Our nightmare move from Kenya!

Before I continue on our South African chapter, I must just write about our Move From Hell that we experienced during our last 3 days in Nairobi. We had been forced to use a certain move company because Benedikt's new company had ties with them. Right from the beginning this made me anxious as I know how many things can go wrong if you don't have the right people helping you.
So the packers from said company arrived on the Wednesday, 2 hours late of course. And they started packing. SLOWLY. Joseph, their leader who had come 2 weeks prior to do an assessment on the house assured me that they would finish that day with the packing. Looking at the guys doing the cutting, wrapping, boxing, and taping I was like, WHATEVER.
They were like snails. And there was only 4 guys. Granted, yes, we had sold 50% of our stuff, but we still had enough goods to fill a 20 foot container, so it was a lot. So at the end of the day he admitted they would need to come back the following day. So again, on Thursday, they arrived LATE, and slowly got started on packing the remaining items. Benedikt and I, during those 2 days packed the entire upstairs contents ourselves! Come Friday, they still had about 20% of things to pack/wrap and it was 12 noon before they even arrived! This was our last day in Kenya and we were getting just a tad bit stressed.
Friday, being D-day, meant that we had a few friends dropping by to say goodbye. Plus various people picking up my car, the microwave, our bed and its accompaniments, our fridge and our alien ID's (these are very useful for visitors who want to pay resident rates!) respectively. So at any given time, there was a few extra people there besides the packers. Plus our housekeeper and nanny, who were both GREAT in helping us with cleaning, sorting and looking after Nico. (Nico hardly slept a wink that day as his room was packed up, poor thing)
So, on top of all that choas, my good friend Eva, who was moving into our house, who HAD to be out of her house that day, had to move in! So her people were there dropping off things to the garden and installing her fridge and washing machine and dstv etc. Basically as soon as we declared a room empty, she would move stuff in. So ZERO turn around time! And I'd say at the peak of the chaos, there were about 25 people at our place moving bits of furniture in different directions!
So crunch time came and it was time to pack the trucks. Which was a last minute change as our move company (or rather the group of useless people who calls themselves a company) told us on Friday morning that they couldn't load our container directly and that they would take our stuff to the airport via truck and load the container there. Without us being present at the re-loading. ie. Half our stuff would go missing when they moved it from the trucks to the container and the other half of it would be packed so badly it would break during transport. To me, those were now a given.
I felt immediate sadness for all the personal effects we were bound to lose. Like things my granny gave me, or photo albums and books. And all the special items we'd bought in Kenya. The things like our crockery and sofa and rugs and camping equipment is easy to replace and we have a good insurance. But its the personal things like wedding presents and framed photos that we will be sad about. We will only really know how much they messed up when we get to Zurich in a few months time and take our stuff out of storage. We are not going to think of it between now and then, its pointless.

So anyway, it was time to load our stuff, with air freight going off first. So I took photos of the air freight items and wrote a list of what was going. As they started loading the truck we asked where the packing list was... they pointed to me and said she is writing it down and that they would get a copy. We were like WHAT?!!!!!!!!!
I was hand writing on a random piece of paper and they wanted a COPY?!! And we were to write our OWN packing lists?!!! How completely dodgy and unprofessional. We were shocked actually!!
So for the next 2 hours, Benedikt and I had to be there as they loaded the trucks and write down (in duplicate) what was going on, with its number and contents. What shambles.
Nico chose that moment to wake up, we couldn't blame him, with all the noise and no curtains or anything in his room. So there we were, trying to keep close tabs on what was being loaded, while keeping an eye on Nico, and facilitating all the people picking up beds and cars etc. Nico managed to find a red felt tip pen at the same time and draw on all the walls!!
WHAT A NIGHTMARE.
And I am convinced we won't see our belongings again.

Nico is now one and a half and has just started school

Well, not school school. Although they do call themselves a school. Its more like a play school. Or kindergarten as Benedikt calls it.
His first day went quite well - he didn't even cry when I said goodbye! Although his teacher did call me to please collect him at 10am. Apparently he had been crying a fair bit. Jungle Tots is about 1.5kms from home and is within our secure (boomed off) suburb so its very quick and safe to get there. They only take kids up to age four, so its all very geared up for the little ones. The playground is just amazing! Perfectly sized slides and swings and a big plastic aeroplane and lots of push bikes with a track all the way around. Then they have a wooden puzzle room, a main dancing/music/activities room, and 2 classrooms. Nico is with 9 others, he is the youngest I think as they only take kids from 18 months onwards - he just made it.

