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a kiwi family with eight kids and a grandpa
chronicle their pilgrimage from Singapore to London and beyond.....overland all the way

that was in 2008/2009....

then they kept on pilgrim-ing....2012....

then the 1,000km walk-for-water in 2014...

at the edge of the world

in Him we live and move and have our being ~ Acts 17:28
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Another new pilgrimage: 2012

June 6th, 2012

It won’t be fifteen months like the last one.

It won’t even be fifteen weeks; it’ll be about half that.

But it will contain a pilgrimage….of sorts.

The first plan was to walk the Camino Frances from St Jean Pied-du-Port in France to Santiago in Spain, the old pilgrimage trail. Of course we’d read books that said not to do it with kids and while our eldest kids can now be called adults (most of the time), there are still a handful of little ones. We’ve never been the sort to be put off by people saying “it’s impossible”, so we made the decision to try to make it happen. Turns out FatherBear can’t get enough time off work to be able to hike the whole 800km slowly, so we’ve decided to do a three week stint and see how far we get….and sandwich that in between a week’s visit to Paris and a week’s visit to London and a week on a canal boat cruising up to Oxford. All things we wanted to do on the last pilgrimage, but which were not achieved then.

In the forseeable future, this is the final year that we anticipate all the children being free to drop everything and just go (the call of tertiary study and earning a living is starting to make itself heard)…..so we offered a final family fling. Older children were free to choose to stay home. I’m glad they’re all coming.

We’ll be off at the end of August and back towards the end of October.
We’re still tossing up whether or not to take a lappie……we’ll be lugging Every Single Thing we stuff into our packs for 20km or so each day. If we take it, FatherBear will probably photo-blog with few words. I (MotherBear) want to devote my time to creating a tangible hold-in-your-hands record, and experience reminds me that when we are having busy days, my paper journal gets neglected if I’m blogging as well. I have a vision of words and pictures and embroideries and a break from computers!

BUT…..I was intrigued to see what would happen if I posted a wee note here in our cyber-spot.

So I have.

Next step will be updating our photo; the eldest son is now taller than the mother and so he’ll have to stand next to the father, the baby is no longer carried and will take her place standing at the end of the line-up.

Posted in 2012 | 16 Comments »

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six months on

July 17th, 2010

A few people have emailed to ask how we’re doing. Funny, these relationships-that-really-are-relationships-even-though-we’ve-never-met.

Anyway, the answer is………

The kids are loving being home. They enjoy having books to read, bikes to ride, trees to climb and friends to play with. They also enjoy knowing what’s going to happen on a given day and not having to share a bed or sleep on the floor. If asked if they would like to take another trip, they answer in the affirmative, sometimes with the proviso that it is only for six months.

The Dadda is also pleased to be home. He switched jobs soon after arriving back and is enjoying the stimulating and challenging environment he finds himself in. Occasionally he asks,”Who wants to go to Malaysia for a roti canai?”

The Mama is not discontent, but she is unsettled. She saw things that made her question how she is living and she is struggling with coming to terms with what that means for here and now. She questions lots and has found few answers.
She has also been collecting past experiences and putting them here. When that project is done, she’ll really want some answers.

Oh, and we should tell you, we found the perfect little piece of paradise…..ten acres that exceeded our expectations. But we were not peaceful about buying it, and so we didn’t. Crazy, but the right thing to do. We haven’t seen another piece like it since.
Maybe we’re meant to go and live in an Indian slum!

