Well, it happened. Monsoon is officially upon us, which means Mumbai will now be getting rain every day until the end of October. I was really hoping it’d hold out until after our packout, but no such luck. On the plus side though, rain clears out all the particulate in the air, which makes for the cleanest air we get all year.
Nia Updates
Nia wrapped up 4th grade on Friday. Nia has been at the American School of Bombay since 1st grade, so this departure is really hard for her given all the friends she has to leave behind. She is a resilient one though, and I know she’ll embrace the next adventure as well.
Next up school-wise for her is 5th grade at a public school in Arlington, VA. This will be her first time in both a public school and a U.S. school. We’re praying for a smooth transition. It’s a little complicated (surprise, surprise) because we won’t be assigned our DC housing until two weeks before our arrival and of course the school won’t admit her officially until we prove that we live in Arlington with the lease paperwork. But never fear, I am told public schools HAVE TO take any child that shows up that lives within the school’s boundary, so I’m counting on that.
Here’s a fun look at Nia’s 1st and last days of 4th grade. What a blessing it was–for all of us–to have her back at in-person school all year!
Nick Updates
Nia and I will be leaving Mumbai in early July and Nick will follow later in the month. He’s been filling his final weeks with lots of important last tasks, including the Consulate-wide kickball tournament.
His team, Public Kickplomacy, was made up of his Public Diplomacy colleagues (both Indians and Americans). This was the first kickball tournament in awhile and many of the local staff weren’t familiar with the game. When getting local staff to join teams, common recruiting messages from the Americans were, “It’s not a real sport, more like a playground game, super fun, anyone can play.” And perhaps that’s really what people believed going in, but as the competition heated up, the tone definitely shifted from “fun playground game” to “serious sporting event”. It was pretty hilarious to see how intense everyone got. The best part was that the locals got into it as much as the Americans! I’m pleased to report that Nick’s team did very well, making it all the way to the championship game, which they unfortunately lost to the Marines. I consoled Nick, saying “No shame in losing to the Marines, honey. Hold your head up high.”
Sarah Updates
The best thing ever happened. Our friend passed along a keyboard to us. I was super jazzed about it, mostly because I hoped Nia might taken an interest in it and want to play. Back in Kindergarten and 1st grade I took piano lessons but I found it boring and quit. However, it did give me a good musical foundation which I then used for singing and playing the clarinet.
To my delight, Nia did get excited about it and asked to get an app she’d heard of called Simply Piano, which basically ‘gamifies’ learning piano. She got super into it and was picking it up really quickly. I may have been a little jealous, which got me thinking . . . maybe I should give it another go?
So I sat down one day when she took a break and got hooked as well. Nick followed soon after. And before you know it, we were all fighting for keyboard time. Who’d have thought?! Jury’s out on whether it’ll fit in an air freight box and we can take it to DC or if it’ll have to go on the boat to Kazakhstan. We’ll be picking up right where we left off! Family concerts in our future???
Between piano, painting, and writing, it seems I’ve entered a mid-life creative renaissance of sorts. The combination of the three makes me ridiculously happy and has left me wondering why I ever let them fall out of my life. It feels so good to be spending a significant part of my day on creative endeavors, like my world is in greater alignment when I live like this. Am planning to continue full speed ahead with this direction in DC. Will be interesting to see what comes of it!
And that brings us to writing. My writing program closed at the end of May. I do not have a finished memoir. What I do have is 150,000 words, though I’m nowhere near close to done. I am still writing about 500-700 words a day, five days a week and plan to keep doing that through the summer to get my rough draft on the page. I’m then going to set it aside come fall and turn my focus to a new project.
I’ve signed up for the next session of my writing program for September and am keen on trying to get something published within the 9 month timeframe. This time around my plan is to go back through my 1000 posts on Novakistan and curate the best of the best, flesh them out more, organize them around themes, and then present a compendium of 50 short stories from my 10+ years overseas. Given that I’ve already written all the rough material, I can spend my nine months rewriting, organizing, editing, learning the writing software, and muddling through the publishing process. This project feels far more manageable than the memoir, and I think I have a decent shot of having a published book by the time I leave for Almaty in the summer of 2023.
One Last Hurrah
This is going to sound ridiculous, but we’ve planned one last trip before leaving India. We’re departing shortly after packout wraps for a two and a half week trip to Greece to celebrate our daughter’s love/obsession with Greek Mythology. Her interest in it is really quite remarkable and we want to keep encouraging her curiosity and love of learning through a hands-on experience.
We thought about tabling the trip until we got settled in Kazakhstan (can’t travel during language–very strict rules) but worried she might not be as into it then. So we’re going for it now, even though it’s not a very rational thing to do at the end of a tour.
This trip holds very special personal significance for me as well, as Athens was the first international destination I ever went to back in 2000 when I was a junior in college. I had signed up for a combined trip to Greece and Italy (two months Athens, then two months Rome). I picked the trip purely so I could go to Italy and was surprised when I fell in love with Greece instead. It was a magical time for me, and I can’t wait to revisit some of my old haunts. Should be a good trip for us and will hopefully tide us over for awhile. :)
