Second Time’s the Charm

There’s good news to tell: I’ve landed a job!

Not that I’m really looking exactly, but a secondary reason we came to Brussels (opera opportunities for Matthew being the first) was to gain experience in an international school setting. I initially courted ISB, the International School of Brussels to little effect. They were very keen to have me do some fill-in work and the one interview I had with them was for a job I truly would have been unhappy doing, so I also checked out St. John’s International School for substitute teaching or other opportunities. In early September, I met with all three principals (elementary, middle and high schools) and had quite a good day touring the campus. They also wanted me for supply work, but unfortunately, our visas are taking forever and I’ve not been able to get on the supply list without a “carte d’identity”...so I’ve just been biding my time.

About 10 days ago, when Emily was here I got a phone call from the St. John’s Elementary Principal to ask about my status, as there was an opening coming soon and was I interested...(yikes--Elementary??)

I made arrangements to visit the team (the three teachers of the grade 5 Primary Years Program in the International Baccalaureate system) last Thursday, and was invited to participate in their school’s Professional Development activity Friday and Saturday of this past week. Thursday was a great day, where the outgoing teacher treated me kindly and the kids were very pleased to impress me with their knowledge and skills. For those who forget, grade 5 students are 9-11 years old and (at this school) very precocious. Not surprisingly these kids are from all over the globe with the bulk being from Sweden, the UK and the United States with a smattering of South Asians of varying nationalities to round out the mix. Most speak English as at least a second language, but some are just starting. This is technically an christian school so there are fewer Muslim, Hebraic and Taoist students than I’m accustomed to, but I think I can manage to accommodate with my humanistic approach (daily prayer is scheduled into the day, folks!)

So at the end of the day Saturday, the Principal and I had a brief chat, and I’ve accepted the job starting January. I’m going in this Wednesday to speak with the business and human relations departments to get their “work permit” coordinated with the Canadian “work visa” (different than the one I’m currently waiting for: ironically a work visa requires less paperwork than the visa for persons of independent means) so things should progress quite quickly from here on in. There will be opportunities to see the outgoing teacher and the students again before January, as there are many celebrations before now and the Christmas break and I’ve been asked to come in to get to know the school and the students during that time.

So I’m rather pleased with myself. I’ve only been in the country 2 months, and have secured myself and my family an excuse to stay longer, should we want to; have been successful finding an opportunity to gain experience not only with the IB program but in a grade level that will round out my resume; and I've found an opportunity to accelerate the visa process so that we can get the benefits of being landed (free bus fare for our children, resident and not visitor fees at the community centre, subsidized dental care for the kids among other privileges)...Hold it--what about the taxes in both countries? Ah well... we’ll deal with that later!

my first Birthday Belgian Style

Apologies for not writing more recently, but having Emily here, going back to Glons for the weekend and my wireless at the house not working has been keeping me busy... Enough of the excuses.

What a birthday I had today!

Firstly, we were in Glons (and I'll entreat you to visit Mathew's blog to find out all the details about the Fete we participated in--tres incredible and don't miss his recounting of it, since it tells you EXACTLY why we've chosen this country to adopt as our current (and future?) home...www.matthewzadow.blogspot.com)

My breakfast in the loft: we awoke to the sound of our rez-de-chaussée (ground floor) bedroom door being pulled closed ever so quietly by our host Michel, but when I checked my watch, it was 8:45 a.m. and time to "allez, allez"...I went upstairs to the kitchen and smelled fried bacon (petit lardons) with caramelized apples, fresh coffee, and soft boiled eggs. As I was brushing my teeth and saying "bon matin" to my boys and their adopted cousins (Tristan and Anaiis, Michel's children), Michel came in with "pistolets" (little buns made from the same dough as the best baguettes in the world) and apricot confit croissants and pain chocolate still hot from the "patisserie". Quel divine!...Michel had made petit dejunier prior to leaving the loft for the bakery and when he laid the treats on the table, we all dove in with fervor and salivating mouths. What a great way to start my bonne fete: with a Belgian homme cooking an authentic meal for us and our children...it was perfect.

The next task of the day (and was it ever a belle journee: boucoup de soleil, sans humide--22 degrees in the sun, 16 in the shade) was to visit a neigbouring town that we've been to before called Tongeren for their Demanche marchee of antiques from all over the continent. Matthew purchased a very delicate and exquisitely crafted piece of Belgian cut and coloured glass (called Val Sainte Lambert) made in the early 1900's as well as a bronze sculpture (about 18 inches high) of a dancer with a tambourine made in a France foundry. I've named her Freya, in honour of Jean-Remy's fondness of Northern Europe. This broke Matthew's bank, but I can't say a word since he says it's coming out of his own account, or his "mad money" used for scotch whiskey, cigars and gifts. I'll just hint that four weeks of groceries left his wallet fairly rapidly this morning... I, on the other hand purchased something equally delicate, if not antique: a beer glass for the geuze (natural yeast, sour) beers for which Belgians are known...it cost me 2.50 Euro...This was a most appropriate purchase, since when we had a moment, we stopped during our hunting and gathering for fortification, and I of course had a Landemanns' Geuze beer in a similar glass!

When we left there, it was about 1:45 p.m. and we were expected at Mammie's for a 2 p.m. lunch. It was a Congolese chicken dish, with appropriate accompanying veggie dishes (a kind of African spinach that sounded like "marrol" or "maron" with my uneducated ear) served with a piquant sauce over rice...what flavour! Like an Indian curry but much more rich, with a unique brightness and heat I've never tasted before. Mammie was born in the Belgian Congo, married her Belgian husband at the age of 18-19 then had two children before being dispossessed (kicked out) back to Belgium...so she knows how to cook Congolese food! I was very much surprised that for dessert the cake was presented to me, accompanied with the french version of Happy Birthday...absolutely incredible chocolate sponge cake with vanilla whipped cream and chocolate drizzles making up my name and the swirls for decoration...beyond compare and home-made (I understand) by Nathale and Mammie just this morning.

In addition to making a cake for me, Nathalie had orchestrated the children for gift making...what wonderful, sweet and delicate tokens they made for me: the oldest (Gerome, 10) breezed in on roller blades and thrust into my hands a petit pink paper heart and a sachet of lavender he had gathered himself; The next was Nell who presented me with a tiny gathered fabric trinket--I opened it to find a hand made bracelet in pinks, blues and iridescent white--set so sweetly with a pink perle on a stretchy band. Then Francois arrived and caught my attention. He, too had une cadeau pour moi...another tiny parcel with an accompanying pink paper heart. This time I opened it to reveal a precisely made, most delicate necklace, mostly in blue beads but with a lavender and blue beaded 8-petaled flower at the centre, accented also with the sweet pink perle as his sister had used on the bracelet. I was astonished that such care and dedication to task had come from anyone 8 years old, regardless of gender! It was just too much when the last child came in...(Carol-) Line's gift made me cry poignant tears: she had gathered pink and white flowers from her mom's garden (wild roses, dwarf primroses, tiny pink-and-white versions of buttercups) and had gotten help arranging them into a tiny cup and saucer complete with a dogwood "handle" and lacy leaves as accents. If that wasn't enough, she ever so carefully wrote on her little pink heart in English, "happy birthday--Line". I could barely hold it together, and lost composure when the cake had arrived...thankfully not in an embarrassing way...see the picture that heads this blog for an example of a typical Sunday dinner at Mammie's!! (*right, Bruce??)

Duncan summed it up for me when he said an hour later, "but, I don't want to leave". We unfortunately had to make the trek back to Brussels on the 5:21 train, but I KNOW we'll be back very soon.

We arrived back home just before 8:00 p.m. and got the kids quickly into the bath and PJ's. As I was cooking a quick "repas" of pancakes and bacon, the doorbell rang. To my surprise, there was Kristin, our neigbour from across the street. She and her daughters Emma and Lara came to wish be a happy birthday and to give me their gift: a very expertly crafted homemade scarf in amethyst and sage colours made from the most exquisitely soft yarns that are like kitten's eyelashes. I will have to write some thank you cards tomorrow, as I think this is the BEST European birthday EVER!!

Things are not so Rose-y for our hero

This is a picture of the castle where Malcolm's been since Monday...we've received two letters that implore us to go get him, that he's having a terrible time (not that I would say it, but is someone acting like a spoiled you-know-what?) and that he says in his letters: "get me ouda here". We'll find out tomorrow night if this is a joke or if indeed they stuck him in the dungeon or stretched him on a medieval rack instead of providing him with a bed each night.

Emily comes this Saturday...our first guests! We'll make sure to show her a good time, even if its slightly domestic at times. Perhaps she'll bring good weather with her...it could only improve here!

Our baby's off to Hogwarts!

Okay, okay, its probably not a castle for witches and wizards, but it is a REAL castle! Malcolm's school trip left yesterday for five days to the Nettine, a centuries old castle and working farm in the Ardennes that the commune purchased some years ago for their outdoor education opportunities. It seems incredible, but children as young as 5 1/2 go for five days overnight to be taught, entertained, well fed, exercised and enlightened...too bad our son was so reluctant to go.

