Pssst..............

Opa,
Emmanuel took your pickles...................... just thought I would let you know!
:)

Sun, songs and sweat!

This is going to be a miscellaneous post but everything and nothing at the same time!

I was teaching Pilates this afternoon and I had my Ipod on Shuffle, I am not the biggest Nickleback fan but I do have some of their songs. The song "If today was your last day" came on and I have heard the song so many times but a couple lines really hit me. Right in the middle of Pilates it is almost like a light switch came on.

My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day's a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind....................................

This isn't going to make anything better and being realistic I know that I am not going to instantly be happy but it made me actually stop and think for a minute.
Each day's a gift but not a given right..............
Enough said! I need to make sure that I pick out one positive thing about each day and I will be starting to enforce that with my kids as well. Even if the day really sucks and as hard as it might be to find a positive at the moment I need to try!
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind...................................
100% percent honesty, I have a lot of fears. Some really big and some small, but all fears in the end! Time to start thinking day by day and not worrying about anything further then the day we are on.

On a completely different note we had SUNSHINE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Whoo hoo!
It wasn't incredibly warm but who cares it was sunny. The kids were so excited they begged me to hauled out the sprinkler and they played in it this afternoon.
As soon as we had sunshine the kids love it when I sing a song from the movie Corrina Corrina.
Sunglasses,ya we've got some sunglasses
cause sunglasses protect our eyes from the sun.
Okay, I admit it I like the song as well! :)

Rant

I know I have done a lot of complaining lately and I have been holding back on the blog…. Sorry guys! This post I will not be complaining but ranting, there is a very distinct difference. :)

I have been feeling rather down on myself and the rate I am learning French, I am really trying. I take lessons 3 times a week and try and speak what I know when I feel comfortable enough to and for the most part I let the laughter that follows my sentence roll off my back. It is all part of the learning process, right?

I went into French lessons this afternoon feeling like I haven’t learnt anything substantial so I asked my French teacher if we could review from the beginning and work our way over everything I have learn up into this part. Well it is impossible to concentrate when I have 2 children constantly asking for my help to for me to get things for them….grrrrrrr!

I was feeling like the lesson was going downhill at that point but I really hit rock bottom when my French teacher looked at me shook his head say “oh Mel, you should know this.” I felt like a huge failure and all I want to do is be able to have a conversation, that’s it!

There are times during French lessons that all I can think about is screaming, my brain is so full and jumbled that processing becomes impossible.

On to my kids, why do we pay money for a nanny when she can’t even keep the kids out of my hair for French lessons? 2 hours tops! I am fighting a personal crossroad with her, I want to keep her because she knows English and to find someone in the position that wants to be a nanny and knows both French and English is hard to find. All she does is watch tv and then on the days I am not working and doing lessons at home my kids come and bug me for everything under the sun! I am pretty much paying her to sit around and eat my food, good times for her!

What a bloody frustrating day!

Okay, I am now done ranting! On a positive note we stood on Canadian soil today! Who hoo! Yup, we went to the Canadian embassy to register and they have actual Canadian soil on the ground.... okay not that exciting!

Universal balance

Today sucked, no other way to describe it but SUCKED!

On my way home from teaching a triple ........ yeah Pilates... whoo hoo cough...cough choke
I had a realization that did my heart a little good, even though my day sucked there were little glimpses of a silver lining.
I had a member show up to my Pilates class at 1:00 in a unitard, I think it is a unitard. It is one of those full sleeved dance body suit the snaps together in the crotch and to top it off the body suit was paired with a lovely pair of ballet slippers. It made me smile.

