More rain in Jakarta

We woke up to another big thunder storm at 4am this morning with more rain. I decided to keep the kids at home again and GJ started to rant. I will leave it to your imagination but it boiled down to “it is just a little rain, the floods are gone, don’t be ridiculous……….”
As we were walking out the door I grabbed a new DVD, just in case.
Thank goodness I did, because of course the school was closed, of course roads were flooded and of course it took 2.5 hours to drop GJ off at his office. Then we had to turn around and head back to the hotel….a lovely round trip of 4.5 hours.
In my head I am doing the childish “Ha Ha, I told you so” dance, and have decided that next time I think that school will be canceled to stay in bed !

When we ordered the company car there was a free bonus of a car DVD player with three screen. It is perfect for Jakarta’s traffic snarls. Today we watched Spy Kids 3, TWICE. It is a shame cars in Jakarta don’t come with toilets!

We got to one street where the water was gushing across the street and rising as we watched. Mr Yardi decided against crossing and we turned around a found another way. The weather reports are predicting more heavy rainfall until the end of February.

One good thing about working at the school is that I am getting a good idea of the kids strengths and weakness in regards to their education. We have discovered that although Chelsea is extremely advanced with her reading she is quite behind with her maths. She has been put into one of my groups of remedial classes, 4 mornings a week. We have found some math’s problem books here in Jakarta and are doing a bit of work at home. When our shipment arrives I will have all our books and computer programs which we will be able to work through as well.

Ben is loving the kindy. I was having second thoughts about enrolling him, thinking that the money would be better spent on other things, but am pleased that we did. The Kindy room has a lot of resources, with a very experienced teacher and two full time teachers aides. The kindy’s outside play area is a lovely court yard with a huge shade tree over it all with heaps of bikes, sandpits tents and playhouses. Inside there is a permanent water play table set up as well as a table with play dough. Books, toys, blocks and CARS!!!! are all neatly arranged and ready to be played with. There is a curriculum designed to introduce learning concepts and pre literacy skills and guide the children into formal schooling.

We always get to school very early, as GJ needs to get to the office. We usual arrive just after 7 am (yes we leave the hotel at 6.30 am!!!!) and play until school starts at 8 am. Only once has Ben forgotten himself and started to speak to me while we were playing. The teacher and aide were stunned to learn that he really can talk, LOL.
Ben is an extremely good talker. He is very articulate and eloquent, in short he never shuts up. He has opinions on everything and insists on being right all the time; I wonder where he gets that from (we are family of experts LOL) No one would ever know this as Ben chooses not to talk to strangers or acquaintances.

The rain has started again outside…I think we are still going to have a few days at home this month.

In the care package I made I put in some things that are universal to all women, a nice soap, hand cream, face moisturizer, shampoo, little girls cologne (Mr Yardi has two preteen girls) tooth brushes and tooth paste etc. GJ can’t understand why any one would be interested in these types of things when their home is underwater. Food, clothing and shelter have been organized but sometimes it is the little extras that make all the difference.
I suppose that this is just another example of the difference between men and women’s way of thinking.