Posted in 2008/09, children, homecoming, learning | 10 Comments »

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a new pilgrimage

January 21st, 2010

(actually written on 21 January 2010, post-trip….but I’ve dated it to appear at the top of the blog forever-n-ever….and then reinstated it in its proper chronological home as we kept pilgrim-ing)

When we set out we had *a long way to go*.
In particular, a pilgrimage from Singapore to London and beyond – overland all the way. The beyond bit was because we had time to fill, but no definite plans. As it turned out, we did not get to London, but we did get a lot further – as far north as Lindisfarne, as far south as Greece and as far east as Turkey.
And we did manage to go overland all the way – in trains, busses, tuktuks, elephants, bicycles, boats, motorhomes, taxis, oxcart, trams, tow trucks, motorbikes, horses, and on foot. We spent 568 hours in long haul travel in vehicles not our own (and then what must add up to a few more days in waiting time too!)…plus we covered over 15,000km in the motorhomes we bought (and later resold).
In the 449 days we were away (that’s fourteen months, three weeks and two days) we slept in 158 different places, passing through 33 different countries – staying anything from a day (and although you can drive the entire length of Serbia in one long day, we would NOT say we’ve really been there!) through to six weeks, occasionally stopping three weeks in one town.

newzealand australia singapore malaysia thailand laos
(thailand) cambodia  vietnam china hongkong (china) mongolia
russia estonia latvia lithuania poland germany austria switzerland (germany) thenetherlands belgium england france italy greece
bulgaria serbia hungary slovakia czechrepublic (germany) (poland)
(czech) (hungary) (bulgaria) romania turkey
unitedarabemirates (australia) (newzealand)

We experienced temperature extremes from well-below-zero to mid-forties; that is freezing cold to blazingly hot.
We visited castles, cathedrals, temples, museums and ruins.
We climbed mountains, rode bicycles and horses, and took long walks.
We ate everything we were offered, the least favourites being sheeps’ tail soup in Mongolia and green Mekong river sludge in Laos.
We filled forty-three journals.
We repaired our shoes more times than we can count.
And that’s about how many photos we took, too.
We stayed with people, who live in bamboo huts with pigs under the raised floor, felt gers without running water, highrise apartments in cities…and we visited people, who live on the rubbish dump, in orphanages, in old stone buildings that have been standing for hundreds of years.
We were awed by the scenery, enveloped in the history, and had our hearts touched by the people we met.

We thank those who have virtually travelled with us on this journey for the encouragement they have given. We thank those, who, sacrificially in many cases, opened their homes and lives to us. And we invite anyone who happens across this spot in cyberspace to take a wander with us – many of the places we went were timeless; a century from now they will still be the same, they will not date, or not quickly anyway.
Maybe you won’t make it to all the places we did – there are 634 posts on this blog, not to mention a fair few extra pages as well. There are over one and a half thousand comments (no wonder we didn’t end up replying to them all!) from some of the more than 26,000 people who have visited (over 185,000 hits to date).

We went a long way, but the adventure of our lives-in-the-future is not over and we still have a long way to go. We will always be pilgrims.

You can find us writing now at have pinny, will cook,
and Jgirl15 is launching a new blog for children,
stemming from her own artistic passions and adventures
and inspired by the world-creativity we have experienced.
~ made by a child ~

One last word:
We were privileged to spend time with the folks at Big Brother Mouse in Luang Prabang. If you get the opportunity to go there, you will not be disappointed.
If you go nowhere else on this blog, please take a look at this post.
As suggested by a reader, we set up a paypal account to collect donations,
but we are having trouble linking it to the blog,
so our ongoing fundraising efforts are
going to remain localised for now.

Now I’m off to do the very last blog-job – turn the order of posts around so we can read chronologically as we revist our trip over the next year! (I’m ignoring the enormous job of editting every post in order to be able to print a hard copy for the children to have for posterity)

Posted in 2008/09, homecoming | 9 Comments »