The second sliver lining, driving home from teaching tonight stuck in un embouteillage ( traffic jam) wonder what was going on! all around us was chaos, sirens going, lights flashing and military with machine guns out. As the traffic jam moved closer to an up coming bridge the story started to unfold ( Mom and Dad S, I am guessing you know where this is going). A huge truck got stuck under the bridge, it actually looked like they gunned it in hopes that the speed would help them under. This truck was some kind of wedged! The truck was wedge at an angle covering both lanes on two wheels ( the two right side wheels). Seeing as we have no tow trucks here I wonder how they will get it out.
Anyhoo, it gave me a great laugh! Shit happens!

** Disclaimer, I am not knocking Pilates at all! I just never thought I would be teaching it.

Sigh

I can’t take it anymore….. I am officially done…………………………………………………………………………. With the lack of sunshine here! Every morning I open the blinds and hope for a couple rays of sun, but every morning I open the blinds and my head hangs a little lower with the gloomy clouds that hang in the sky. It has actually started to affect my mood; it is hard to see clouds all the time especially when we just came out of 7 months of fall and winter in Calgary where the sun doesn’t show itself very often. It is time for some serious Vit. D!

I think we have had 3 days of sunshine since arriving…………… sigh!

Kinshasa

Questions are fun! Thanks Lana for asking these questions, they are good ones! Time to get a small glimpse ( a very small) into what life is like in Kinshasa.

1. Are people friendly?
- I am not sure if I am the one to answer this questions properly but I will try. Yes, for the most part people are friendly ( I am going to answer this trying to separate from the fact that I have been called horrible and told that I am not wanted here). It is so hard not speaking the language because you can't get to know anyone and people are very stand off because of the language barrier. Right now I feel very isolated and almost like people look at you with hostility but I keep telling myself that when I know more french that will all get better.
Evan is sleeping right now so I am going to answer for him, Evan knows french and communicates wonderfully. I often find him laughing and having a great time with the guards, housekeepers and lots of other people on the courtyard. He loves the people out here!

2. What is the City like?

- The City varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, where we live it is very very poor around our compound. A lot of people don't have homes and sleep on the ground next to their stand of products to sell. There are homes as well but they are concrete with no running water and very little electricity. About 20 mins away is the city center, it is busy full of cars, people walking, individuals ( lots) selling things on the street, apartment buildings and offices. Further towards the other side of the city ( towards TASOK) you get so many small shops, selling everything you can think of. I need to get picture of this because it is incredible to see but pictures in the city are really hard, you need to be careful that a police doesn't see you taking it because it is illegal.
This is a city you have to see in order to fully comprehend.

3. What do most people do?
- What don't people do here! There is everything........ absolutely everything ( well I have yet to find a movie theater)! People sell EVERYTHING... from fruit, rice, flip flops, clothing, water bottles, toilet paper.....etc on the side of the road. Some have office jobs, construction, housekeepers, gardeners, guards, chauffeurs...... EVERYTHING!

4. What is it like having house keep?
- This answer has 2 sides both very different. It is awesome to not have to clean the house, do laundry or dishes. Everything is so dusty here that floors need to be swept and mopped everyday. Kids get so dirty that clothes are washed on a daily bases! I would never have time to keep up with everything. NeNe our housekeeper starts work around 6:30 and finishes around 3:30-4:00 and she works that entire time. On the flip side it gets tiring having someone in your house all the time, from before we wake up until late afternoon. You are always aware of what you are doing especially if certain little feet or big feet are tracking in sand on a clean floor! They are cleaning up our mess and that is so weird for me!

Keep the questions coming it is hard to think about what to blog about sometimes.
Next post Evan's eye!

Pink

........nope not the color! Really could anyone see me wearing a pink shirt ( wait I had one in collage and I think it mad an appearance once or twice)!

Yesterday I taught a triple, for the three hours I taught one single phrase that was playing full blast in my head kept me going.

It was...................................................

So, so what, I'm still a rock star
I got my rock moves and I don't need you
And guess what, I'm havin' more fun
And now that we're done I'm gonna show you tonight

I'm alright, I'm just fine and you're a fool
So, so what, I am a rock star
I got my rock moves and I don't want you tonight

It seemed to help a little! WOOT !

