Let me brief you on how renovations go in this country (because we've been through this before). The construction is 100% concrete, which means the slightest change in decor requires a concrete drill. What does a concrete drill being used for 10 straight hours sound like? Imagine that someone recorded a thousand monkeys screaming, then played it back to you at volumes beyond description - add in some feedback - and then put the whole thing on the other side of your newly-adopted toddler's bedroom. This is the soundtrack of our lives, until the (currently gutted) apartment is sparkling with new fixtures and tiny tilework and built-in storage units. In other words, we're looking at 4 months minimum of face-splitting sound.
By the way, teaching home school is a bit challenging when your pupils can't hear what you are saying. Home school is even more challenging when toddlers can't take their afternoon naps. Only my grandpa, after Thanksgiving dinner, could have slept through noise like this.
So we are looking at a semester of nothing getting accomplished, no one getting any sleep, and nothing that can be done about it. Whatsoever. Except, as I mentioned to Daniel earlier today, asking for a transfer to the African bush (the furthest place I could think of from concrete and its correlating equipment). I don't think he is game for starting from scratch on the language-learning front, and I don't like mosquitoes, so I guess we are staying put.
Yes, I have been overstating, but I feel a little better now. A little. I guess we will get school done each day, somehow, and I guess the toddlers will adjust to sleeping through WWIII, and one day in the freezing middle of winter, the sound will stop and that will be that. Until then, please don't call me during the day. I won't be able to hear a word you're saying.
 |
| And for a little perspective, here's my precious family. Ok, so I guess I have nothing to complain about. |
