photos from our Tunis house

Teenagers.....

Normal life begins....

It is Saturday....and we are tired.

On our list of achievements:

• registered 2.5 children in the school (inshallah we will make it 3 by sometime in January!!),
• lost and found one cat,
• met and had drinks with some of our neighbours,
• experimented with French (mispronounced by Terrena) resulting in a weird and funny taxi ride,
• walked around our neighbourhood (les berges du lac 1),
• discovered that our garbage will not be picked up (ever!),
• had extreme guilt about not being able to compost or recycle,
• shopped at a store which seemed like a Costco on steroids,
• visited the Canadian Embassy,
• drank orange juice squeezed from our backyard orange tree,
• encountered many stray dogs and cats,
• slept until noon (twice)
• stayed up all night...(also twice)
• tried to watch TV but gave up after having no clue what the show was about!
• were surprised by the number of armed guards around the school the children will attend,
• set up our internet,
• participated in a fire drill at the American School in the midst of enjoying an outdoor lunch
• changed money awkwardly at an ATM,
• forgot to ask which coins were which....needed help from various people,
• locked Richard out of the gate on the road in the middle of the night while looking for the lost cat,
• fed our cats sardines and they loved it,
• discovered a pastry and chocolate store- perfect for Kaitlyn,
• created a spectacle at the Tunis airport with our 'caged cats',
• discovered that a security guard sent by the embassy patrols our house inside the gate many times a day...
• too scared to drive yet....advice from others is go for it 'inshallah'
• bum gun lessons (http://voices.yahoo.com/how-bum-gun-toilet-hose-thailand-the-3667987.html) resulting in moments of reflection on our personal hygiene.

In addition, every Tunisian we have meet so far has been friendly and helpful from the moment we arrived at the airport.
Below is the door to the gated entrance to our house in Tunis.  We are so grateful to have a beautiful and comfortable house to live in while we are here.  Love to all back in Canada!!  We are safe and very well taken care of here.

We have arrived!

Here we are!!
After preparing for months we have finally arrived in Tunis!
The weather here is sunny and spring like (sorry Ottawa) and we have a lovely house complete with a  fenced back yard (which includes olive, lemon and grapefruit trees)
We are tired but happy to be here and have meet some very nice and helpful people so far.
Tomorrow the children will see their new school for the first time (excluding Keegan) and we hope the testing goes well!