We've moved!

Good-bye Madagascar, hello KUWAIT.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the reason that there has been radio silence on this blog for the past few months is because...we were moving!  (And then because I just couldn't get my butt in gear quickly enough to start blogging again).

Kuwait is a tiny country on the Arabian peninsula, nestled between Saudi Arabia and Iraq (guess we won't be taking any long car trips while we're here...).

Highlights and lowlights of moving here:

1.) The reconnaissance trip from Madagascar involved taking THREE airplanes:  Antananarivo to Mauritius, Mauritius to Dubai and Dubai to Kuwait.  With a 2 year old (and a 6-year old, but traveling long distances is about as old hat for her as riding her bicycle around the block three or four times).

2.) Flying Emirates.  Need I say more?

3.) The Emirates Lounge at Dubai International Airport, including this enclosed glass kiddy-space.

3.) Visiting a lot of potential places to live, like this swank villa:

And then deciding to take a three-bedroom apartment.

4.) The heat!  In summer, it's 46 degrees Celsius in the shade!  It's gotten colder since then.  We're now freezing cold when we step outside in the morning and it's only 25 degrees.  Of course, in shopping malls, it's still around minus 10 degrees Celcius with the air conditioning.

5.) Checking out schools - the Lycée Français de Koweït, the American School of Kuwait and the American International School of Kuwait, among others.  The Bambina had to take a test for both American schools.   I was a little worried because she had very little experience reading in English and had never written a thing in English during her entire school existence thus far, having always been educated in French up to now, but she passed the tests, no problem (apparently, she could read at her grade level in English.  Who knew??).  Phew!

The lycée français did not impress us at all and the Bambina isn't going there.  It was so obvious by talking to the principals and even just looking at their website that they are content with their "captive market" of francophone families and their school will therefore remain "good enough" (read mediocre) but not great.

6.) Staying at the Marina Hotel for three weeks while finding a place to live.  When we finally moved out of it and into our apartment, the Bambino, poor boy, kept asking to go back "home".  He missed having all of us sleep in one room and a swimming pool just outside the sliding door.

7.) The pollution here: worse than in Madagascar.  Think Beijing.  Or Jakarta.  The beach here looks ok but there is sewage leaking into the Arabian Gulf and besides being disgusting to swim in, it really does smell bad sometimes.  So we settle for the pool at a club.

More on life in Kuwait coming up in later posts.

The positive side of expat life in Madagascar

Expat transfer season is coming up soon.  With that in mind, we can't help but wondering whether we'll stay or be sent somewhere else.  We've had our fill of Madagascar and love the idea of moving to yet another country, but as I contemplate our last two years here, I realise that, however much we complain about the dirt, the pollution, the poverty and the lack of choice for schools in this city, we still have it pretty good.  So if we do end up staying (and the chances are good that we will), at least there'll be more of these positive aspects of life in Tana:

 We live in a residence (some people call it a compound) with streets that are paved and guarded, and kids can walk, run and ride their bikes anywhere they want within the residence.  The residence gives them a freedom that they would never have back home in Paris or in pretty much any other modern city.  My six-year old Bambina leaves the house by herself and takes off on her bike and I don't have to worry about it.

Horse-back riding lessons for children and adults of all ages, at reasonable rates and not too far away from where we live.  The Bambina has a lesson every Sunday morning and the Bambino likes to try out a pony whenever we go. 

Lots of rain and every now and then a rainbow.

 A heated swimming pool in our back yard and lots of opportunity for friends to come over and play - school gets out at 12:20 three times a week.

 Lots and lots of yard space.  

Very cheap manicures, pedicures, massages and haircuts.   A haircut for the Bambina costs about 2 euro.  A pedicure costs about 10 euro.  A message costs about 5 euro for an hour!

What has happened since I last wrote in this blog:

End of March: My darling partner, the Frenchman, is released from house arrest (That's right, house arrest. The caribinieri had arrested him for suspected mafia activity. He was innocent, of course, but the Italian justice system has a nut loose. Poor Frenchman spent two weeks in a prison in Potenza over Christmas and then three months under house arrest in our apartment in Rome. Of course, he wasn't allowed any visitors or telephone calls while under house arrest so all he did all day was work on the computer (which explains why I was rarely able to update this blog...)).

April: The Frenchman's employer informs us that we are moving continents.

April 25: I give birth to a darling baby boy, the Bambino, in April, at home. I feel like a carwreck afterwards but am nonetheless thrilled about my little Bambino.

May and June: With the help of movers, I pack all our belongings. The Frenchman has already left to seek out a new home at our next destination.

End June: We leave Rome and spend two weeks in Paris (France, that is, of course).

Finally, in July, we move to.....


MADAGASCAR.

And so, the Globetrotter Parent will continue this weblog from her new island domicile...

(Now I just have to wait for someone to comment "I like to move it, move it. I like to move it, move it...")