On Saturday, September 11th, I posted that I hoped to have news by the following Monday regarding having received official permission to homeschool. Not that I really care about that in of itself, but Immigration is making things difficult, saying that they can't issue me with a yellow slip (permission to live here indefinitely and leave and enter the country at will) until my children are either in school or I've received permission to homeschool.
So...has there been progress? Nope, not really. Monday the 13th came and went, no news. On Sunday, September 19th, our acquaintance, X, called me and said that he would definitely have news for us the following day, that he had convinced the Minister of Education that if he doesn't deal with us quickly, then we will go to the media and it could cause a huge publicity problem for him. At this point, I'm willing to go the media...I think. If they were to come to us, I know I'd have something to say, anyway.
Monday the 20th came and went.
On Thursday the 23rd, X called and said that if we could be at a certain location here in Larnaka on Friday the 24th, where the Minister of Education had a meeting planned, we would be able to meet with him. Our friend Annika, visiting us from Germany, willingly babysat five children and we dressed up (well, my husband did--instead of shorts and a t-shirt, he wore LONG trousers, a SHIRT, a TIE, and a JACKET!!!) and set off. After we'd waited for about 45 minutes, the receptionist told us that she'd had a phone call. I'm not entirely sure whether the phone call was from X, who had received a phone call from the secretary of the M of E, or if the phone call WAS from the secretary of the M of E. Either way, she said that the M of E had had to go deal with an emergency with his daughter at school, and so wouldn't be coming to Larnaka after all. So we went home. (But had very much enjoyed getting to sit and talk with each other uninterrupted for nearly an hour--it was like a date! :-) )
That evening, my husband looked up the M of E's biography on the internet: according to the internet, he has two sons, no daughters.
A couple of days later, X called again, said that he was sorry that the meeting with the M of E didn't work out, that there'd been a miscommunication and he only went to some villages, not into the city of Larnaka.
Yes, I'm aware that these messages don't match up. All I'm doing is reporting what I was told. It could be that there'd been a miscommuication and he was only going to the villages, but that was cancelled because he had to deal with an emergency with his son...or his granddaughter...or a friend's daughter...or someone else entirely. So maybe nobody actually lied.
Anyway, X then called me again on Sunday, October 3rd, and said that the District Minister of Education, Mr. Th., would phone me on Monday. As my cell phone doesn't ring, I carried it around with me all day. (Except while I left it in the car while at the U.S. embassy applying for a new passport for Jacob, as his passport expired in February and we only noticed it last Thursday. But there was no message of a missed call when I came out.) No phone call. Tuesday I talked with X's significant other, C, to ask for Mr. Th.'s phone number, and she told me to text X, so I did. No answer from him.
This morning, I got a phone call from my friend S, through whom we have the contact with X. X had apparently called S's husband, R, who called S because he didn't have my number on his new phone, and S called me, to tell me to call the location where we were supposed to have the meeting, as the District M of E was possibly there.
So...I called there. Happily, I was able to talk with E, whom I know, and who speaks excellent English. She said that the D M of E was only likely to be there a few more minutes. I told her I could be there in 10, and planned how I was going to call S and ask her if I could drop off several children, and I rushed to make sure everyone had clothes on (it may be October, but it still feels like summer to us...), but E said she'd wait and talk with the D M of E first, and ask if I could talk with him, and either he would call me or she would call me back. Within five minutes, she'd called to say that he had already left, but yes, she did speak to him. He said, "Mother of six children? Yes, we know all about it--we're just checking to see if the children are being educated." I asked E exactly HOW he was checking, if he won't talk with us or visit us or answer any messages!! E, of course, has nothing to do with any of it, but was sympathetic and said that things move slowly here in Cyprus, and to keep bugging him.
I'll keep trying...
hey how are you?
ReplyDeleteLOL... well since 'S' was on her way out to the hairdresser right after calling, dropping off children would have been difficult. So perhaps just as well there was, in fact, no meeting...
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