Away We Go

I just wanted to let friends and family know that Kahlilah and I will be leaving for the US this week–it’ll be her first time.  We’re going to be in the states for 3 weeks.  Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, Chipotle burrito, In-and-Out Burger fries, mom’s mashed potatoes…oh, sorry, lost my train of thought there.  During that time, I’m probably not going to be updating the blog or uploading photos…so, you’ll have to wait until early December to get your photo fix of Kahlilah.  But, in the meantime, Albert will still be here and he has hinted that he might get back on the blog wagon and write a couple posts about the recent Marine Corps Ball and about a 10K he recently ran.  So, look for those.  And, in the meantime, let me say Happy Thanksgiving!!!

This Week in Kahlilah: 34 Weeks

The big event for Kahlilah (and her parents) this week was her first night with a babysitter. Until now, the only time Albert and I have snuck away is when my mom watched her for a couple hours so that we could go to dinner one time and to a movie another—just a couple hours at most. This Friday, though, Albert and I had the Marine Corps Ball, which is considered the biggest social event of the year for the embassy. We really wanted to go, so we decided to finally leave Kahlilah with a non-family member. We chose Luz, our househelper, who comes to our apartment twice a week to help with cleaning and ironing. She is actually just a couple years younger than my mom, has a college-age son back in Colombia, and—most importantly—just loves Kahlilah. I’ve had her watch Kahlilah for a half-hour at a time in the past, while I’ve run quick to the embassy, walked the dogs, or did a quick stop at the grocery store or pharmacy. This time, though, we knew it’d be for a good 4-5 hours and it would be right when Kahlilah would be going to sleep. When my mom watched her the last time she was here, it was also during Kahlilah’s bedtime and Kahlilah pitched a fit when she realized she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed to sleep. So, I was pretty worried that would happen again. In particular, I couldn’t imagine a non-family member being patient enough to deal with a baby wailing for that long. As a result, I kept my expectations low for the evening…anticipating that we’d likely get a call from Luz a couple hours into the Ball asking us to come home.

We left around 6:30 and, sure enough, we got a call around 8 or 8:30 from Luz. As we expected, Kahlilah was wailing and wouldn’t stop. We had made it through the cocktail hour and opening speeches. Dinner was just about to start. So, we shrugged, said goodbye to our tablemates, and caught a cab. It had been fun while it lasted! But, then, 2 blocks into the cab ride, we got another call from Luz saying that Kahlilah had finally cried herself to sleep! So, we did a U turn and went back to the hotel—we were excited, since this might just be our chance to have an entire evening out together. We made it through dinner, dessert and dancing! We finally got another call from Luz, saying that Kahlilah had woken up crying, around midnight. By that time, we felt we’d definitely been able to enjoy the entire event, so we were content to go home. When we got there, Kahlilah was awake but happy. And Luz, much to my surprise, was okay too—I thought she’d never want to watch Kahlilah again with all the crying she had to deal with, but she said that it was good for Kahlilah to get used to other people caring for her. So, we might actually try this going-out thing again!

Flip Video Friday 11-6-09 Futbol(Soccer) Funnies

Flip Video Friday 11-6-09 Futbol(Soccer) Funnies

Originally uploaded by el_naranjal

After missing a couple weeks, I’m back with your Friday fix of Kahlilah. This video shows, much to her papa’s joy, Kahlilah giggling like crazy when Albert pushes a soccer ball towards her.

What time is it there?

I’d like to continue the theme of my last post by answering another common question you get from family and friends when you’re abroad: what time is it there? I think because distance-wise we are so far away, people think that the time should be really different too.  But, really, since we’re just south of the US, the time here and there should be pretty close…and it should be an easy question to answer.  But, like many things in Venezuela, it’s not. 

Venezuela is currently a half-hour ahead of East Coast Standard time.  That’s right, it’s off by a half-hour.  Venezuela is actually one of something like 7 countries in the world that uses an offset time zone–that is, a zone that isn’t based on hourly boundaries.  Hugo Chavez made the change back in 2007, arguing that “the shift will allow children to wake up for school in daylight instead of before sunrise” (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1927682520070919).  At the time, Reuters also noted that “Chavez dismissed criticism that moving the time only a half hour was quirky, questioning why the world had to follow a scheme of hourly divisions that he said was dictated by the imperial United States.”  Being seen as imperial because of time was a new one for me.

For most of the time we’ve been here, which was during Daylight Savings, we’ve actually been a half-hour behind East Coast time.  Personally, I preferred that to what we have now.  Now, with the change in the US back to Standard time, I miss my window in the morning to have coffee with my husband while watching one of the morning news shows and I have to wait until 8:30pm to watch any of the prime time TV shows.  I know, totally selfish and superficial.  (In case you’re wondering, we have DirectTV, so that’s how we are able to watch American shows.)  With a baby, I’m usually too pooped to make it through an entire show that late at night.  Plus, since I grew up in the Midwest, I was already predisposed to watching prime time shows early! 

So, that’s the long, complicated answer to what should be a simple question.

What do things cost there?

I find that many people, when they hear you’re visiting or living in a developing country, are interested in knowing what things cost there. The more shockingly low the prices, the more fun it seems to be for them. In Venezuela, though, we’re robbed of most of those fun reactions because, well, Venezuela is Venezuela – it doesn’t make much sense. You expect things to be cheap but many things are far from it. So, for those of you who can’t make it to visit us here in Venezuela, here is a snapshot of what things cost.

The Cheap Stuff:

• The number one cheap thing in Venezuela that gets the most shocked response: gas. Price: A little less than a dollar to fill our entire tank. We typically tip the guy who fills the tank as much, or more, as we pay for the gas itself.
• Househelp. Price: About $18 for 8 hours-worth of work, which usually includes cleaning, laundry and ironing, and sometimes child care.
• Massage. Price: $15 for a 1-hour in-home massage.
• Dog training by Venezuela’s version of the dog whisperer. Price: $50 per week, which includes 3 half-hour sessions.
• Laser hair removal (I’ll never have to shave my legs again!). Price: $500 for 12 monthly sessions. (In comparison, in the US it can cost almost that much for just 1 or 2 sessions!)

The Same-Price-as-the-States Stuff:

• UHT milk (that’s the milk that’s treated to stay forever on the shelf). Price: About $1 per liter, which would be about $3.80 per gallon.
• Soda. Price: About $1 per 2-liter bottle.
• Bread. Price: About $2 a loaf.
• Ice-cream Bar from the street vendor. Price: $2 for the equivalent of a Dove bar.
• Taxi Ride.  Price: $5 for a 5-minute ride from the nearest grocery store to our apartment.  (Actually, I have to admit my ignorance of taxi prices in the US; I’m not sure whether this price sounds cheap, expensive or the same as in the states.  I come from a not-so-big city in Wisconsin where taxis aren’t so common place.)

The Expensive Stuff:

• The number one expensive thing in Venezuela that gets the most shocked response:  cars.  Price:  $50-60,000 for a Toyota RAV4 that would cost $25-30,000 in the states.  It’s amazing — cars don’t depreciate here; they appreciate!
• Take-Out Pizza. Price: Just under $20 for 1 basic cheese pizza (we find this to be so ridiculous that we only allow ourselves to buy it on Monday or Tuesday when they offer the 2-for-1 deal).
• Chinese Take-Out. Price: About $40 for 2 people—that’s just 1 dish for each of us (remember I’m vegetarian, so my all-vegetable dish shouldn’t cost that much but it still does) and an order of rice, with no drinks.
• Sour Cream. Price: About $15 for an 8 oz container. The same price goes for the ever-hard-to-find cottage cheese. In general, good dairy is really hard to find and, when it is available, it’s expensive—a difficult situation to be in for a Wisconsin girl.
• Dog Food. Price: About $20 for a small bag of Science Diet.  And that’s why we had so much sent in our HHE.
• Kitchen Supplies.  Price:  Around $20 for a basic Oxo mixing spoon or a sink mat–basically anything that, in the states, you’d be like “Oh, I’ll just run down to Walmart or Target and pick that up for the kitchen” is crazy expensive here.  Also, stores like Walmart and Target are not very common, so it’s a lot more difficult to find what you’re looking for because first you have to figure out which small store would carry it.
• Baby Clothes and Toys.  Price: About $20 for a cheap baby outfit and $30-40 for a basic toy–prices for these things are so out-of-control that the only time we’ve ever purchased baby clothes here is when we were forced to because of Kahlilah’s premature birth and even then we relied more on what fellow embassy staff lent to us.  As for toys, we rely on packages from grandparents as all sensible parents do!

These Weeks in Kahlilah: 32 and 33 Weeks

Kahlilah’s 1st Halloween Costume – Our Little Alien Invader

Originally uploaded by el_naranjal

Sorry, again, for the gap in posts! This time my excuse is not visiting family but rather that we were visiting another city in Venezuela: Merida. Albert had to go there for work and, lucky enough, Kahlilah and I were able to go along. We had a wonderful, and interesting, time (see the pictures on our Flickr page – link to the right). In fact, drafting a separate post about that trip is what spurred me to decide to finally make our blog private. So, with that teaser, I hope you contact us soon so that we can add you to the access list for our blog, which is going private next week. I’ll be uploading my post about Merida then.

Now, on to all matters Kahlilah.

