School In South Africa

Step 1: Show up one day before the last quarter of the 2012 school year for placement testing and uniform fitting. Sasha placed into grade 3 and Teddy placed into grade 1. This was great news. It put them a year ahead of their South African classmates which means that they will be the youngest ones in their class but it also means that they won't be half a year behind when we get back to the States. Great job Hyundai Foreign School! Teddy becomes a 2nd grader and Sasha a 4th grader in January. Yikes!

Step 2: Rent an extra vehicle or a trailer to get all the mandatory uniform items back to the house to be labeled and sorted. You think I'm kidding right? Here's the bare minimum we were required to get for this quarter:
Here's just Sasha's stuff: (note the required red school undies. REALLY?!? This is strangely disturbing. Like who is going to be seeing my kid's undies?)

Just Ted's: And this wasn't all if it!!! Still on order waiting for mandatory custom embroidery were their school swim towels, art smocks, pencil bags, music bags, and for Ted a chair bag and a school bag. And a rain jacket for Sasha that was back-ordered. At this point I was terrified and ready to flee the country. How on earth was I going to figure out which version of which uniform each kid was wearing on any given day? The answer turns out to involve an extensive chart with multiple colored highlighters.

Step 3: Try it on!
Step 4: Get ready for the real deal on the first day of school!
give the puppy a hug good-bye! (Note that this is the early, unbroken version of the puppy. Simpler times people....simpler times.)
Step 5: Have Mom figure out that the Blazer is, indeed required. We don't want any debits in our behavior book after all...
Step 6: Make sure you know when to wear the sporty version of the uniform:
Step 7: Make sure make sure that Mom knows when to pick you up and what you have to bring for any given day. Because on Monday Teddy needs lunch and a tennis racket and Sasha needs swimming stuff and Teddy gets picked up at 2:30 and Sasha at 3:15. On Tuesday Ted wears his sports uniform and has swimming. S pick up at 2:10, T pick up at 2:30. Wednesday Teddy has Judo and needs that outfit and gets picked up at 2:15 and Sasha at 3:15 after swimming. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! Thursday is awesome because Sasha has no sport and gets out at 2:10 and Ted gets out at 2:30 and has cricket so no one has to bring anything. And on Friday everyone needs swim stuff and Ted gets out at 1:15 and Sasha so far has gotten out at a different time every Friday so I have no idea WHEN she is supposed to be finished.

Step 8: Unpack the car at the end of the day. Which is like coming home from the beach and summer camp all rolled into one. There are lunch boxes to unpack, wet bathing suits and towels, sporting equipment and the ever-precious blazer (that has hopefully not been lost or crumpled into the bottom of a sports bag or dragged through the dirt) and the uniform parts to all be sorted shaken out and hung up.

AND to top it all off we have to get up at 6am like real people just to make it to school on time. Did I ever complain about the schedule at HFS? Because if I did I needed to be slapped....
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