I've made friends with one other mum so far, her and her family have just moved up from Durban. Her little boy, Max, and Nico are in the same class.
Its funny this whole school / classroom / teacher / rules / bag packing / writing Nico's name on everything business. I felt nervous myself going there on the first day!

Days 2 and 3 were nowhere as easy as day 1. He cried hysterically when I dropped him off. Well more like wrenched him off me to hand him over, his eyes big with fright and him crying the loudest ever. That didn't bother me too much as I know he was ok, just out of his comfort zone. Its when he looks around during play time later in the morning and doesn't see a familiar face, that's when I want to be there for him. To encourage him and look at whatever he has found.... instead he probably just cries some more because he doesn't recognise anyone. Poor little thing!
I've had to pick him up at 10am every day so far. So I have a measly 2 hours to get things done which is nothing, this morning I spent the entire time at the local home affairs which is always a joy. And I need to work! Nico has to start surviving at school until 12.

On Nico's 18 month birthday I took him to the Bunny Park in Benoni. He loved it!


PS. Nico survived until 12 noon on his 4th day of school. Yeeeeeeeeeeha! I didn't know what to do with all that free time. AND he slept until 3pm when he got home. So thats like almost a whole day. Lets hope this keeps happening

Braai at ours and the Dischem 21km

Its been really great hooking up with all my friends here. Its been 3 weeks of me looking after Nico ALL DAY and boy does it get tedious. Benedikt has started his new job and thats going well so far. Its a good challenge for him. I'm keen to get going with my web development work, but am waiting for Nico to start at nursery school. Its impossible trying to sit on my computer with him around. He climbs all over me, and presses all the keys and kicks the table etc etc. So instead, I try to meet up with friends or go on excursions daily to get out of the house. Even if its just to lurk at a local toy store :) 3 of my good friends have kids now so our visits are play dates for Nico too - bonus.
So last weekend we entertained for the first time in our temporary rental house. We have only basic furniture. And lots of mismatched stuff that my father has... He is living with us while we are here so that he can be chief babysitter, dog sitter, furniture and car provider! He and I are sharing his bakkie so that I don't have to get a car. Its all working well so far.


I am REALLY trying not to get sucked into doing too much exercise while I am here. It won't help our pregnancy cause. But its SO hard. This country is a sports mecca! I couldn't not enter a 21km that started 700m for our house could I? The announcments alone would have woken us up! So Mandy and I ran it last weekend.
So our good friend from Nairobi came to stay with us yesterday. He did the half ironman in East London. His first big triathlon. He did super well in the swim and bike but absolutely died in the run! Was SO good to see him. He and I shopped up a storm for him to take supplies back to Nairobi!

New Years in Brits the Pits

So my sister and her husband are in the middle of a 2 year stint of living in Brits. They are there while Collin specialises in embryology. So my sister does a LOT of driving to get to joburg and its surrounds in her new job as a Veterinary rep. She got very tired of the hard lifestyle and stressful job of being an outpatients nurse at Ondestepoort.
So after our week in Swellandam, Nico and I went and spent 5 days in Brits. Benedikt joined us on the fourth day as he'd been back in Nairobi to wrap up things at his old job.

Kreeeeesmaaas in Swellies

Its been very funny to hear the strong South African accents again and all the south africanisms...its entertaining Benedikt and I no end. Things like 'eish' and 'seriaaaaas' and 'kreeeeeesmaaaa' and 'aswell'... I love this place.
So we all spent a week in Swellendam in the Western Cape over Christmas at my mum's lovely house. My sister and I flew down to cape town with Nico and my mum picked us up. It was really nice that it was just us 3 for the first night. Then Dad drove down the next day with my sister's dog, Malawi, or 'Malawa' as Nico calls him. Then Benedikt arrived the next day as he'd had to spend the week in Germany for his new job. Then Collin arrived the next day, on Christmas eve. We just missed having my brother and Nicola there.
It was a very social week, we visited some of my mum's neighbors and Swellendam's one and only vegan (who grows amazing salad veggies hydroponically) came to visit twice, we had a a visit from an old school friend of my brother's and met her twins and we met up with a family we know from Kenya who were holidaying in Cape Town and did some wine farms and went for lunch with them.