Gan

Friday, June 15, 2007

It's been a rough transition over the past week, but we did have some bright spots. One Wednesday we went to Gan Gaby where Miriam will be. "Gan" means garden and it's what daycares and pre-schools are called here. Debra had the same impression that I did when I first walked in in March: this is a great place. Gaby is originally from South America, but her English is excellent. She and Debra spoke a mix of Spanish and English, while she and I spoke a mix of Hebrew and English. Sometimes we did this in the same conversation! Gaby is a connector and a really nice person. She lent us a crib for Miriam until we can get one of our own, and invited us over for dinner.

The gan is right next door and she lives two house down, so it couldn't be more convenient. Miriam jumped out of our arms when we got there and immedately started to play. She seemed very comfortable there. One of the day care providers is Canadian so I'm hoping she'll understand Miriam's word approximations. On the other hand, those Canadians can be a sketchy bunch. ;-)

One of our big concerns was that Silvia's pre-school doesn't start until September and we were going to have to find a nanny for her for the summer. Well, when we asked Gaby for a recommendation, she told us she'd had a cancellation that morning and she could take Silvia for the summer. We were very relieved and excited!

The next day, Thursday, we went to look at Silvia's pre-school. She'd been asking about it, and mostly asking about when she was going to get to play with her new friends. It's been amazing to me that she knows what's important to her, and asks about it so much. She knows that we are going to be away for awhile, talks about missing home, and wonders when we can go play with friends from home, but she asks about making new friends a lot. I think she's going to be very happy once school gets started.

Her pre-school is called Kol Hanishama and is located in a reform shul two blocks from our house. It has a stellar reputation and Debra's cousin Marcie actually used to work there years ago. We were very lucky to get in.

We dropped by on Thursday morning so Silvia could get a quick look. I found the director, with whom I had a wonderful talk in March, and She started to show us Silvia's classroom. It looked to me like the younger kids classroom (Miriam missed it by 10 days!), so I reminded her that Silvia was three. She turned, grabbed the files, and said "whoops!". We had a moment of panic that there wasn't actually room for her, and then the director took us to the bigger kids classroom and began to introduce us to the teachers.

About five minutes later, she looked up and said, "If Silvia is older, she can start now. If she was younger, her peer group is not here yet, but her class is already here now. Do you want to start on Sunday?" And so Silvia is going to be starting pre-school on Sunday! We'll do a gradual immersion, begining with an hour or so on Sunday, and then adding an hour or two a day until full days by the end of the week. We'll be doing the same thing with Miriam, so I think Debra and I will have a kid free moment for the first time since we got here. Though probably we'll need the time to run errands!

So next week, we're going to wade into real Israeli life: setting up bank accounts, registering for Ulpan (Hebrew classes), and getting our identity cards. That will be when the real fun begins!