Transplanting and Chickens

For the last couple weeks my kids have been asking for a pet, they want anything exotic. So we talked about a Monkey, Lizard.......etc and then we came up with an awesome idea. We are going to get chickens, I know they are not exotic but the kids are excited and we get fresh eggs and meat from the deal.... WOOT !
We will still be getting another pet for the kids, we are going to look into getting a Bonobo Chimp but I doubt that will be happening anytime before spring.

So this weekend we started the task of building a chicken coop, there was already a coop in Evans parent yard but we had to tear it down and pretty much start again. There also were a couple trees growing in the coop so we transplanted a young avocado and mango tree from there yard into our yard. Evan and I will be finishing the chicken coop this weekend and then we will get the chickens on Monday.

Pictures make everything look cooler, here ya go!

Evan and the kids moving the avocado tree


Squeezing mangoes for compost

starting the Chicken coop
I don't know who trusted me with that thing....... but I am glad they did!

Evan and I will be finishing the coop this weekend so I will post more pics when it is done.

Baby Steps

I am planning on writing a huge post about transplanting trees and building a chicken coop but I can't find our camera cable. It is so much cooler with pics!
I will get that post up and running as soon as I find the cable.

Why baby steps?
Sunday, June 19th is 1 month minus 1 day that we have been in Kinshasa Congo and the first day that I haven't cried! I sure felt like it but I didn't!
This is huge in my mind....... whoo hoo!
Now being realistic I know I will have many more hard days but it is a step in the right direction right?

Story

The other day I was standing in the door way to our bedroom, on the wall under our window (which is directly across the room from the door) is an air condition unit. So, I am standing in the door way and all of a sudden I see a long black tail hang out of the air conditioner, obviously I started to freak out due to the rat that tried my make our kitchen its home. anyhoo, I started to hear soft scratching noises inside the unit and a lizard fell out!
I started to laugh like crazy, this poor lizard was so confused and so lost it kept running in circles on the floor!
Eventually it managed to get back into the air conditioner and outside!

Only in Africa ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Alien #2

** Small disclaimer, I might happen to vent a little in this post so if you don't want to read it then don't!

Before I say anything I want to make it clear that I realize we are living many peoples dream and we have been given the opportunity of a life time. Unfortunately my emotions haven't caught up with my brain.
Lets be completely honest, culture shock SUCKS.....................................
I hate the fact that I can't talk to anyone, and that I have no friends out here.
I hate the fact that going to town is to exhausting and so overwhelming I can barely breath.
I hate that the food is different.
I hate that I find a place to teach for the summer and all anyone wants is Pilates, they don't want to change and to top it off I was told by a member that I am not good at my job and they don't want me to teach them.......... screw you! Oh, I am still teach.......my way!
I hate more then anything that we fight as a family, the kids are constantly either fighting ( mostly physically) or crying ALL THE TIME ! My temper is short and it doesn't make life fun!

I feel like I am an intruder in a place that is supposed to be my home, I feel like I don't belong! So if I don't belong here and I have no home or possessions in Calgary....... where do I belong?

There is so much more to this story but I HATE complaining on the blog so I am going to leave it at this!
I know everyone says it is going to get better......really when?
Sometimes I feel like I could scream, but a GREAT combat class might help ( which won't be happening anytime soon).
I do realize it will get better but it blows chunks right now! It is so hard to live in a beautiful place and have a hard time enjoying it!

Okay, now I am done.............. got to say you guys rock at listening!

back to the regularly scheduled post!

Alien

I hate the fact that I feel like an intruder in my own home, almost like I am an alien!

More on that later, off to teach 3 hours of Pilates! Whoo hoo!

SERIOUSLY

We have been living in Kinshasa for 21 days now but it feels like a life time! Seriously! ! ! ! ! ! !
Culture shock and language barrier are constantly with us, even heading into town for 2 hours leaves me so exhausted it takes all my will power to put one foot in front of the other!


Here is 21 tid-bits about life and Kinshasa

1. We have had sun for 2 days, hello dry season!

2. Amount of sunscreen we have used since arriving - Zero

3. Bug spray used - LOTS

4. Number of sun burns we have gotten - ZERO

5. 1 traditional Congolese meal including the caterpillars!

6. I have worked for 20 hours ( as a fitness instructor) since arriving

7. Pilates is the ONLY class anyone wants to take ............... groan!

8. 2 french lessons for Mel, Evan will start on Tuesday.

9. Days we have go swimming including the river - 4

10. Seeing your life flash before your eyes while driving - Countless!

11. Number of times we have done our own dishes - Zero! Don't hate us!

12. Evan is on his second full week of work since arriving.

13. Time of night Evan falls asleep - 9:30 pm

14. Time of night Mel falls asleep - 1:30 am

15. Number of Malaria pills our family has consumed- 88

16. Number of days the kids have been in bed by their proper bed time - Zero

17. Lizards are like mice here, seen on a daily bases!

18. We have already been to one formal Gala

19. Average temperature has been round +25 but cloudy!

20. Fresh fruit consumed daily!

21. Number of cat sized RATS living in our kitchen ( until tonight) - 1
I only wish I was kidding................. shudder!

I could probably think of many other tid-bits but that was 21 so I will stop there for today.

Untitled

My heart is so heavy tonight, have so much to say but no words to form the thoughts so I am going to leave you with a picture.


Check back in the next day for the full story of our weekend!

Kids

So here is a small insight into how my kids are adjusting, where to start is the question!

Kids are incredibly resilient, they adapt to new surroundings very quickly with relatively no problems........ generally speaking.
In the last almost 3 weeks we have had our moments where our kids are in tears begging to home, most of the time it is because they miss their friends, family, teachers, old house or forgetting favorite stuffed animals in Canada( oops, totally guilty).
A couple things I have noticed with the kids is the amount of fighting, all siblings fight but it has greatly escalated since arriving and along with it has come hitting, kicking, head locks and biting! You wonder what impression you are making when the whole courtyard can hear you yelling "MICAH, REMOVE YOUR TEETH FROM YOUR BROTHER'S SHOULDER"...... thank goodness English is not the first or second language around here!

Another thing I have noticed is the short fuses in the smallest Schellenberg's ( not me.... no! Um... anyhoo). The smallest things sets them off into a complete outrage. This morning Micah and I were outside, I was running lines in our backyard and Micah was playing when Emmanuel came outside and was going to put on bug spray, well he grabbed the raid can instead. I saw it but was on the other side of the yard so I went running.... well continued running! It just so happened that our housekeeper saw it as well and freaked out a little......... in french. She grabbed the can out of Emmanuel's hand and was talking............. intensely......... yes intensely is a good word! Emmanuel flipped, ran in the house and locked himself in the bathroom. I went to go talk to him and all I could was I HATE IT HERE............ WHY DO WE HAVE TO BE HERE........... I HATE OUR HOUSEKEEPER.......... WHY CAN'T SHE LEAVE. He was screaming angry all over a can of raid!

Kids and Food........... hmmmmmm, lets say that it is not all fun and games. Things taste different, most of the food they are used to isn't sold out here and nothing is easy to prepare so it takes time. I am really hoping they will adapt soon but also being very realistic that is will take some time. The upside is the kids get tons of fruit! The downside is they often end up skipping a meal or going to bed a little hunger.

All in all they are doing fantastic, I am very proud of both of them. Hey if I can throw my temper tantrums since arriving ( I hang my head in shame), then they can also!

