Archive for the ‘Migration’ Category

After school care, Jorick’s birthday, 2nd Car, Kangaroo bullets and Snakes.

Monday, May 5th, 2008

During her holiday Nicole enjoyed vacation care very much and wanted to continue this experience with “after-school-care”. When school is closing at 2.45 pm she can move to the Genesis OSH Club (Outside School Hours Care) which is at the same location. The days we still pick her up from school she is disappointed for not going to OSH, so we try to increase the number of days she can go there.
Her English is improving very quickly. She can understand a lot, speak some and is even able to read some child-booklets with a limited number of words. We are very happy with all the support Nicole is experiencing. Sometimes a voluntary mother at school helps Nicole to translate the lesson, two days a week she gets private lessons from a Dutch speaking teacher and also at OSH Nicole can practice her English.
Overall Nicole adapts very well, has some girlfriends and feels very happy here. She also enjoys the outside living with all the animals around.  
In front of the house we noticed some kangaroos regularly showing up, but also leaving things behind. After we teased Nicole that it was her job to remove the Kangaroo bullets, she was asking us permission to really clean it up. We were surprised but when she kept asking …  She likes to catch geckos, frogs and other animals, and she likes to watch the possums at the end of the day stealing the grape-fruits from our grape-fruit trees. They keep the lemons and citrons for us. 

Jorick has made a big change but still has some steps to go before he is adapted like Nicole. Until recently he refused to speak in English and when we said something in English he then firmly told us “Ik spreek Nederlands, JA !”. The last weeks he started trying and is asking how to say things in English and is even trying to learn us some English words. The first weeks he enjoyed pre-school and was looking forward to each day he went to school. Then suddenly he started crying intensely each time Jan left him at pre-school. However with very good support from “The Living Faith Early Learning Center” he now feels at home there and has some friends there. It was also very positive that some class-mates from pre-school visited him on his birthday with their parents, which narrowed the gap between home and pre-school even more.
His birthday was a good experience for him, with his class-mates and some other children from (and with) new friends we have met here. He enjoyed this and also was happy with the emails, postcards and presents he received from the Netherlands. Thank you all for that !
Anyhow, we get the impression that Jorick still doesn’t feel 100% at home here. The fact that his toys (in our container) still haven’t arrived yet also is causing this feeling we guess. Anyway, we see things improving and don’t expect it will take long before he is fully adapted as well. At least he went to an Australian hairdresser for the first time 😉

Last week some Dutch friends (Wim, Ellen, Jim and Rene, staying in Coffs Harbour) came over and joined us when bringing the children to school. The children then showed to be very proud and also this helped them to bring (known trusted and new) pieces together. A good experience. They even left some presents for Jorick’s birthday (and for Nicole) which was highly appreciated.

The last weeks were characterized by many hours in the car each working day. In the morning Jan had to bring Anita, Nicole and Jorick to different locations and had to pick them up in the afternoon. With all local coaching and support involved this took him 5-6 hours a day. Last week Jan has bought a 2nd car (Ford Falcon) at an auction house, so Anita can go on her own now saving Jan and the children much time to spend on other things.
For next week Jan has planned to buy a lawn mower, a brush cutter, a chainsaw, a hedge trimmer and some other tools to do garden maintenance as well. We have plans to create a playground and some tracks (for walking, jogging and mountain biking) through the bush-garden. Another target is to have a closer look at all the equipment and installations around the house, like the water infrastructure with tanks, pumps, valves, water streams, dams, ponds, sun-collector, signaling&control equipment, etc., the sophisticated “recycling sewer tank” with signaling and control equipment and the electrical infrastructure with detectors, switches, etc.
Jan will also start more seriously to investigate the local Brisbane (labor) market, so he can start looking for a job as soon as the children are adapted, the whole week to school, and all settlement things are largely handled.
Anita loves her job at the hospital and gets more and more introduced in all procedures and local habits at the hospital. Medical English, Australian sayings and patients with Queenslander dialect are still a challenge and probably stay a challenge for some time.

