I am on the edge of my seat- having so much work to do and trying to get past all the transition and admin stuff.
Took almost exactly a week – the big challenge is dealing with the kids and the school plus my father in law who speaks no English. He is so helpful, don’t get me wrong – but it was another added element of transition. Had to help him get money exchanged, SIM card, his specific groceries too.
The kid’s school was really the challenge – it was the fact that we are 20 minute drive from the school and the bus doesn’t come here (we are still waiting to see if they can re-consider it). So we had the landlord, Fern, help us find a family friend who is a driver and get a long term agreement in place where he picks up the kids each day – makes sure they get into school – and then drops them off home after.
There was a lot of worry about this in our Chinese family wechat group. Sure – it is scary – who is this person, what if they steal the kids, what if the kids take off their seatbelt in the back seat and do something stupid, etc etc.
But really – I can’t go with them in the car every day, wait in a coffee shop (trying my best to work) and then pick them up at 3:30pm and drive back with them and the driver. This is why we are paying the driver, right?!
So finally yesterday we settled this all up and the driver successfully picked up the kids from school and dropped them off home without me or my father in law in the car / in the transit. I was standing by on Line app (whatsapp / Wechat of Thailand) and a bit of a worried dad until they finally arrived home.
Step by step, it is a process. In the Chinese family wechat group I can see some of the family members not happy at all the kids left China and are in a foreign country (well, they would be happy with USA it seems). Again, we can’t keep everyone happy. We are doing the best we can and I still believe we made the best decision for all the reasons we have.
But what I am most excited about is the flow is moving along. We are figuring things out. Each day making big progress – but what I worry about is Wendy’s dad leaving soon – and Wendy still not here. We need to get the immigration visa stuff all set up. Working as hard as I can on this. Probably will take the rest of this year to really get everything settled down.