Eight days in Germany

We got home to Cyprus yesterday, and people keep asking me about my sister's wedding and our time in Germany, since I didn't manage to blog anything else after Thanksgiving. I'm starting with the time in Germany, since those photos are quick and easy to sort, there not being many...

We left San Francisco on Sunday, December 5th, arriving in Amsterdam on Monday morning. The flight was slightly delayed, but still left us enough time to get our connection to Düsseldorf, if we didn't dawdle too much. However, after traipsing through what felt like the entire airport to get to the gate listed on the monitor, we discovered that our flight had been cancelled. One employee told us it was because of fog in Amsterdam (plenty of other flights were taking off, however), and another told us it was because of snow in Düsseldorf (but there wasn't that much and other flights were arriving), so we don't really know why, but in any case, the flight wasn't going. Our choices were to try to get on a much later flight, which was also possibly going to be cancelled and was already overbooked, or taking the train. We opted for the train--paid for by KLM, of course, but we had to schlepp our luggage ourselves.

Eight people, seven suitcases, two carseats, and nine carry-ons made it onto the first train without a problem, and switched to the second train in Utrecht without a problem. Both were very crowded and had no seats free, so Helen curled up in Elisabeth's car seat and Katie laid down on a suitcase and went to sleep:

These are the only photos we took after arriving in Europe...Our next train-change in Oberhausen also went well, and then we got off in Düsseldorf with a huge sigh of relief that we had almost arrived. We counted the children and the suitcases and started to head for the stairs when Jörn suddenly said, "Where's my back-pack?!" It was still on the ICE that was just pulling out of the station, on its way to Frankfurt. Which is why we didn't take any more photos--the camera was in the back-pack. As were the children's U.S. passports. (Their German passports and Jörn's and my passports were in my back-pack.) So instead of getting the next train to Eller, we went to report the lost bag. Finally took the local train to Eller, missed our stop, got off at the next one and took the train back one stop, and some six hours later than planned, arrived at the Es' house. One suitcase was packed for Cyprus, but the other six needed to be taken up to the fourth floor (fifth floor in American--Americans count the floors, Europeans count the flights of stairs). 69 steps. We had dinner with Johannes and Lisa (first floor, only 50 steps between their apartment and our rooms) and then collapsed into bed.

In my experience, the first night on jet-lag isn't generally too bad, because I'm so exhausted I just sleep. The problem this time was that Helen and Elisabeth had both slept during the day...so they woke up around 1:30 and took turns being awake for the next seven hours. I think Katie joined them at some point, as well, but I'm a bit fuzzy on the details now. I just know that they were awake, and therefore, I was awake, but I sure didn't want to be.

Tuesday I was pretty much in zombie-mode, but we didn't have anything planned until the afternoon, so that was good. We all took the train to the C family's house in Angermund, where an hour or so later our friends Margaret and Phil picked up Elisabeth, Jörn, and me to go the 20-year celebration of Globe Europe in Hamminkeln. The original plan had been to borrow the Cs' car, but I was SO glad not to have to drive back that night. Jörn stayed in Hamminkeln for a conference, and Elisabeth and I returned to Angermund, where the children and I all spent the night.

At 11:00 Wednesday morning Jill woke us up and offered to get the children ready and let me sleep a bit more (as I'd been awake a lot with Helen and Elisabeth again), and I gladly accepted. What a wonderful friend! What a glorious 90 more minutes that I SLEPT!

In the afternoon I took Marie, Jacob, and Helen to the doctor, as they'd all been coughing non-stop and it seemed to be worse. Happily, they just had very active colds, and even happier, as we were about to leave the doctor's office I saw Inga, who had been my next-door neighbor for the three years I lived in Düsseldorf nearly 20 years ago. That was a cool surprise, although we could only talk for a minute or two, as she was on her way to an appointment.

And in the evening, the four younger children and I took Jill's car to Oberhausen to have dinner with Barbara and stay the night there, while Marie and Jacob stayed with the C family overnight. Barbara's daughter, Andrea, is staying with us in Cyprus at the moment, volunteering in a rest home, and it was fun talking on the phone with her from her house while she was in our house. :-)

Thursday morning Barbara kept Lukas, Katie, and Helen while I went to a doctor's appointment. (I haven't been too impressed with the gynocologists here in Cyprus...) There had been a lot of snow in the night and the streets weren't yet cleared, so I was going very slowly to begin with, and then when I braked ever so gently and still nearly rear-ended the car in front of me in the left-turn lane (there was happily nobody in the lane for going straight, and I managed to steer that way and miss the car by about half a meter), I slowed down even more and was half an hour late to my appointment. Then I rushed (streets were clear by this time!) back to Barbara's, threw our stuff and the children into the car, and drove back to Mülheim for the children's dental appointment, arriving nearly an hour late. (Marie and Jacob should have been there, too, but I figured that with their coughing, there wasn't much point, and the offer of the car was too good to pass up, but meant I could only take four children with me.) Katie had one tiny cavity on a loose baby tooth and Helen had no cavities, which was a relief, but Lukas had six. This was why I'd made sure to take them to the dentist while in Germany--last year I took him to a dentist here, who said that there wasn't any point in doing anything about cavities on baby teeth, and the one filling she put in fell out a few days later. And then she charged more than our German health insurance was willing to reimburse, too, so I wasn't too happy. I made this appointment way back in August--and this dentist is SO good, I didn't even have my choice of appointments in December! Anyway, Dr. K filled three of the cavities but said that the other three teeth really had to come out and referred us to an oral surgeon and said to say she had sent us and explain that we were only in Germany for a few more days. Of course, the other office had already closed for the day, but on Friday I was able to make an appointment for Monday.

Early Thursday afternoon we got back to the Cs' house and hung out for awhile, then went to Margaret and Phil's for half an hour or so before getting the train back to Eller, leaving Elisabeth's car seat at their house. (The car seat is the one we'd gotten for Marie and had used until we moved to Cyprus, but as we had more than one seat in that category--rear-facing for an infant and then front-facing until about age three--we left it with Phil and Margaret for their grandchildren. On our way to the U.S. in November we "borrowed" back our car seat, but have left it in Germany again.)

Back at the Es' house we were excited to have a letter from the Deutsche Bahn that Jörn's bag had been turned in and was waiting at Frankfurt main train station! I talked with Jörn on the phone that evening and we discussed possibilities of recovering it. Birgit, another friend at the conference in Hamminkeln, ended up offering to pick it up on Monday, as she would be nearby, and ship it to us with overnight express, as that seemed the safest (and least expensive way) to get it. She did do that, and it worked, and we were glad to be able to tell her that on the phone the next Tuesday evening just before her flight left from Franfurt for Lima, Peru.

Friday morning our friend Hildburg visited for a couple of hours, then in the afternoon we set out by train to Mülheim yet again, where the three younger children and I went to Mutter-Kind-Kreis ("mother-child-circle--a playgroup for children from birth to six years, that I attended for the eight years we lived in Mülheim) and the three older children went to Jungschar (a sort of junior youth group, ages six to 12.) The boys went to a gym and played soccer and the girls dressed up and modeled--which bored Marie to pieces, but at least she ended up being assigned the job of photographer. After that, our friend Benita and another lady gave us a ride to Peggy's house, where we had a wonderfully relaxed evening and spent the night. That was also the first night that I got to sleep almost all night--Helen was only awake once, and only for maybe 20 minutes or so.

Saturday morning back to Eller, where Jörn had arrived only about half an hour earlier, to await my brother-in-law, Lars, and his wife. We hadn't seen them in nearly two years, since just before we left Germany, because they were snowed in the day they were supposed to come see us when we were in Germany in February. Lisa took a few photos, so here's one:

Not the greatest photo, but at least we have one. Lars is on the couch with Marie and Jacob, and Claudia is on the far right.

Sunday another early train to go to our church in Unterrath (Unterrath, Eller, and Angermund are all neighborhoods within Düsseldorf, while Oberhausen and Mülheim are separate cities.) It was the children's Christmas program that day, but Jörn was given the chance to speak for a few minutes and show some photos, and we of course hung out afterwards for as long as there were people around. Then we went out to lunch with three other families before going back to Eller.

Monday started even earlier, as all eight of us had an 8:30 eye appointment in Kaiserswerth (yet another neighborhood of Düsseldorf). That took a train, a tram, a bus, and another tram, because there had been an accident on the tram tracks and we had to take a bus to pass by. After the eye doctor appointment we had breakfast in a bakery (a treat!) and then took the tram to Duisburg to go to the Christmas market (a German tradition that I did think was pretty cool the first 10 or so years I lived in Germany, but don't miss--but the children did, and that was the only chance we saw). From there the train to Mülheim, where Jörn and Lukas headed for the appointment with the oral surgeon, and the other children and I went for Poffertjes. (Little Dutch pancakes that, in Germany, are only to be had at the Christmas market, and ARE something I missed!) A lady walking by gave me four free tickets for the children's rides, so Katie and Helen went in a little car that beeped, and I gave the other two tickets to two other children. On the way to our tram, we were delighted to run into Andrea Z. and her son Jan, but as they and we were both in a hurry, we only talked for a minute. That was long enough to miss our tram, however, and the next one ten minutes later meant that we missed our bus to Ratingen (another city) by about five minutes...and the next one was 45 minutes later.

So...although I thought I'd left more than enough time to get to Elisabeth's six-month check-up, we ended up getting there 15 minutes late. (And only made it then because when the bus arrived, I told Marie and Jacob to take Helen and Katie and catch up with us, and I took Elisabeth and ran. This is Germany, where punctuality is everything.) I not only got a big lecture for being late and a stern request to be on time the next day with Katie and Helen (they had refused to schedule all three check-ups on the same day, although I made the appointments in September, because they said that would be too stressful for the children), I also didn't get to see "our" pediatrician. Still, Elisabeth was labeled healthy, etc., and received her second set of vaccinations.

A bus back to Kaiserswerth where I had to pick up a prescription, then we spontaneously took the bus to Rahm (in Duisburg) rather than wait longer for the tram to the main train station, which meant we had to wait even longer for the train to Eller. Jörn and Lukas had gotten back before us and Lukas was sleeping off the effects of the tooth extractions.

Tuesday morning we all set off again, this time arriving at the pediatrician's office 45 minutes early. Jörn and Lukas didn't go with us, as at the oral surgeon's the day before, Jörn had made an appointment for Lukas with an orthodontist for Tuesday morning. (If she's successful in convincing the health insurance that it's necessary--and one look at Lukas's x-rays should be convincing enough--Lukas will be getting a Zahnspange in six weeks or so. I'm not exactly sure what to call that in English. The idea is the same as braces, but it's not fixed on the teeth, so it makes me think of the word "retainer", but it's actually for moving teeth around, not just keeping them where they are.) Katie and Helen were both pronounced healthy (and also had vaccinations...I keep having mixed feelings about them, but keep getting them, just a lot more spread out than the usual schedule) and we very much enjoyed seeing our regular pediatrician, Dr. A. We've always liked him, and then when years ago he told us that he'd be happy to testify on our behalf if we ever had any trouble with homeschooling, we liked him even more. So it was pretty cool when after he asked us why we're in Cyprus and what my husband is doing, he told us that he is also a Christian, and prayed God's blessings on our ways!

In the afternoon Marie helped Lisa bake a cake and then took care of Elisabeth while Helen slept and Jörn took the other three children out to play in the snow, while I packed. Just after lunch, Jörn's back-pack arrived, with everything in it, which was also exciting.

Wednesday was our earliest day yet, rolling out of bed at 5:30 a.m., but everything went very smoothly. We'd taken the suitcases down to the ground floor the night before, so it was just a matter of waking up the children, getting dressed (I made the five younger ones sleep in the clothes for Wednesday or in nothing to speed things up...), and stumbling downstairs. Johannes helped get everything to the train station, which meant that we took an earlier train than planned, and had just over 20 minutes to wait in Düsseldorf for the ICE to Frankfurt. No more changes, and better yet, Lufthansa has a check-in counter right at the airport train station! So we didn't even have to lug our luggage to the airport terminal. The one irritation is that we had tried to check in on-line, but it wouldn't let us because we're a group with more than six people and fewer than 10. So we were given seven individual seats in seven different rows. Once we got to the gate we asked again about having some switched, and the lady there was rather embarrassed about her colleague not having managed to get us even two together. She did get us two sets of two, and two middle seats that were at least in the same row, as well as one other seat by itself. Jacob and Lukas were in a weird mood of brotherliness and wanted to be together, and Jörn and Helen took the other two, while Katie and I took the two middle ones in the same row. The seat next to Katie ended up being empty, though, as did one of the seats next to Lukas and Jacob, so all of us did a lot of moving around for the whole flight, with nine seats to choose from.

Anyway, a smooth, punctual flight to Larnaka, Immigration didn't bat an eye at my lack of visa (and I sure didn't ask any questions!!), all of our luggage came immediately, and Richard F. and Tim P. soon arrived to take us home. Where we are VERY glad to be!! :-)

Latest run-around

I love living here. I really do. I'm not being sarcastic or facetious or anything like that. I've lived a fair number of places and I enjoy really LIVING where I am. Even when it's hot and sticky here, this is where I live. (And we budgeted to save up to pay for the air conditioning this summer!)

But I'm really, really frustrated with the political Powers that Be, but don't Do. As one friend put it, the left hand doesn't even know that the right hand exists.

So...our acquaintance X tried pulling strings here and there, and last week I was able to talk with Mr. K at the Larnaka Ministry of Education and Culture. He was quite nice and spoke excellent English, and said that it had been two weeks since they had contacted social services to "examine the children", to see how they're being educated, so that the Ministry can officially exempt our children from being required to attend school.

A day or so later my husband chatted with X, who said that that's frustrating, and that the Minister has already decided to give us permission, but that they have to follow the proper channels, which includes a report from a social worker.

On Monday this week, at X's request, I phoned X to remind him to contact social services, which he said he would do. Yesterday, my husband saw X again, who said that we should just go to the office of social services ourselves, that it was "behind the police station."

So after a great deal of discussion about who goes where with whom and what we take and how we get there (my host parents from Costa Rica are visiting and we thought maybe we could combine things), my host parents, my husband, the four younger children, and I set out on foot. (Well, Elisabeth was in the sling and Helen was in the buggy/pram/pushchair/stroller.) We had with us the IG for Sonlight Core 5 (which we've only just started and which will probably take a couple of years to complete IF we ever do, but it does look impressive), the records I've kept for the last two and a half years up to yesterday, and a Sonlight catalog. We also had some oatmeal cookies which Marie made yesterday. Marie and Jacob stayed home with instructions to do math, clean the table, clean out and sort the plastic (Tupperware etc.) cupboard, practice the violin (Marie) and guitar (Jacob), and then they could go on the computer if they wanted to work more on the create-an-island projects they both wanted to do. We also had one of the slips we'd received from the post office about a package to be picked up, but couldn't find the other slip.

Walking downtown was fine, although once we got to the coast, everyone else chose to walk along the sunny promenade, while I darted from shadow to shadow. I don't like the sun. We first went to the office where we had registered Elisabeth's birth and asked where the office of social services was. Across the parking lot, two-story building, behind the police station.

Following those directions, we found a three-story building that said it housed offices for social insurance and the labor office. I went in one of them to ask questions and was told to go back out, so I did. While we stood there talking about what we should do, a friendly man asked if he could help, took me inside, asked some questions, and told us to go to KEP and gave me directions how to get there, a few blocks away. I can't remember what the letters stand for, but something like the center for civil services. (The first word was Kentro--center--and the third word something like "political".) But since we had to pass the police station anyway, I went in there to ask, and was told to go back the way we had come. My husband led the rest of the group to the tourist information office while I went back and went into a two-story building with signs only in Greek. I didn't find out what the building was, but a man there made several phone calls and finally told me to call Maria at such-and-such number, that where I needed to go was the welfare office "across from Cineplex". Cineplex is not far from where we live, but nowhere near "behind the police station", so I was a bit skeptical, since I figured that X should know what he's talking about.

So, while heading towards the tourist office to meet the rest, I phoned Maria's number. She told me to call a different number, which I did. Person number 2 told me to call a different number, which I did. Person number 3 told me to call a different number, which I did. Nobody answered at the fourth number. I tried four or five times, but by that time I'd arrived at the tourist information. Since nobody else had thought to get a bus schedule nor information in Spanish about Cyprus, I went in and got both of those things. (I haven't looked at the bus schedule yet. It's only in Greek, but it's mostly street names and numbers, so I should be able to figure it out.) In the meantime, my husband had been given a phone number at the tourist information office that started the same as all four phone numbers I'd been given, so we tried that one too. Finaly, we just ate some oatmeal cookies.

Then we headed back to the post office side of downtown, but my host father had wanted to see about getting a Greek-Spanish dictionary, so while I took him in the bookstore, my husband went and bought water for us all. It can pretty much mostly be considered autumn here, I guess, but this would still be high summer in German terms, and we were thirsty. The man in the bookstore spoke native-sounding English and I decided to ask him if he had any idea where we should go. He was born here but grew up mostly in Australia, which explained his English, and I eventually did get convinced that we should probably go to the welfare office. It's been said that the U.K. and the U.S. are two countries separated by a common language, and although I do think I speak fairly fluent British (minus the accent), I only just today learned that "social services" does not refer to the people who check on confusing domestic situations, and that "welfare offices" DOES, and not to people receiving financial support from the state. He at one point said, "Forgive me for asking, but are you wanting to report somebody?" I laughed and said, "Yes--my family!" Then I did actually explain a lot of the situation, which was how we finally got the vocabulary sorted out. And the welfare office is "across from Cineplex" and I should go to the first floor. ("First floor" in European means up one flight of stairs--the second floor in American.)

So we went to the post office and picked up our packages (they gave me mine without my pick-up slip and without an ID, no problem at all), and then came home.

I decided to at least try to locate this place, which I imagined was closed by now (it was around 12:15 by the time we got home), so put Elisabeth in the car and headed out. At the intersection with Cineplex, the only "official" looking building across from Cineplex looked like a bank, but I didn't know what all of the words on the sign meant, and it wasn't a bank with which I'm familiar. After a few complicated turns (including one illegal U-turn) I parked in a supermarket parking lot (also illegal, as I wasn't shopping there, but I was so far beyond caring...) and approached the building. It took me awhile to find a side entrance (since the front entrance definitely was a bank), and then I walked up to the first floor, but the door from the landing was locked, so I walked back down and took the elevator up to "1". (When I left again and walked down the stairs, I discovered that I had to walk down two flights of stairs. I don't quite get that.) I walked into an office area and asked if this was the welfare office, and got a very confused response of "this is a bank," and an even more confused look in response to my, "I thought it probably was." There was a cleaning crew already starting, but two people who worked there did try to talk with me a bit, and then finally took me into a back office. From the looks of the office and the way the man there spoke, I'm guessing I may have been meeting with the director or someone like that of the bank. He lived in New York for nine years, by the way. Anyway, he made a few phone calls, gave me yet another phone number, and then lifted a window shade to point the direction in which I should go--"across from Cineplex", but in another direction, and not directly across, "three or four buildings down".

Back to the car, a few more strange turns, probably covering about two kilometers to get something like 300 meters, parked neatly on the sidewalk, and started looking for the entrance in the building (the second one from the corner, by the way) that had a bunch of regular shops on the ground floor, but did have a sign saying "welfare office" in English, as well as in Greek, which someone at the bank had written down for me so I would recognize it. I walked all the way around the building, went down in the parking garage, and took an elevator from there up to the first floor, where I surprised a few women.

Now that it's far too late to make a long story short, there really isn't much more to say.  After several back-and-forths about how children have to go to school, no they don't if the Minister of Education excuses them, etc., one lady suddenly said, "Do you have other children?" (Okay, so the whole situation is crazy anyway, but they didn't REALLY think I was trying to get permission to home-educate my four-month-old, did they?!) When I said, "Yes, five more," they suddenly got all excited and knew who I was. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. They asked if I'd already had contact with them, and I said yes, that the social worker Fodia had visited us in June, but that was essentially a separate case which was already finished. They looked through their big, handwritten book of appointments and sure enough, there was my name on June 18th. However, according to the book, that case isn't closed. So since this is Fodia's case, nobody else can help me in any way or give me any information, and as it was almost 1:30 by this time, Fodia had of course long since gone home for the day. They did give me her extension number, though, so I can call on Monday.

Four hours, several kilometers on foot and more in the car, and I lost track of the phone calls. But I know where the welfare office is, and I know WHAT the welfare office is, and I have Fodia's phone number. I suppose that's progress.

And unless Marie and Jacob did do math this morning (I forgot to ask, but I know that they did do the plastic cupboard, which was much more important to me), none of the children have done a single thing that would be considered "academic" by authorities, which I usually wouldn't care at all about, but I am thinking that if we're going to be "examined", now might be a good time to have something to show and maybe we should take a break from learning and do some schoolwork instead...

Not what one could call news

News of the day: E called this morning because X asked her to call me and ask for my address. Okay.

Also, I got an e-mail today that Jacob's U.S. passport, which we applied for on Monday, is ready to picked up. So...sometime between now and our trip to the U.S., I'll need to head to Nikosia again, to pick up Jacob's passport at the U.S. embassy and Elisabeth's at the German consulate. (We applied for Elisabeth's German passport on Monday, too, and the registrar was apologetic that she couldn't give it to us immediately because we'd only arrived ten minutes before they closed. I received the e-mail on Wednesday that it was ready.)

Latest...lack of news

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...

Latest visit to Immigration

We've been in Cyprus for nearly 20 months now, and I still don't have official permission to be here. We applied for "yellow slips" shortly after arriving--a sort of residency permit or visa, which allows the bearer to stay in Cyprus for an unlimited amount of time and to travel in and out of the country at will.

As my husband and children have German citizenship, and are therefore members of the European Union, their applications were relatively straightforward. (I say "relatively" because Immigration did keep changing their requirements and it took six months for the process to be complete, which was rather unnecessary in my Western European-influenced opinion.) As I am married to an EU citizen, my application should have been equally straightforward. It hasn't been.

Here's a far too long post about part of the saga, in November 2009, trying to get proof of medical insurance.

Then the next day I went back to Immigration in Larnaka and was told my paperwork would be sent to Nikosia.

The saga continued...and I was eventually issued with a single-use re-entry visa so that we could visit my family in the U.S. from the end of December.

In February we got back home and continued discussing things with Immigration, and in March they actually phoned and said my yellow slip was ready...and an hour later called back and said it wasn't. More arguments about health insurance, and then almost as an aside, the comment that the children need to be in school. A few days later I drove to Nikosia to discuss it all with them in person. They finally accepted that I have health insurance, but said that they would have to speak with the Ministry of Education about the children's schooling.

That's the last I posted, but events have continued. In April, the police showed up--sent by the Ministry of Education! (I had a hard time not giggling about it, especially as in the heading of my other blog I say that it's nice homeschooling without worrying about the police showing up...we had plenty of threats via letter, but never did actually have the police show up while we lived in Germany.) They took a statement, then met with my husband a second time to rephrase the statement so that they could drop charges, as they found the whole thing ridiculous.

Then a social worker showed up, also sent by the Ministry of Education. She wasn't interested in anything I had to say, just said that it was her job to make sure the children were okay. I wouldn't let her in the house, but offered to let her see the children, but she said that wouldn't be necessary, but would call for an appointment.

Six weeks later, she did call and asked if I'd spoken with my husband yet, and would it be possible for us to come to her office. I said no: I had six children, one of them four days old. Without missing a beat she asked if she could come to us instead, and did so.

She took plenty of notes, but appeared to be extremely skeptical when we told her that the Cypriot embassy in Germany and Immigration authorities in Larnaka had both told us that as non-Cypriots, we were free to homeschool here in Cyprus. She ended by saying that we should be aware that the police might get involved, and was very surprised to find out that the police had long since come and gone!

So by then it was summer, we had a newborn baby, life was busy and not much happens in the offices in the summer anyway. We tried half a dozen times or so to phone Mrs. Evie, but never got an answer. We waited for August to end, and on Monday this week I finally headed up to Nikosia to storm...um, er...to enquire politely at Immigration if they had any news for me.

I didn't get very lost on the way there, which was a nice bonus, and even better, found a parking space in the shade. They've taken down some of the chain-link fence, so it didn't feel quite like walking into a prision this time. Remembering that the doors to the stairwell had been locked last time, I took the elevator to the second floor--and discovered that the door between the stairwell and the elevator was now open, but the door on the other side, into the corridor where the offices are, was locked and said access only to carriers of an access card. In Germany, I would have turned around and gone downstairs to the registration desk. But then again, in Germany, my paperwork would have been finished 18 months ago. Not being in Germany, I stood there for a moment, and when two men went through the door (with an access card), I grabbed the door before it fell closed and simply walked in behind them and down the corridor to Mrs. Evie's office.

Once there I knocked on the door, but there was no answer, so I opened the door to find Mrs. Evie and another lady sitting at their desks. I got straight to the point and said that I've been waiting for 20 months for my yellow slip, they haven't answered the phone, a fax, or an e-mail, I wasn't able to go to my grandfather's funeral (true...but not necessarily totally honest, as I couldn't go anyway because Elisabeth didn't have a passport yet, not to mention it would have been prohibitively expensive...), and I really wanted to go to my sister's wedding in November (the wedding is in December, but we're flying in November), and when would they be finished? Mrs. Evie said, "We don't have e-mail," and then asked me to take a seat while she located my file. She didn't even ask my name.

Once she had the file, she told me that the Ministry of Education had said that we had to put the children in school, and they couldn't give me the yellow slip until I had proof of enrollment for them. I insisted on staying until she'd given me phone numbers for the Ministry of Education, the address, and a map with the location. (I had a map, but seeing as the U.S. embassy, the Ministry of Health, and Immigration have all moved since the map was printed, I wasn't taking any chances. As it turned out, the Ministry of Education IS where it says it is on the map--about a block away from where Mrs. Evie marked it on the map...) During the hour and a half I was in the office, the phone rang at Mrs. Evie's desk half or dozen or so times, and was never answered, either by Mrs. Evie while she was there nor by her colleague while Mrs. Evie herself was out of the office. The phone at her colleague's desk was answered about half of the times it rang.

I'll try to keep the rest short-ish: I went to the Ministry of Education, was led around the building to talk with four or five different people, finally waited an hour to speak with the second-in-command as the Minister of Education was not in the building, and was finally sent off with the address of the Minister, with the advice to write him a letter to ask for an appointment, or just ask directly for permission to homeschool, as it's really not a problem. I also found out while I was there that they had received the reports from the police and from the social worker and then sent the letter to Immigration a month ago saying that our children had to attend school, but of course, nobody could tell me why I'd never been notified by Immigration nor whether the Ministry of Education had any intention of doing anything else about my truant children.

That afternoon my husband happened to run into an acquaintance who has a connection with the Ministry of Education. On Tuesday I delivered (at his request) a letter to him to explain the situation, and on Thursday he let us know that he's on it, that nobody he spoke with at the Ministry of Education understands why we weren't given permission (not to mention never told we should ask...). He expects to have an answer by Monday.

So watch this space! Maybe, just maybe, I'l have a yellow slip by the end of next week...