Yesterday Anita noticed a Snakeskin on the lawn and we would like to know which snake this is, so if you have any suggestions … This also indicates that we soon need to use a lawn mower.

At the Brisbane’s Alma Zoo (see picture) Nicole and Jorick could touch a snake and small crocodile. Nicole really wanted to wear the big Python Carpet snake round her neck but her father was not yet ready for it, perhaps another time ;-).

Below you’ll find some pictures made on Jorick’s birthday.

Wish you all the best.

Kind regards,
Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick

 

           

                              



Start in a new home, Anita started working and a new car.

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

On the 4th of April we moved to our new home. Since then we are enjoying the peaceful natural environment. The house is not very big, but enough. It has a moderate living room with kitchen, 4 sleeping rooms, a media room/rumpus, a study room/formal living room, two bath rooms, two toilets, a laundry an inbuilt garage and a separate shed with a primitive build in bathroom. In Australia this is a very standard way of house design, with more rooms than we are used to in NL.
The house is not connected to town water,has no sewer connection, has no cable connection and is not connected to gas supply. The water supply is organized by catching rain water from the roof, store it in tanks and pumping it through filters to the house. We have a sophisticated sewer recycling tank producing “grey water” for the garden, have DVB-T (HDTV) and a solar hot water system on the roof. It’s all part of a new experience.
A phone line with ADSL is up and running now. Until recently internet was provided by satellite using a satellite dish.
Although we are still camping in our house(our container hasn’t arrived yet), we really enjoy it after the 5 weeks in a small cabin. Last week we’ve received the message that our container has a delay of two weeks and still was in Singapore instead of Brisbane. Hopefully we can unpack our stuff somewhere in May.
In the bush-garden we made already several “discovery trips”. Already Koalas, Possums and many tropical birds showed up. There are also some frog ponds with many different species of frogs all making different noises. Especially the small ones are fascinating (see photo).

Nicole has her 2nd week of vacation care (school has two weeks holiday) and loves it. The main reason for putting her in vacation care is that it helps her to learn better English and she really likes it. She also has 3 hours a week private lessons in English from a Dutch speaking teacher and she is learning very fast . We are very happy and proud that she is adapting so good and quickly. Next week Nicole will start with 2 days a week with after school care and she is looking forward to it.

Initially Jorick started happy and greedy at pre-school. However last two weeks were hard. He didn’t want to go to school and was crying when Jan left him there. When Jan went picking him up he was happy and certainly enjoyed school very much. Although we see improvement, we expect that it will still take some time  before he is fully adapted. Friday next week (25 April) Jorick will become 4 years old and will have his first ” birthday party” in Australia. He already dreams about it

Anita has started working at The Prince Charles Hospital at the Geriatric ward. The first experiences are positive. Nice colleagues and Geriatrics is very much the same as in NL, so that makes the start easier. The hardest thing to learn is the Australian way of saying the things. The road from home to work is nice and not to busy. In NL she worked 3 days a week, so 5 days a week is a little bit heavy.

Jan is still busy to arrange many things around settlement. Many formalities have to be arranged  with regard to the house, the shipping of our goods, the schools, formalities around migration, etc.  A rental car is expensive so last week Jan has bought a car (Pajero 4wd) at an auction house.This is our first car and will make it possible to travel inland. Since Jan is now very busy as a taxi driver we will now start looking for a 2nd car as well.

Overall things are getting into place. The climate is adorable and the space and nature are impressive. We also have met many nice people here and have already had many invitations with BBQ’s which is a national habit here.
When we hear about the cold weather in NL we hope that it it soon will become better there as well. Spring is normally a very attractive season.
Sometimes we are missing friends and family and would like to pop by. Unfortunately this is not so easy with regard to the distance. Anyway, we are happy that we can stay in touch through internet, phone and mail.

Wish you all the best.

Kind regards,
Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick