Thursday, July 14, 2011

Cabbages and Kings ...

"The time has come," the Walrus said,To talk of many things: Of shoes...and ships...and sealing-wax...Of cabbages...and kings...And why the sea is boiling hot...And whether pigs have wings."

Lewis Carroll : from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872
The children went for another school assessment today, Skye finished her two hour paper in 45 minutes and Louis was done ten minutes after that.  School placement here is ... complicated.  South Africa has a 12 year schooling system and starts the school year in December.  The majority of the schools here in the UAE have a 13 year school system and an academic year, which starts in September.  These schools insist on entering them in their "age appropriate" year, which mean they have two jump two grades from where they are now.  The schools here that do run the 12 year school system would like the children to restart their year.  In other words repeat the six months they have started in South Africa.  If the children had finished eight months in their respective years in South Africa, the Ministry of education here would've allowed them to progress to their next years when school starts in September, because they've only done six, they have to repeat.  The implication of the choice of school system essentially is a possible three year difference in their school careers.

We have made some decisions and have dates:  Tinus will be leaving for South Africa on the 19th to start the medical tests.  It apparently involves three consecutive days of testing and the results will be available five days later.  The children and I will follow on the 25th of July.  We are going to attempt to get the children back into the school which they've just left, we'll have to get all the books and uniforms - hopefully some of the things we left have not found new owners yet, else we'll have to buy new ones.  The plan then is to have them carry on with school in SA till the end of August.  School here starts on the 9th of September.  The extra time in the SA school will allow them to get placed in their next year up here, instead of having to repeat. Insh'Allah.

Tinus will be working out of office for the time that he is in SA, he has mountains of stuff that he has to do ... among others some or other thingy that he has to do in Egypt ... FOR FOUR WEEKS ...and guess who is making sneaky plans to leave her children with her darling gorgeous beautiful kind and caring parents to go with?  But that is in the future. Tonight - Thursday night (the TGIF day in the UAE) is official ice cream night in the Olivier family.  We're about to go for a nice walk in the warm and humid night air to the Baskin Robbins followed by Chocolate and Cherry on the roof under the sparkling Burj Khalifa.  


May you walk in beauty.

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