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The Last Post

January 17th, 2010

Auckland, New Zealand

We’ve finally done all the firsts….first time visiting the supermarket and vege shop, first checking the mailbox, first play with neighbours, first chat over the fence, first BBQ, first time to the organic shop, first summer swim, first walk, first day back at work, first contact with medical personnel (thankfully this does not tend to be a regular occurrence for us, but we are going to have booster shots done so we can take off again any time in the next ten years without having to go through the rigmarole of weekly jabs for Far Too Long At Far Too Great An Expense), first rain, first vege planting, first bread baking (we’ve even got a sourdough bug on the go now)…we had completed all the firsts except going back to church.
Now that’s done too.
One lovely (obviously-blog-reading) lady spoke to us afterwards, saying she had looked over and seen us and thought that if she’d been us she’d have been sitting there missing the close-knit Romanian church group we were a part of for a month; she’d have been feeling today was impersonal and non-interactive and very big. Strangely enough, these were not the things that stood out to me. I noticed the niceness. As a matter of fact, in a number of different settings, this keeps happening over and over. Everything seems so pristine, so well-cared-for, so unbroken, so matching, so nice. We don’t attend a church that meets in a big fancy cathedral or even in a modern church building – we set up shop each Sunday in a local school hall. But, even still, it looked nice. And when the lights were dimmed, it seemed like a performance!
Secondly, everything felt slow. Instead of needing to race to try and keep up with the words of the songs, we were able to sing along comfortably. Even the song that had been learnt while we were away. It was not completely unfamiliar to us though – we encountered it first in Romania, and now we know what it meant;-)
Thirdly, there was real English. The sermon included turns of phrase that you just don’t hear coming from language learners. This added a depth and made me aware again of the importance for people to have the Scriptures in their own tongue. Having not given it a moment’s thought for many years, I remembered that once upon a time I had thought I would be a Bible translator some day….clearly that never happened.
Fourthly, we were able to connect with people we know. What a comfortable blessing, and one we shall try to not take for granted.
The last thing we noticed was how our trip continues to affect this new life.
Cloths draped over a big wooden cross made us think of similar ones draped over statues in Cambodia.

A sermon reference to the multiplicity of gods in ancient days brought forth images of statues lined up outside temples, both in Asia and Europe.

A prayer for those suffering as a result of the Haiti earthquake led my thoughts to the suffering elsewhere as well.

Our experience of the past fifteen months will no doubt continue to mould us into the future. But the time has come for us to stop the recording.
Our adventure of life for the next year will involve Rob continuing to serve the local community at his place of employment….giving to the wider world community by raising money for Big Brother Mouse…becoming a biking family….possibly becoming a farming family….we’ve already started new learning experiences through books and activities….we’ll hopefully take road trips round our own country….we’ll dream dreams.

And one day, we hope to reopen Pilgrims’ Progress, for another chapter.

insert picture of the ten of us lined up like our front page picture….but we need to take the picture first 😉 (and we’d quite like to take it on the new land we are going to call home signifying our new adventure into a different lifestyle….we have been to look at properties, but haven’t found The One yet….so maybe any picture will do)

PS In a few days – or perhaps when we’ve taken that last photo – we’re planning on rearranging the blog. We are not going to close it completely as some travelling families have done when they finish their travels (maybe because we do not feel we have finished), but we are going to reverse the order of the posts so that we can read from beginning to end!

PPS When we had a look at an old post the other day we discovered it had somehow got truncated…..Grandpa Gene, we’ll be sending you the full version of the story you were in the middle of reading!

Posted in 2008/09, children, fundraising, God, homecoming, language, postcard: New Zealand | 10 Comments »

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another question

January 16th, 2010

Auckland, New Zealand

Another dinner out.
Another question: how have you changed as a family as a result of the trip?

Now *that’s* a hard one!

The first thought springing to one of the younger minds was that ERgirl3 loves Dadda so much more now. True.
An honest older child appraisal is that living together so closely for such an extended period with no means of escape from each other taught us more clearly what pushes each other’s buttons. True again.

But that was all they could come up with. No-one had any further ideas.
So the questioner probed differently: are we rich here?, do you think we need to have so much?
Everyone agreed that, without a doubt, New Zealand is richer than most of the places we travelled to. But Jgirl15 observed, “We have seen we can get by with less stuff, but whether we WANT to is a different matter.” Honest.
Kboy12 added, “We’re definitely more thankful now for what we do have.”