** I will be deleting this post when Emmanuel figures out how to log on here by himself!
:)

Strange

Adapting to a new country, way of life and all that goes with it is so hard! I don't really want to talk about culture shock right now but funny story about adapting.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the car with my chauffeur, I was on my way to work and running a little late. Now traffic is crazy at the best of times, actually insane might be a better way to describe it! There are no traffic lights or stop signs, the rule of thumb here is if your bumper is first you have the right of way ( hypothetically)! So picture this, maxed out taxi ( squished to the brim and people holding on outside), motorcycles, cars that are driven by chauffeurs, personal drivers and huge trucks carrying goods often with people holding on the top as well as people just running out to the road crossing, you see this everywhere ( no joke)!
So driving to town with Edo and he was trying to pass some slower moving cars in a line well I was looking forward from the front passenger seat and could clearly seen the on coming truck! This truck was closing in fast..........................my first reaction ( no joke)............ NOTHING ! ! ! !
Completely calm, no reaction! Now that is called adapting to your surroundings!

Hard

I am actually sitting in front of my computer not at a loss for words but a loss for how to put them together in proper sentences.
Hmmmmmmmmmm, thinking.........thinking..............thinking.......................................

Two things I wanted to blog about, my work and french lessons. If you ever had the urge to be a fly on the wall and have a frickin' good laugh come to my french class. You will not only get a gut busting laugh but you will get showered with my spit and some fantastic pictures of my contorting face as I try and pronoun some of the words. You think I made weird facing when teaching combat, well that was a drop in the bucket compared to learning french. Nothing sexy about it!
I met with my french tutor this afternoon and spent just over an hour learning to pronounce vowels and how many different sounds the e make depending on if the accent line is ascending or descending. Also when the spelling of certain letter combinations make different sounds depending on if a vowel or consonant is following. After writing for 4 pages both front and back and anything to do with word combinations or when the vowel is silent my language tutor looks at me and say " when I return on Thursday, you need to be able to read this all back to me"......... my response? A string of very choice words under my breath :)
Don't get me wrong, I want to learn and I am willing to work at it but my brain hurts for overload of info. It will all pay off in the end................... fingers crossed!

Topic 2 - Work
I miss LesMills, what I would give for a kick ass combat class or a heart pounding attack class. I am teaching Pilates 9 times a week......... yup 9! I am still hoping to change that but people here are very reluctant to change and all they know is Pilates. Ironically for how hot and humid it is here at a lot of the ladies don't want to sweat. I would even teach Step willingly right now.... no offense to any Step instructor!
As of right now I am teaching at a physiotherapy clinic but really hoping to expand into something else in the next couple months. There is a very fine line you walk as a fitness instructor here. There are 4 fitness instructors in a city of 10 million which sounds crazy but the competition is fierce. I am actually taking over the class of one of the girls who is going to Europe for the summer and it was made VERY clear to me that when she returns come Aug I will be giving the classes back. The other 3 are also on holidays for the summer, one teaches at a very swanky hotel ( I so want that gig), I tried to rent the space for the summer while she is gone but that wasn't happening. Now the 3rd lady, she is a pick of work. apparently she has been teaching for 30 years and dominates the industry. I have also been warned that if she feel threaten by you she will do everything in her power to make you quit, can't wait to rub shoulders with her..............WOOT!!!
You have to understand that 4 doesn't seem like anything compared to the amount of people in the city but when the average income is anywhere between $20.00- $150.00 ish per month, classes are not high on the priority list!

Still hoping to blog about culture shock really soon!

Hands down, the BEST salad!

This is probably the best salad I have ever eaten or made! So simple but oh so good!
It is made out of cucumbers, mangos, papaya, avocados, diced tomatoes, chopped garlic, purple onion and little lime juice........... wiping the drool!
YUM!

Country Side

On Saturday we went out to the country to spend some time at the river and relax. The scenery was absolutely amazing. This post is going to mostly contain pictures, we still are really not supposed to take any pictures in Kinshasa or surrounding villages but Evan got a couple in! One thing that really struck me is a lot of the smaller villages look like the ones you see on TV, with the mud houses and grass roof! Everyone we passed though always had a huge smile for us!
Road that we take down to the river.

Two little boys just outside of a small village that we passed!
A termite mound, that thing was huge!
Vine Bridge that crossed over the river!
Emmanuel HATES pictures, I can't stress that enough so I had to put this one in just so everyone would know that he is actually with us! You have to catch this kid off guard for any type of pic.

Let's talk about sweat..................

or boobs if we are on weird topics!

Lets stick to the first topic!
Goodlife Instructors (especially ones who have taught with me or seen me teach) and members who have attended my classes this is all for you guys!
Now I am going to be honest, I tend to be a sweater................ okay okay, a really big sweater! Whether I am teaching or sitting on the couch watching TV and we wont even talk about if I am laughing or crying!
Let's add on temperatures of 25-35 with humidity of around 90% and it is the dry/cold season, we will talk again in 3 months when it is wet/hot season!
This is the product of my body plus heat.....

This pic was taken around 10 am after I had been standing outside for 5 mins max! I am sexy! You should see me after playing soccer outside with Emmanuel for an hour, shirt was getting rung out, crotch sweat was flowing and swass was making a presence!
I am a little concerned about teaching come September in the hot season, I will be teaching outside with no air conditioning............. the sweat is going to be a-flowing!

If you look at a lot of the African workers ( not all but a lot), I have noticed that they don't seem to sweat as much, their bodies as used to the heat so I guess they don't need to cool down as much. Hey, maybe I will acclimatize eventually and when I come back to Calgary to visit and get to do some team teaching the front row members wont get sweat in their eyes every time I move my arms! WHOO HOO, no more shocked, grossed out expressions from the front row followed by a wipe of their face!

Okay, no more body function talk.......... at least for tonight!

STARBUCKS.................... where are you?

News flash................. I am missing me some Starbucks ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
We all have comfort food........... right............right? Okay, I have comfort food the biggest problem with comfort food is when you can't find it! ARGH! ! ! ! ! ! !

I can't get Starbucks out here, I actually haven't had a coffee since............... I can't remember actually! Wait Saturday afternoon before we left for Kinshasa, on my way home from Airdrie with Lori............ it was GOOD ! It is amazing what I took for granted before. Maybe it was what coffee represented, often was enjoyed with friends over GREAT conversation or just sitting in comfortable silence.

Ms Vicki's Chips, oh where did you go????????????????????? SOB, I miss your crunch, the intense flavor and the great TV shows or movie night that accompanied you!

My little secret and sinful snack - cheezies ( Is that how you spell it?) Oh my! I have found Cheezies here but they are not the same, maybe if I keep eating them they will grow on me..... fingers crossed!

Last but DEFINITELY not least wine or a ice cold Smirnoff Ice! Give me a second to wipe off the drool.................... yum!

I am 100% A FOODIE, not ashamed of it at all. It is hard not being accustomed to the food out here, it is definitely different. Hoping that I will be able to find some good substitutes for some of my favs really soon. Here is a little tid-bit of information for you, the price of a bag of Lay's Chips out here is $7 US, glup a little hard to swallow but it doesn't mean I don't buy them!

What do we do for fun?

What is there to do for fun in Kinshasa? Hmmmmmm, we are still trying to figure that one totally out but this is what we have so far:

-Going into town, not sure if that is fun yet! It is more stressful then anything due to enormous amounts of traffic and people trying to get around. Shopping can also be very frustrating, you never really know if you are going to find what you are looking for and how many store it could possibly take to get it.

- Playing outside, our weather is beautiful and we have a fantastic backyard! We spend a lot of time chasing lizards and shooting mangos off the tree with a slingshot.
- Playing soccer.......... enough said!

- Our kids will be attending the TASOK school come fall and they have an incredible spread. We are taking pool, outdoor beach volleyball courts, basketball courts, soccer field, tennis and so much more! We love the pool and have already spent some time in it!