one grain of rice after another. Literally. They baulked at the traces of butter chicken sauce, practically foaming at the mouth and pawing for their water urgently so one child ate approximately one tablespoon of plain rice for their dinner, and another ate a man-sized serving of naan bread. We enjoyed our dinner at least!
Apr. 25, 2006 - The Quest for a Swimming Top
Kenzie had a lovely birthday. The Night Safari was excellent and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves all agreeing it was a well worthwhile trip. Our favourites were the Malaysian Fire Dancers and the Creatures of the Show where we came extremely close to a friendly 10 foot boa constrictor. We arrived back home at about 10.30pm, all exhausted except for Maddy who had drunk a lime slushy and was sky-high until after 11.
On Friday I received a call from a lady I had met at church the previous week suggesting we meet for lunch that day. We went down to the mall and she found us at Macdonalds. She had her two sons with her who are 7 and 5, so similar ages to the girls, and relaxed companionship ensued. After we’d eaten, we headed out to one of the districts in her car, to an indoor playground. This was a real blessing, and was the first time the girls had experienced an opportunity to play with other children, or run around and climb and scream for weeks. They got really tired and thirsty (I had bought no water with me) but it was the highlight of my week to have conversation with someone else, more than just the surface basics. She is a kind hearted lady who was extremely generous with her time and friendship.
On Saturday we ventured off to the
We took the mono-rail around the park, but to be honest there was nothing to see except wire cages below us. The highlight would have been the very high man-made waterfall, and the flamingo lagoon where we ate lunch.
Then after a while back at home we decided to go for a swim, except my togs seemed to have vanished into thin air. Big Problem. Very Big Problem! So I went hunting for a new top while Greg took the girls off to swim without me. My hunt took me to
Today we went off to church for the second week, and Kenzie was suffering anxiety butterflies at the thought of going to children’s church. She needn’t have feared: they threw a birthday party in her honour, complete with party hats and cake, and gave her a lovely present of a bible facts book written for children in humorous rhyme. She beamed when she came out and found me at the end, no friends (mostly boys there) but still a good time had. We headed home via Orchard (much to the regret of my still sore feet) as Greg needed a new wallet, and ducked under a pavement café roof for lunch as the heavens opened and it teemed with heavy rain. We enjoyed watching the passing pedestrians go by in the rain, some with shopping bags perched vertically atop their heads, sheltering their heads in an extremely unsatisfactorily fashion, and bound to wreck their hairstyles anyway.
We are feeling okay and enjoy the bustle and excitement of this vibrant city, its people, cultures and geography. We do miss home intensely though – it pays not to dwell on home too much lest we start feeling negative about the huge blessing we have been given to spend some time in this part of the world.