Mother whispered a prompt: what about Big Brother Mouse?
Ah yes, we’re going to work to sponsor another book for kids in Laos. We have come up with some more ways to do this…..Mboy6 suggested that we give money that is gifted to us to the fund, and every time we have a haircut at home instead of at the hairdresser’s we can put the money we would have spent towards the sponsorship, and whenever we find money on the ground we’ll put it in the elephant (we were given an elephant before we went away for saving money in, and we’re trying to fill it up again for BBM).
Additionally, we have been in contact with the BBM founder and discovered that one of the things he would really like to see coming in to the country is “educational type toys” – the sort that are sold in museum shops, that people keep for a while and then lose interest in – toys/activities that illustrate a scientific principle or perhaps construction technique (things like a Roman arch or solar system model, globe or microscope, anatomical model or pyramid construction set). I am convinced there must be a lot of this type of thing lying around developed nations and we’re going to try to work out how to get some of them to Laos!
(By the way, some of you readers have said you will contribute if we put up a paypal account – thanks for the idea and the support – we need to work out how to do it!)

But back to how our family has changed. Rob had a few more ideas than the children:
* we’ve learnt how to deal with new and challenging situations; everyone has grown 
   up more, become more independent, yet at the same time become more
   interdependent, being content with each others’ company. The children have gone 
   from being quite self-conscious about speaking a different language to being
   comfortable even doing the shopping in a foreign tongue.

* we’ve learnt (again – it’s not that we didn’t know it already!) how selfish we can be,
   but also how much fun we can have together

* we’ve learnt how privileged we are, and now the challenge is to see how that is
   going to affect our lives in the future

Posted in 2008/09, children, homecoming, learning, parenting, postcard: New Zealand, quote | No Comments »

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one of the nice things…

January 15th, 2010

…about being home is that Grandpa asks the big girls over to help him put together a top secret that cannot be discussed with anyone else until after dinner.
The little kids agonise through BBQ-ed sausages, onions and tomatoes with a good helping of coleslaw and a pile of oven-baked fries before discovering just What It Is hiding in the fridge that they have been banned from opening.

Eleven individual knickerbocker glories.

Grandpa has talked about these forever.

Today we got to try them.

photos of the KGB team and their creations are coming….

Posted in 2008/09, children, food, grandpa's stories, homecoming, postcard: New Zealand | No Comments »

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resigned

January 14th, 2010

Auckland, New Zealand

ERgirl3 has resigned herself to the fact that Dadda will go off to work every morning.
Now she is asking, “Please may I go wif you?”

PS Rob has not resigned 😉

Posted in 2008/09, children, homecoming, parenting, postcard: New Zealand, quote | No Comments »

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comments

January 13th, 2010

Auckland, New Zealand

Of course individual replies are much more personal, but responding to readers’ comments and question in a blogpost is much easier. Even though we do not usually shy away from difficult, *easy* is good right now.

Oh you are here! Welcome home. How we will miss your travels!!
Us too 😉

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks so much for keeping your lovely blog all this time, it was wonderful to read while anticipating my own rtw and great to come back to after I returned! If I ever make it back to New Zealand (hard not to plan RTW #2, you’ll see) I’ll drop you guys a line. )
You’re right – we’re already talking timelines!
And if you do come back here, it would be GREAT to actually meet you face-to-face.
Or how about meeting somewhere else? Although we have a dreadful track record of meeting up with fellow blogging travellers on the road – we failed every time we tried to!

Hmmmmm…wondering, wondering when in 2010 we can get to that table for an international meal with you;-)
You name the day baby!!

That instant surreal did we ever leave feeling is my LEAST favourite bit about having travelled.
I was expecting to feel it was all a distant dream at some stage….as you point out it was an INSTANT feeling. This caught me by surprise. I thought it would all still feel fresh and close for a few days or even weeks, but it was gone immediately. Definitely surreal.

I live in the United States and I sent you a comment one time, about a year ago, as my family of 5 took a trip to SE Asia and when we were in Chiang Khong, Thailand, a lady on the street asked us if we knew you guys…do you recall this at all?
We sure do – we thought it was so funny! That’s the beauty of going to small out-of-the-way places, I suppose.

