Oskar is a wrestler

Here is Oskar jumping on Papa.

Oskar and Maxim get cars

Here are the boys showing off the cars they received from their grandma last week.

Here is a video of Maxim and his class. Each student brings in several items that are particular to their home country and presents them to the class.

high pressure water to clean leaves

I wrote a couple days ago about the cleanliness of Amsterdam. It doesn't come without a price. As Maura and I were playing frisbee during the last couple mornings, we saw how people her use a high pressure water sprayer to gather the leaves together. Seems to be a large expenditure of energy and water in the pursuit of proper order.

pictures from dubai

Oskar and papa are playing after papa's knee surgery. Dan B. our school director, grimaces in pain as Oskar 'smiles'. During this week, he thought that "Smile, Oskar" meant that he should close his eyes as tightly as possible.

Oskar is 'smiling' for the camera. Oskar with papa and the doctor.

Post Dubai surgery video

Video taken September 2007. Here is a video that features Oskar sitting on the bed playing while I recovering from my own surgery.

Post Dubai surgery report

23 September 2007

So Oskar and I are back in Almaty and living well. Oskar never missed a moment’s energetic, happy hooliganism, and I will soon have full movement in my knee when the swelling goes down. The doctor said I should do any sports for three weeks, then another doctor said in 4 or 5 months, I will have inferior (only because it will not be the original parts) cartilage grown in. I think I can wait a few months before I do anything. He said the most important thing is not to twist the knee during the recovery period. I suggested that I should wear a brace or something. He didn’t like that idea because the brace would take the place of the muscle, and they needs to gain strength, too.

On the morning of Oskar’s surgery, he was jet lagged and he woke up at 5:30 am (7:30 Almaty time). We walked around the hospital, and around and around… Later that morning, I couldn’t find the piggie he uses as a comfort toy. I went to all the security places and to each floor, nobody had seen it.
As the time got nearer to his surgery, he got more and more sleepy. Usually he takes a nap about 11:00 (Almaty). The operation was at 13:00 (Almaty). He also was not allowed to eat anything, so…from 5:30 ( Dubai ) until 11:00 ( Dubai ) he couldn’t eat, and he didn’t want to sleep. He also was without his piggie. About 10:00, he started to whimper, “Piggie?” “Piggie!” in a desperate voice.
They gave him some medicine to relax him and make him drowsy about an hour before the operation. It didn’t seem to have an effect on him. On Thursday, they gave me the same medicine about 10 minutes before the operation. They took me down to the pre-operating room and the anesthesiologist was there. I told him I would like to talk to the doctor before hand because I didn’t know what kind of bandage I would have and that I want to see the scope and the tools he would be using. He answered, “Okay, we’ll get someone up here to talk to you right away.” The next thing I remember, I was waking up. So I didn’t get to see the tools, but they did make me a DVD of the operation. I can see in living color the bones and the cartilage and the silver pliers-like instrument that looks like an alligator munching leaves as it gobbles up torn pieces of the meniscus that were flapping around the joint causing problems.
The nurses said they don’t call the parents until the child is awake. He was crying inconsolably. I took him and he calmed right down. They said he was waiting for the smell of papa. They told me I could lie down on the bed and hold him. I did and he went right to sleep. They wheeled us up to our room and we transferred him to his crib. We both slept for about 4 hours. Immediately upon waking up, he said “Kooshat!” which means “Eat!” in Russian.

Thanks for everyone who thought and prayed for us,

James

greatest thing about our house in KZ

The greatest thing about our house in Kazakhstan used to be the huge yard. That is still there. Then the great thing was the fact that we had the fruit from apple and plum trees. This was followed by cherries in the spring. Then, we were able to grow pumpkins and strawberries. All those things are still wonderful, but now the greatest thing is that we live so close to school. The traffic in Almaty has become so dreadful that we would live out here even if it meant a grumpy, uncooperative landlord.

One clerk who has a reason to be grumpy

Only one time here in Amsterdam did a clerk at the store counter respond to me with a surly attitude. This was one morning when Maura and I were trying to get on a tram. We didn’t have tickets—we had always bought them on the train itself. This driver did not have tickets to sell. She told Maura some unspecified place to buy the tickets. When I stuck my head in to ask again, many people suddenly appeared behind me and the driver panicked, and told me to get on the tram. I turned to tell Maura to come on board. She didn’t want to mix it up with all the people getting on the train, so she waited. I shoved to the door and got off at the next stop. She got on the next train with one other person but I didn’t see her and she didn’t see me.
I knocked on the window of the next train and the driver opened up the door. I got on and said, “Okay, this is the deal. I need to take the train, but I don’t have a ticket.” He could see me open up my empty wallet as I said, “…and I don’t have any money.” He said nothing…just opened up the door again. I got the point and stepped out.

