Settling in Taipei (Part 1)

September 21, 2011

Greetings from Taipei,

We wound up our 44 weeks in Virginia in fairly good form, with Mark and Chris completing kindergarten very successfully and me getting out of my school with reasonable marks. We had a great year, spending time with family, connecting with new and old friends, and getting the kids acclimated to the States.

We enjoyed some leave on the way out here, with stops in Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and then a week in southern California (some photos are in the second posting here, below). In Georgia, the kids took swimming lessons, during which Joy screamed at the instructor for three days straight, and the same day in a different pool, on her terms, promptly did everything he had been trying to teach. We toured the Cowboys stadium in Dallas with Thad, and the kids got to kick and pass a ball around on the playing field. In L.A., the kids lasted at Disneyland until 10:30 at night, but didn’t really carry the party into the restaurant for dinner (photo attached). We figured it was time to get out to post and get settled when the kids started complaining about which rental mini-van was better than all the others, but we had a great time.

We’re getting settled in Taiwan and are really enjoying it. We’ve re-united with a couple of friends with whom we served in Singapore, including Luke’s “god-brother,” with whom he was baptized after they were born a week apart in the same hospital in Singapore.

Mark and Chris started first grade at Taipei American School on August 11, and both are doing quite well (photo of bus on the first day below). The school has some great resources to bring Chris along, which of course is a huge help. They have over 100 options for after-school activities, and so far the big boys are doing basketball on weekends (I’m coaching) and Chinese Culture Club. They’re on the Mavericks, in honor of Uncle Thad being in Dallas. They’re also taking piano lessons at home, so we feel like they’re well-rounded but not over-extended, yet. All the boys got their first typhoon day, the Taiwan equivalent of a snow day, a couple of weeks ago; the storm blew some rain around and knocked down some branches, but didn’t hit the northern part of the island very hard.

Luke is in a local nursery school (bus photo below), and he’s the only Westerner in his class. It’s supposed to be half English and half Chinese language, but it sounds like it’s mostly Chinese since Luke is the only native English speaker. He wasn’t doing well with the full days, so Annette, having done ‘trial by fire’ in navigating our van around motor scooters and stray dogs, is picking him up daily after lunch, thereby missing a bit of instruction as well as nap time. He very happily brought his sleeping bag home and gave it to Joy recently, as he figures they can’t make him nap there if he doesn’t have a sleeping bag at school.

The house is great. We’re on a mountain (large hill?) and have a yard that Clifford stays in, except when someone (we suspect Nobody, our fifth child who is responsible for everything that goes wrong around here) leaves the gate open – Clifford escaped two weekends ago and was found by a good Samaritan who took him to her house and later reported that he “eats like a vacuum cleaner.” We’ve been thankful that Luke, who perceptively noted that four bedrooms and four kids made a perfect match (he said Joy would allow me and Annette to sleep in Joy’s room), has not balked at sharing a room with Chris. Little Mark, who claimed that he wanted his own room so he could read quietly at night, spends about 50% of nights in his room and the rest with his brothers. Joy, who we thought might want a male-free room to herself, has slept in her room no more than twice since we’ve been here. Annette has done amazing work in getting everything set, as always.

We’re on a cul-de-sac, and Annette and I are working to figure out how to act as the parents of the kids who have potential to be the troublemakers on the block. The kids had me assemble their bikes as soon as we got the small shipment (four very large boxes) from Virginia, and between the bikes and making forts out of the large shipping boxes, we’re not entirely sure why we bothered shipping the rest of those toys from Nairobi and Arlington. True to form, Little Mark had me put a skylight and window into his box while he created a welcome mat, and then Chris and Luke turned their boxes on their sides and climbed to the top, while I studied the map of Taipei to locate the nearest emergency room that can handle broken arms. Joy, again true to form, goes around picking out which brother’s box she will occupy on that day, then screams at the top of her lungs if the chosen brother protests.

For the ‘kids always win’ file:
- Grandpa Zimmer trained the kids on radio etiquette over 44 weeks of visits in Virginia, and then he and Grandma gave Chris walkie-talkies for his birthday. The radio etiquette instruction appears to have been a success:
* Little Mark: “…, how do you read, over?”
* Chris: “I don’t know how to read. Over.”

All the best from Taiwan,
Mark & co.