So, we are tentatively thinking of this route:
Denver, Colorado to Seoul, S.Korea, to Beijing, to Vietnam, spend time traveling throughout SE Asia, Bangkok to Europe and doing the motorhome thing (Like you all did) to tour Europe, and then head back home. (any feedback?)
All that in six to seven months? I find it hard to imagine going any faster than we did and we had over seven months each in Europe and Asia. Of course, if you are flying that will cut travelling times down significantly. I’d say, “Pick out the places you really want to see, and check that you will have long enough in them. Also, make sure you leave a few days up your sleeve for if you come across a place you absolutely adore and would like to linger in. At the end of the day, wherever you choose, you’ll experience something.”

Questions:
Is it difficult to buy and sell (and register…I remember your blog discussing this process being kind of hard) a motorhome in Europe?
Yes and no. From our research, we discovered Germany is the *cheapest* place to buy motorhomes. It is, however, difficult if you do not have an EU passport. If you have an EU passport (fortunately for us Rob has a British one), then you just need to waltz on in to the local paper-shuffling bureau, get yourself registered and then you can do anything. For this you will need a friend who will let you use their address – but you do not even need proof that you live there, so in that sense it is easy-peasy. If you have the friend in the first place, that is.
If you don’t have an EU passport, you can only buy a vehicle in Germany for export. What this means is that you have x weeks to get it out of the country and then it can never ever ever come back in (so you need to plan your route carefully). You need to re-register it another country – I would imagine at some cost and with a great deal of inconvenience. Be warned.
Not sure about other countries. Germany was the best for us because we wanted to use E-bay. If you can manage to buy, then selling is a breeze!

Do you know how much it would cost in Europe per day assuming we could purchase a motorhome?
I can only tell you what it cost us. Once we had the vans, our costs sat at about NZ$100 per day for absolutely everything – that includes parking charges and gas (and remember we had two vehicles so all that was doubled – and we travelled over 15,000km), repairs coz one van kept falling apart, food, attractions, postage, phone cards, internet, countless tubes of shoe glue, toilet paper, absolutely everything.
That’s about US$75 or 50Euros for ten people per day. You could of course spend a lot more – eating out even once a week would boost the figure immediately. We kept our costs pretty low, but you could probably spend less, by not travelling so far (although there’s bound to be someone out there who can tell you how to do Europe on a dollar a day – we didn’t manage to).

Are there any countries you would not include: China, S.Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Europe (not sure where we would go in Europe)…
Personal taste answering here…..We preferred Laos over Cambodia. Ho Chi Minh City was our favourite in Vietnam – for the sheer speed and volume of the traffic! It’s not easy to forget seeing a line of six motorbikes approaching you on the pavement. It’s not easy to forget being stuck in the middle of the road when the traffic lights changed and everything surged forwards. Loved China, especially the wall, Xi’an, Yangshuo and really especially Yangmei. Haven’t been to Korea. Did you love Thailand so much that you’d be going back again instead of to somewhere different? Europe. Loved that too. You’d need to decide WHY you want to go there – what’s your purpose? History trail? Med beaches? Mountain hiking? Gourmet food? Then we can talk some more!

We are now planning a second big trip with our 2 sons (7 and 1), ….thus the admiration and fascination and education of your blog!!!!! A caravan or motorhome is in our future trip too, and we are going to try and do mostly Europe. We are now buying gear and such for our trip, and was wondering what items you brought but didn’t need, and which ones you wished for?!? I am *certain* that I am over thinking everything and going to bring too much…lol!! Travelling as a couple is much ‘lighter’, and we could wing it back then….but now, I don’t want to be caught without some ‘vital’ item for the kids in the middle of nowhere at night?!!
Adults don’t need stuff. Kids don’t need stuff either.
We took too many nappies/diapers, but the peace of mind was reward enough – imagine if we’d not been able to get them dry and had to use disposables!!!!!! Anathema!
We also had medication that we never used, but again, I was happy to carry it.
Other than that, you can always buy whatever you discover you really need – and if you can’t buy it, you can be assured the population wherever you are is also managing to live without it!

