Superhero and Strudel

3^rd February

Natalie took us to a German bakery this afternoon. They have good soup and pastries. We sat in genteel country Europe, with frilly curtains, checked tablecloths and pine-lined walls. It would have been lovely and relaxing, except that Keira needed a nap, so was literally climbing the walls. The owner is a woman named Brigitte. She has a dog, Bella. The dog sits at her feet under the front counter. Alesia loves patting the dog and Keira keeps on saying – Gog! Gog! Brigitte gave Alesia some small doughnuts – she says she does this so the kids want to come back and that gives her better business. I think this will work for us. The German Ambassador popped in for a coffee and we said hello. It is less than five minutes walk from our place (10 minutes at Alesia speed).

4^th February

Chris played superhero today. Nymaa came to my office and said “Baby locked in the room”. Natalie followed me (her office is near mine) and we found that somehow the lock button on the inside of the door to the girl’s room had been pushed and now Keira was asleep in her cot and locked in. I fiddled with the lock while Natalie went to get Chris and anyone practical from downstairs. All our practical men were out getting things ready for the office move later that week. Chris came up and we assessed our options while Nymaa called various numbers on her mobile and kept saying “Oh my god” in the background (Nat wondered later why she didn’t say something in Mongolian!). I knew that when we were locked out earlier the guys broke in through our balcony. Then they were able to access our balcony from my office (my office and our bedroom share a wall and a balcony). Se we knew we could get in the window on the girls’ balcony, the trick this time was getting from our balcony to theirs – there is a gap of about a metre and a half between the two railings. We are on the 3^rd level (which is two levels up from ground, as they call ground 1^st floor here), high enough to do big damage if someone fell.

Chris went out on the balcony in his shirt sleeves (very cold out there), climbed onto the railing (about 5cm wide) took a deep breath and stepped over. Before Nymaa could say “Oh my god” he had got inside the room and unlocked the door. Keira woke up to find Daddy looking at her and got up none the wiser. Just then Nymaa’s husband (an ADRA driver) made it upstairs, so he can relate to all the men downstairs just how handy the new Country Director is! Chris said it took the rest of the afternoon for his heart-beat to slow to normal. Alesia is now aware of the lock, and since then has pushed the button several times (I check it whenever I walk past), so we will have to get the knobs switched so we can lock her in if needed! If you are wondering why we can get in the balcony so easily, apparently the window locks are not sealing properly due to ice build up in the seal cavity. There is always some ice on the bottom of the balcony doors, and the mats there are usually damp.

After freeing our daughter Chris and I had lunch with the ADRA sector coordinators at a Chinese restaurant. This was my first meal out in a restaurant. The food was as good as Chinese food in PNG. We then had a planning meeting in the afternoon at one of the workshop rooms in the SDA Church building. When we arrived at the building we found the door was locked. We managed to get a key for the main door, and then found the room where the rest of the keys were stored was locked also. There was a sliding window to this room that was open, so I was hoisted up to climb in the window and get the keys. Big day of unusual entrances. While we were having our meeting Alesia and Keira went over to play at the house of an ADRA staff member. There is a kind of expatriate playgroup each week, and it was at his house. We arranged an ADRA car to take Nymaa and the girls over there. They came back at 5:30pm – and had a wonderful time. Nymaa got the mobile number of Jannie’s (ADRA staff member) babysitter and they are planning to get together again.

5^th February

We booked an ADRA car to take us shopping, as with the long new year holiday coming up we needed more food than I could carry. Chris and Alesia came also. The pre-holiday traffic was insane, with cars trying to force their way through traffic jams. Our ADRA car caused a major traffic jam and we were stuck trying to turn left across three lanes of traffic trying to turn right (they drive on the right here). Horns were blaring, drivers were swearing. We were there for over 10 minutes before one of the drivers behind us got out of his car, stepped in front of ours and then directed the traffic so we could get through! I am getting my bearings for the blocks around our house and I felt our driver was making some poor choices, given the amount of traffic. We were told later that he can get flustered and perhaps the boss, his wife and their little girl were enough to fluster him. We have decided on a mural to paint on the wall of the girl’s room. We found an art shop about two blocks away so have brought up on paint. The funny thing is that that the art shop is opposite where we were stuck in traffic and we could have brought all the paint and got back to the car without the car moving at all. Pictured below is Natalie's apartment - her balcony is the one with the bit of wood sticking out at the right.