Saturday 23 August 2014

A week in August

Its been one of those weeks again I think. There has been so much happening at home and with work that I often wonder where all the times goes and the assumption that all is well and easy as an expat goes very simply 'out the window'.

After work on Saturday, I endeavoured to get home through terrible traffic. The traffic is never good but this Saturday it seemed to be worse than normal. Maybe because it was Independence day weekend, maybe because the major roads in the city are being dug up for the new MRT or maybe it was a just a bad weekend for traffic. Whatever the reason I ended up getting home after 2 hours on the bike in the heat which was not that nice.
Sunday was Independence Day and it is a fun filled day for everyone and everyone here celebrates Indonesias birth as an colonial run nation. This year, Independence day fell outside of ramadhan so everyone was full of life. To my amusement/horror the local head of the street choose outside our house to organise and host all the activities which went on pretty much from 10am to 6pm with a short respite for 2 hours. The break in the games and noise allowed us to get a taxi and go shopping for the week ahead. Getting home we were not so lucky as it seemed every road in and out of the area was closed to the festivities.
The festivities were mainly games for the kids but the mums and dads were roped in as well and from where I was stood (on the balcony) they all seemed to be enjoying it.




I am back at St.Ursula again this year and I am still teaching in Elementary which is great. The kids are fun and the lesson quick but they are draining. Friday saw me covering in another school due to holidays and that was further draining on the energy because when I teach early in the morning, I have to be at the schools by 7.30 so that means pickup at the teachers house at 6.30 so I need to leave my house at 5.30. 5am is now sadly, very easy to wake up to.

Jeremy helps with waking me up. He has a habit of waking early and playing and then after some early morning milk sleeping for another hour before its full on energy until he falls down to sleep. Monday and Tuesday were 2 of those days but on Wednesday he developed breathing problems and would not eat or drink and could not sleep. So all Wednesday night we were trying to help him sleep and us too and I would say 4 hours max was achieved by all so much so that by 5am we were all awake and wandering around the house.




We took Jeremy to hospital where he was diagnosed as having an viral chest infection and a reaction to something which was causing his screaming and breathing. We had to take him to physiotherapy so that he could receive oxygen and other vapours and massage but Jeremy did not want that so we gave up, paid for the sack load of medicine and came home. Then I went to work.

Happily by the time I got home, his breathing was almost normal and he had slept for around 10 hours straight and again now, you would think nothing was wrong. Although the 4x different medicine he has to take every few hours reminds you he is still sick.

Then the milk. As he has had issues with his stomach we were told to put him on lactose free milk. We have cleared out the surrounding area for Enfamil  Lactose free milk and are struggling to find alternatives. But we will and he will be better again.



Thursday also saw some riots in the city as the decision about who was going to be the next President was announced following a legal challenge by the person who lost. The city emptied out by 2.30pm and so when I took a taxi home, it only took 30 minutes instead of 80, which was nice.

Photo from the Jakarta Globe

The rest of the photos can be found here  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/multimedia/eyewitness/final-stand/

That was my week... what did you do?

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