This remined me of the time I was driving a cab in Baltimore. I was on my way to pick up someone who had called and ordered a cab. Someone flagged my down, so I stopped--not something I was supposed to do, of course. He looked in my window and said, "Okay, here's the deal, man. I got 5 dollars--" I just drove away. There was no way I was going to haggle with some guy trying to swindle me when I have a paying customer waiting for me.

Luckily, I could go to an ATM machine not far away and extracted 50 Euros ($78). I went to the next bus and tried to buy a $2 ticket with my $78. The driver excitedly said, “Oh, no! I cannot. You need to go somewhere. I have no…” He was still talking as I got out again. I found a newspaper/tobacco shop and looked around. I almost bought a Sudoku book—hopefully with some really easy puzzles—but there were other things in the book written in Dutch so I passed on that. Then I almost bought a $17 PC World magazine, but I couldn’t stomach this expense. So I asked the clerk if I could change the 50Euro note.
“No, you can’t change that here.” So I turned around and pulled a candy bar off the shelf. The second cashier snorted as I put the candy and the bill on the counter. Cashier #1 complained a blue streak as she dug for my change. I tried to tell her that she should just have said, “No, I cannot change that bill here.” In retrospect, I should have made that decision myself and gone off to find a shop with more change. My judgment was clouded, however, by my desire not to lose track of my wife. The sad thing is that if I had just told her why I needed to change the money, she would have been able to sell me a strip of tickets for the tram—something we bought at a tobacco shop later that day.

Why is Amsterdam great?

What is so great about Amsterdam?
Everything is clean. One of the biggest annoyances in Kazakhstan is the amount of trash people throw and leave without a thought. sometimes, if I am walking behind someone, or if they are walking toward me, and I see them drop the wrapper of an ice cream stick, I will pick it up and give it to them and say, “excuse me, you dropped this.” I don’t say if like I am judging that behaviour to be inappropriate, but as if they dropped it by accident. So far, everyone has mumbled a brief statement of appreciation and stuffed it in a pocket. I walk away without comment. It’s very possible that they simply throw it again when I leave.

Bikes are everywhere here. People have cool contraptions to have up to three kids on a bike and it doesn’t seem that they are in danger. I see little kids of 2 climbing up all by themselves to get into the back seat, and then a slightly bigger kid climbs into the seat between the little kid and the mother. They also have big tub-like things in the FRONT of the bikes where the kids can ride.
Probably the greatest thing about Amsterdam is the shopkeepers. In shops, people are pleasant and WANT to help. They are knowledgeable and if they DON’T know something, they are eager to find out. I am so impressed by this probably because most of the shopkeepers in Almaty are grouchy, grumpy, mean, unwilling and unable to help.

swimming in Kazakhstan

You may have read earlier about the astronomical entrance fee for swimming at the pool that is close to our house in Almaty. I can’t think of one Kazakh person who could afford such an expense. Then I found out that they never open before 10:00 in the morning. One thing the pool owners have not considered is that people might like to get some exercise before work. Then I figured that the people going there must be the ones who are so wealthy that they don’t have to work.

One thing about the pool here in Amsterdam is that there are no doors. There are no places to take a shower while separated from the opposite gender. I’ve seen people simply keep their swimming suits on in the shower. The only time of absolute privacy is while seated on the toilet. Even the men’s urinals have only a small separator coming out from the wall.
The first couple days I was there, they had a low diving board sticking out into the common swim area. The interesting thing is that they didn’t seem to have any rules about when the next diver could climb on to the steps, nor were there regulations about waiting for the previous diver to reach the side of the pool before jumping. Everyone seemed to be doing fine time. On Tuesday, the board had been removed without explanation—at least without explaining to me. Someone may have broken a bone when someone landed on them…

high speed in AMS

We are in Amsterdam. Of course, the first thing out of Dad’s mouth is, “watch out fo the red light district!” Probably the greatest thing about the place for me is that free, wireless, high speed internet access. I’ve never had such a thing at my disposal before. Imagine a person who is supposed to be teaching kids how to use computers, and I experience high-speed unlimited access for the first time. Is this heaven?

Here are some picturs from an experimental blog. They are worth keeping...







Here is a picture of Maxim and his buddy, Deniz.


Maxim and his 3-year-old class on dressup day:


And finally, a picture of my buddy, Josh, wearing Maxim's bike helmet: