Monday – Thursday

So we were almost deported last week. Okay, that isn’t exactly true, but Cory did get a call from NZ Immigration at work on Friday. They called to ask some questions about paperwork, and then finished up their conversation by asking if he was at work. (I’m thinking they probably knew the answer as they’d called the hospital number listed as his “work” number.) They then mentioned that decisions on his work visa were hanging in the balance and suggested he discontinue his illegal activities and wait for further notice. I wouldn’t say the warning was delivered in an ominous tone, but the message itself was clear enough. So Cory left work early; it was supposed to be his late night, the one night that he stays ‘til 10:30 and takes any ortho calls that come in. He had to find someone to cover, so we took the kind guy a burger from BurgerFuel later that evening. (Thank you, Jerome!) A lady from the hospital who has been helping Cory get things set-up over here called Immigration or whoever it is you call and they said he’d have his visa by Monday. I thought it was pretty funny – when else (hopefully) will we ever be illegally working immigrants – but Cory definitely did not think it was funny and forbade me from telling the story to anyone until things were sorted. But, after months of waiting and re-submitting paperwork, our work visas and permits did arrive Monday morning. Ah, relief…

In the meantime, we’d been talking about buying bikes, so we went bike shopping last Saturday. We’re sharing a car, which is working out fine, especially as I only have obligations two days of the week right now. But Cory has been talking about biking to work and would also really like to ride some of the trails over here. Our plan was to buy some pretty cheap bikes and just sell them when we were ready to leave, but at the first place we stopped, the owner said that shipping bikes back by freight wasn’t too expensive. He even offered to help pack them up and send them off for us. Cory liked two bikes he saw there, but he is not an impulse buyer (this is an understatement), so we drove to all the other shops in town. We hustled to come back to the first shop and trial ride the bikes. Of course, Cory didn’t want to even think about buying until, as he put it, “our situation” was resolved. So now that we are no longer illegal immigrants, Derek, the shop owner, worked up a package deal for us. We’ll pick up our bikes on Satuday. I’m hoping that biking on the opposite side of the road will be something I pick up a bit quicker than driving on the opposite side. It seems there are probably more dire consequences should I mess up…

While Cory is talking about biking to work, I will not even suggest that is a possibility for me. I don’t actually work, of course, but there is no way I’m going to ride to the school I started volunteering at. It’s not that it’s really far away, but it is far enough for me.
I’ve been to Kaka Street Special School twice now; I went Monday and Wednesday this week. I’ve enjoyed it so far, but I’m still in that awkward stage of discerning my role and figuring out how things work. That will come in time. So far, I’ve helped in two of the four classrooms – one class of high school students and one class of elementary school students. All of the students have pretty significant mental disabilities and most have a concomitant physical disability. There are some things that seem different from the classes I’ve worked with before. Right now, I think that some things are different because it’s a NZ school, other things that seem different because it is a special school, and then there are things that are different that I would relate to individual teaching choices. I just haven’t figured out which of the above categories each of these “different” things falls into.

For example… School starts at 9:00; we have morning tea from 9:45-10:05, and we have lunch from 12:30-1:30. Okay, so I think that most schools start a little later than in the US, so we can assign that difference to the school being located in NZ. Having morning tea and an hour lunch (I get 30 minutes for lunch at Jefferson; during that 30 minutes, I feed students in my classroom) may be a difference that I can attribute to it being a school in NZ or to it being a special school. I’ll keep you posted on these fascinating ruminations…

It is really neat to see almost the whole staff gathered together in one room during morning tea, though. There are a few rotating staff each day that are assigned to supervise the students during this time, but otherwise, everyone, from principal to custodial staff, gather together for tea. There are community tea supplies (mugs and teaspoons; tea, coffee, and milo, a chocolate drink; kiwi; and some sort of baked good) and everyone helps themselves. The fact that everyone fits in one room is a pretty big difference in itself! Morning tea break just made my list of “favorite things about NZ”!