FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

On Tuesday, our first day in Jaffa, we went into the school to organise our uniform, which basically consists of an $8 tshirt.  That's a nice change from the private schools of Sydney!  As long as it's just above the knees they're allowed to wear anything black or navy with the tshirt and sneakers for shoes.  Our children have been at four different schools so the thought of them all being at the one school is heaven. . . . and in walking distance! Here's a link to the school the children are attending http://tabeethaschool.org/english/

It's a very strange feeling being the "foreigner" for once and being the "new family."  I think it's a wonderful lesson for the children and us to understand how that feels.   The Tabeetha school community is amazing though so I have no concerns about not feeling welcome.

I decided not to start the kids on Wednesday as I felt they still needed a break after such a long flight and to give them a chance to acclimatise to the heat.  The boys were happy to play with the BB guns in the courtyard

The courtyard to our place. Boys with BB guns.

One of the greatest challenges for us here is that almost EVERYTHING is written in Hebrew.  Our Israeli friend, Nitzan, explained to us that almost all goods sold in Israel are produced here in order to protect the local market.  You can imagine what it's like trying to work out whether a product has gluten in it for Brigid!  I'm going to have to try and at least understand the Hebrew alphabet so that I can find those characters on gluten free products.  In desperation I asked our beautiful neighbour, Ali Rogers to take me to the supermarket with her.  She was so kind and generous with her time and advice.  It was a treat to be in a car as the supermarkets in walking distance are what we would consider corner stores.  I was like a little kid following her around and copying what she was buying.  My kids were very shocked to find that I had bought small packaged potato chips for them!  Ali and Kenny Rogers are Scottish and have three children at Tabeetha.  The Rogers live across the lane from us, which is a real blessing as the boys are already playing together and their daughter, Emily, took Brigid down to the "shook" last night, which is a very cool flea market in Jaffa.

I took the kids down to the beach at Jaffa for their first swim in the Mediterranean Sea.  The beaches in Tel Aviv are much nicer than the beaches in Jaffa and I've been told that I took them to the wrong area but they had a ball nonetheless.  I turned around to find a horse on the beach.  Not something you see every day.  It was quite a beautiful sight until it did a poo in the water while swimming!

Four children - one school! Love it.
This photo is taken in front of the door to our building - looks like fort knox.

Yesterday was the children's first day of school.  Although it's a Christian school, there are Jews, Muslims and Christians attending so the school closes at 12.30pm on Fridays.  The kids love that part!  School starts at 8am though so it's an earlier start.  We've come at a time where there's lots of Jewish holidays with Yom Kippur being next Wednesday.  It means the children will finish school on Tuesday at 12 and then have the day off on Wednesday.

From the moment we stepped foot into the school we felt welcome.  People came from everywhere to guide the kids to their new classrooms.  It helped that Conor & Dario already knew a couple of the kids in their classes.  Brigid is in Year 10, Marcus in Year 9, Conor in Year 7 and Dario in Year 5.  Dario will have to study both Hebrew and Arabic.  Conor is studying Spanish, which is perfect as that's what he was studying at Grammar.  I'll have to check what languages Brigid and Marcus are studying.  It may be that they only have to do English as it is a second language to many of the children in the school.

After drop off I joined a group of women for a coffee.  I told Ali Rogers that she should have the title of "Diplomat of Jaffa" as she is wonderful at bringing people together and is a source of great advice on the area.  I met Sylvia, from Perugia, Italy; Iroo (not sure of spelling) from Taiwan (diplomats), Elisabeth, from Denmark whose husband is a pastor here; Jane, from Texas, whose husband works for Intel; Vicki, from Chicago and her husband Joel, who are Jewish and sold their house to move here for 10 months - now that's courageous!  It's wonderful having the inside knowledge of a local who can take you to places that you would be unlikely to discover on your own.

Vicki and I then went a bought some fish from the local fish monger. The way food is prepared, presented, sold is so different to back home.  It makes me realise how sanitised our food has become.  Everything in Australia is presented so beautifully but it makes you realise how much wastage there must be of "not quite right" produce.  I guess I knew that already from my time at Foodbank but everything looks so clean and neat in food stores back home compared to here.  The fish monger's shop is just a large room with large refrigerators either side.  You let them know what you want and they prepare in front of you.  The fellow serving us was horrified when Vicki asked for the skin to be cut off and encouraged her to keep it in on.

It was great to have some time to myself with the kids at school.  Around the corner there's a shop that sells only hummus, fresh pita bread and two other dips.  That's it and there is always a line of people.  I ventured in to buy my first lot of hummus.  The smell from the fresh pita bread was divine.  I then headed off to buy vegetables and fruit from a little place that Ali told me about.  It would be unlikely to find these places on your own and if you judged them from the outside you would never go in.

I picked the kids up from school at 12.30pm and they all were smiling so thumbs up for the first day.  It's going to be a very different experience for them, even by virtue of being co-ed for the three older children, although the boys went to co-ed primary schools.   Brigid was shocked by how noisy some of the students are in the classroom and had lots of tales to tell.

Dario walking home from school with his new friend, Benjamin.