What sorts of things have you been getting rid of in particular, or have you got rid of items from all areas?
We had thirty beach towels, and had not bought one of them ourselves. We told everyone to choose their favourite and we gave away the rest. Voila, a whole shelf free in the linen cupboard!
We had a yoghurt maker, which we hadn’t used for donkeys’ years. I decided we should at least make use of it if we were going to keep it, and so threw our first batch of yoghurt in it a few days back. It didn’t work. Next I tried our tried and trusted wrap-it-all-in-a-woollen-blanket method with resounding success – the kids even said the resulting brew was Just Like the Greek Stuff. High praise. Goodbye yoggie maker.
Books. We simply have more than we can read and so we are only keeping The Best.
Uncomfortable chairs that no-one ever wants to sit on. Ringbinders. Tools we don’t use. Sheets with holes. Too-big clothes. Toys. Crayons no-one draws with.

Also, how do you manage boxes of used clothing waiting for smaller children to use? Or do you children wear things out before growing out of them?
I think the trip was the first time our kids actually wore out clothes before they grew out of them! As for the first question, we keep old clothing in banana boxes and stack them up in the wardrobe to be sorted through at the beginning of each summer and winter.

And how do you keep art work stuff (paper, colouring/activity books, pens, pencils, stamps etc etc) in order?
I don’t; it’s the kids’ job. Though I *do* find myself nagging about it. Which probably means we need a better system.


everyone has their own personal pencil roll made out of their old clothes

How do you decide what toys to keep?
It has to be loved and played with. Unless it’s Lego, it will preferably be made from natural materials, and even better if made by hand. I find it very hard to throw away dolls’ clothes the children have made! I like toys to not have batteries and to encourage imaginative play (so, for example, I prefer wooden blocks over a Disney themed character that can only fly through space with lights flashing).
I am currently struggling with the fact that our kids have so much in comparison to The Rest Of The World (and how do you cut back?) – but at the same time I am aware they have far less than many of their peers (and do they *need* to cut back?)
We managed to avoid the Christmas deluge of gifts this year by staying away until after the silly season, and then buying bunks as a family present!

Do you think GRANDPA would share his recipe for his scones?
Straight from the book every Kiwi Kitchen has, the Edmond’s cookbook, and he stresses, you must cut in the butter with a knife to keep it cold:

3C flour
6t baking powder
1/4t salt
Sift into a bowl
75g butter
Cut in until it resembles fine breadcrumbs
1-1 1/2C milk
Add milk and mix quickly with a knife to a soft dough. Knead a few times.
Lightly dust an oven tray with flour. Press scone dough out onto this. Cut into 12 even-sized pieces. Leave a 2cm space between them. Brush tops with milk. Bake at 220*C for 10 minutes.
Optional extras:
* add grated cheese and a pinch of cayenne pepper and mustard powder
* add 1T sugar and 1/2t cinnamon to flour and then 3/4C chopped dates
* add 3/4C sultanas

if you feel the urge please share any other recipes from your travels, I’d love to try them with my family.
When we wrap up this blog (which we were planning on doing on the day Rob returned to work, but it seems to still be stretching out a bit), we’ll be transferring our writing efforts to a blog we worked on for a while before we left. While it will contain references to our travels, it will not be a travelling blog. In fact, it’ll be quite the opposite – recording our efforts to get as local as possible in the kitchen (while still incorporating exotic ideas). So….drum roll…..reintroducing…..have pinny, will cook.
Here are what would have been today’s offerings if I hadn’t written here instead (stewed plums, plum and apple chutney, cupcakey thingies and our fruit-n-yoghurt breakfast):

i just told fraser that you’re about to get on a plane, and he said, “where?” and i said, “NZ” and he said, “oh… they’ll definitely be off around the world again soon…” X
We hope so.

Posted in 2008/09, book, children, craft, dress, food, homecoming, parenting, postcard: New Zealand | 4 Comments »

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old learning ways

January 12th, 2010

Auckland, New Zealand

Little Routine We Wrote In Romania is now up on our wall:
 
looks serious huh?

don’t be fooled! We’re not ready for noticeboards telling us what to do 😉

I wrote this before we went away:

Euripedes observed “Experience, travel – these are as education in themselves” and I wonder if his mates thought he was somewhat naive and a whole lot arrogant, not to mention possibly even ignorant. Certainly Aristophanes poked fun of him publically in his own plays, but who knows if this was due to educational beliefs? We’re off to discover whether or not Euripides was right.