Two weeks ago Malcolm heard us talking about Nettine...and he said, "I'm not going--you better get your money back". We struggled with this for 13 straight days, and one thing I will say for my oldest, is that he's persistent and consistent. He had tears, gnashing of teeth, temper tantrums, even gave us the silent treatment in order to convince us of his opinion...right up to the night before the morning he was scheduled to leave, then suddenly, he was excited to go! (he tried the old ways, but this time he had a smile in the eyes and was talking about what he wanted to pack and which journal was best to take and what he would write about).

This is a picture of his teacher, Nathalie, and Malcolm embarking on the bus, getting a last minute instructions from Daddy...I hope he has a great time: we've packed with each day's clothes a letter from each of us, and he's to write us back since we gave to the teacher four self-addressed stamped envelopes with writing paper--just like when going to camp, except I don't remember a highway cruiser with TV's taking ME to camp in the Ardennes, ever....!

Museum of Comic Books

Ah, the celebration of the country that writes just for the child in all of us! As I'm sure you know, the "graphic novel" was popularized (and perhaps even invented?) in Belgium, and characters such as the Smurfs, Tintin and Lucky Luke have become world famous--and more than just characters for our boys now that we're immersed in this culture--they are friends. What better way to celebrate literature ("Uh, ah-hem, LITERATURE?", you say? To my 8 year old the answer is a resounding "YEAH!") than to go to the Belgian Centre for Comic Strip Art...a 4000 square meter display space in a wonderful art nouveau building complete with a library, book store, brasserie (restaurant) and really neat artifacts, props and mock-up stages featuring the characters they know and some they will meet soon in the future.

It was a perfect activity for a rainy (see the coat on D here in this picture) saturday afternoon--artists could spend days in this place but our 90 minutes was just about right. We had fun camping it up here and there within the displays...Malcolm got to see an Asterix almost the size of him, be a living portrait and touch the moon rocket of Tintin's; Duncan played at being an astronaut, dodging bullets in a saloon from Lucky Luke's mighty fast gun and experiencing an ancient Roman electrical storm over Pompeii. Here's a snap of each of the boys in some of those situations...The only regret anyone (okay, it was Malcolm) voiced was "How come there's no Spiderman or X-Men, Dad?"

Check out Matthew's blog for an enlightening take on Grand Place through the eyes of our children--our Sunday activity this week. www.matthewzadow.com and click on blog within the banner.

A girl's best friend

If you also read Matthew's Blog (www.matthewzadow.com) you'll know we've visited Antwerp last Friday. It was just a quick trip for Matthew's audition for a gentleman who conducts a baroque opera group. It looks like he'll be hired eventually by him, but we'll just have to wait and see as to when...

While he was busy doing that, I went out of the central train station, turned right, and right again and found myself in front of the Diamond Museum of Belgium. Since early 1800's, Antwerp has been the diamond capital of the world, where 80% of all diamonds travel through this city in either their raw state (uncut or to be polished here) or as a final diamond just before being set into industrial applications or jewelry. The museum is part of the Diamond Traders business office (where buyers and sellers would at one time sit opposite each other at dozens of long tables with their briefcases open and their monocles up to their eyes, natural light shining down on bowed heads -- most sporting sombre coloured yamakas) but now is done behind closed office doors under extreme security so tight the houseflies carry ID cards.

The museum had great displays of the industry of diamond mining, the politics of diamond selling and buying, the production and grading of a diamond into its final state, and finally duplications (and sometimes real) artifacts from antiquity, art nouveau, art deco and the most recent, "american trashy bling" styles of jewelry settings. The most eye-catching for me was a 1910 "Lalique" collar-style necklace pendant (about the width of my palm) that had window-style enamel work set within filigree gold wire, a combined 2 carats total diamonds in multiple settings all arranged to look like the petals of exotic sinuous flowers or dragon flies' wing reflections, then a single pendant gracefully held with more delicate enamel work, of what looked like a drop of smoky moonlight--its a type of semiprecious stone that has characteristics of opal but gives off colours of grey, turquize, green and peacock blue in certain lights when moved. I can't imagine what I would wear with such a thing, but it was breathtaking.

So when am I getting a diamond, you ask? We'll have to wait for an inheritance, I am afraid. The deals are great, but so is the cost...most Antwerp-worked diamonds are the very special and they specialize in unique shaped or premium sized and quality level now...there wouldn't be any in our price range, I'm afraid.

No pictures this time...wait for next entry when I show you the BD museum!