He was.
And it’s so hard to explain to people that the kids’ education was in no way compromised by the fact that those under thirteen did absolutely no formal textbook learning for over a year. But then we don’t really learn like that at home either. We do learn though.

Posted in 2008/09, book, children, homecoming, learning, postcard: New Zealand | No Comments »

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back to work

January 11th, 2010

Auckland, New Zealand

We wake, legs entwined, his breath gentle on my neck. We stir, but say nothing, savouring the last moments, not wanting to let go.
“It’s over,” I finally whisper.
“Until next time,” he replies.
“We’ll do it again.”

For a few months now, January the eleventh has been on the calendar as The Day Rob Has To Go Back To Work. That’s today.

Before going, he prays with us, revises memory verses, sings some songs and eats breakfast. We are falling back into a new old routine. It’s strangely comforting. ERgirl3 sits on his knee – such a special opportunity she has had this past fifteen months to become a daddy’s girl, to cling to him as her rock and security, to get to know him in a way none of the other children did at the same age. We are told she will not remember the trip – and she may well remember only a little – but what a strong daddy-bond she has forged. When it’s time for the parting, she announces, “I don’t want you to go Dadda.” But she accepts he has to. She’s grown up a lot.

I ask the children, as I had asked Rob last night when we were travelling home, if there’s anything they are not enjoying about being back in New Zealand. Generally, we try to focus on positives, but we recognise it can be beneficial to process the harder things too.
There is a long thoughtful silence. Kgirl11 breaks it with the same answer her Daddy had given in the car, “Unpacking.” Well, that’s understandable!
Jgirl15 adds, “It’s not exciting.” And Kboy12 agrees, “There’s nothing new, it’s all the same.” Right now a mega-dose of familiarity is a blessing. There’s enough going on with catching up with people, trying to get the house unpacked, replacing worn-out clothing, organising learning materials and returning to *normal life*, that we don’t need to be dealing with foreign foods or strange tongues or unknown destinations or wondering where we’ll sleep tonight. You really can’t argue with a hot shower each evening or having a pillow under your head. But no doubt the day will come when we might wish for a little more adventure. Friends who lived in a developing country for a few years mentioned recently that they now find life here is easy, comfortable, predictable and unchallenging to the point of even being boring.
For us right now, familiarity has its place.

The only thing I’m not enjoying is something I had an issue with before we left, and something we were able to avoid for a good part of the trip: *car dependence*
I like daily marketing on foot. Today, after dropping Rob near his workplace, we drove (not walked) twenty minutes (not just a few minutes) to the supermarket (a big impersonal warehouse rather than open-air market filled with little stores manned by individual people, who have time to stop and chat rather than processing you through as fast as they can so they can process serve the person behind you in the queue). We shopped for a month. Instead of buying fresh raw milk every day as we did in Romania, we now have twenty litres of milk piled up in the freezer. Instead of deciding day-by-day whether we’d have cornmeal or rice, we now have a stack of both – and chickpeas, beans and lentils, too. It’s a different rhythm here. Of course, we *could* go to the supermarket every day, but we actively try to limit our car usage. Besides, we have more interesting things to do than drive around the suburbs day in and day out.

So we did our shopping, came home and put it all away, unpacked some more books, made some bread and yoghurt, supervised some spelling, mathematics and Latin learning, and taught Kboy12 how to make an awesome almost-Italian pizza (just need the pizza oven and it would be truly authentic), zipped out in the car to pick up Rob so he wouldn’t have to walk the whole way home, showed the toilet fixer to the cracked loo, and had some friends over for the evening.
Yep, just another day at the office!

Posted in 2008/09, children, God, homecoming, postcard: New Zealand, transport | 1 Comment »

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