Since Merida is about 12-14 hours away from Caracas, we decided to fly there – meaning Kahlilah went on her second flight. The first one, to Los Roques, was a half-hour. This one was an hour. It seemed much longer to her mama and papa! But, overall, she did well once again. Since we were on a bigger plane this time, we reached a higher cruising altitude, which could have caused her more ear pressure issues but thankfully didn’t. However, a few days after getting back from Merida, Kahlilah developed her first cold, which I think was likely a result of the germ-fest that is airline air supply. Luckily, it proved to be a mild cold—just a runny nose and mild fever—that broke after three days. Thank goodness. But, it did give her mama and papa a taste of what it’s like to deal with a baby who is sick. Parenting a baby is tiring in and of itself, parenting a baby who is sick is SO much harder. I thought Albert and I were going to kill each other at night, we were both so tired and frustrated! Kudos goes to all those parents I know who have to deal with babies who have been sick much more often than Kahlilah!!!

Before Kahlilah got sick, though, she was able to attend the embassy’s Halloween event. The event includes trick-or-treating through the offices and a party with food and activities afterwards. I had ordered what was, in my opinion, a really cool handmade witch costume from Etsy.com for the event. It included a super cute black and purple tutu! Unfortunately, the person making the costume was taking forever to ship it. When I contacted her to tell her that I needed her to send it ASAP to make sure it arrived in time, she canceled the order! So I, like many parents, was at the mall the day of the event scrounging for last-minute costume ideas. I ended up buying a t-shirt with a picture of that old video game “Alien Invaders” on it and using green pipe cleaners to make alien antenna. I think it turned out pretty cute (see the pictures on our Flickr page). (I had fun dressing up too, with a mini witch hat I bought from another person on Etsy.com.) At the event, Kahlilah did really well…at first. No crying, no screaming. But, as we went from floor to floor, she got fussier and fussier until finally she lost it and started wailing. So, at that point, we called it a day and went home.

Otherwise, in our day-to-day life, Kahlilah continues to happily roll over, sit up and almost crawl! A number of new Foreign Service families with babies Kahlilah’s age have arrived recently, so it’s been fun to get together with them to have the babies play. Kahlilah reacts to the other babies as she does to adults and dogs – she puts on a big friendly smile. I am hoping that this means she’s more of an extrovert like her papa, rather than an introvert like her mama.

I think that’s all for now. Please remember to either email us or leave a comment here if you want us to add you to the access list for our blog, so you’ll be able to continue reading it after it goes private next week!

Going Private

Loyal blog readers: We wanted to give you a heads-up that we’ve decided to make our blog private.  That is, only those people to whom we give permission will be able to see our blog.  Although we’d prefer not to do that, it makes sense for privacy and safety reasons.  We’ll be making the change in about a week.  So, if you want to continue to read our blog, please contact us – either by email or by leaving a comment here so that we can make sure you will be given access.

Update (November 2):  It just so happened that, a day after we made this announcement about going private, we found out that the Foreign Service Journal mentioned The Mas Alla in an article about FS blogs.  So, we’ve decided to put off going private by a few weeks in order to give anyone who finds this blog as a result of the article a chance to read it.  But, we still do intend to go private…so, if you are interested, again we encourage you to contact us.

Flip Video Friday

Flip Video Friday 10-23-09 Almost Crawling

Originally uploaded by el_naranjal

Here’s a video I took today of Kahlilah almost crawling: she has great height with her arms, lifts her tummy off the ground sometimes, and often moves her knees forward like she’s going to crawl…but…she’s…not…quite…there.

These Weeks in Kahlilah: 30 and 31 Weeks

As you know from my last brief post, we had the pleasure of a visit from my mom for the last 10 days. Kahlilah had a great time with her Nanita. My mom was here just after Kahlilah was born, to help me when Albert went back to work. So, there were a lot of changes for my mom to see this visit now that Kahlilah is 7 ½ months old!

We had a great time, most notably, taking Kahlilah along to Los Roques – an archipelago off the coast of Venezuela. To get there, we had to take a plane so that was another first for her. She did great. Since it was a small plane, we knew she’d be exposed to some loud noise on the tarmac. So we tried out her noise-canceling headphones, which we’d already purchased in anticipation of our trip to Trinidad and Tobago for Carnaval in February. She didn’t seem to mind them, and they definitely worked. We also tried out a special harness we bought to keep her secured to my lap belt while on the plane. That seemed to work well, particularly since it gave me enough leeway to breastfeed her and play with her on my lap. Finally, to deal with the air pressure changes, I breastfed her on the take-off and the descent and she didn’t cry or seem distressed at all. So, all in all, not a terribly bad experience. But, I have to admit that flying wasn’t the most fun thing I’ve done with Kahlilah – the pressure was on to keep her quiet so as not to bother the other passengers and to keep her entertained, fed and comfortable. And it was only a half-hour flight! Albert and I realized that we probably didn’t think through our plan to have Kahlilah and me fly back to the states in November alone: just me and Kahlilah for 3 hours at the airport before the flight, 5 hours on the plane to Texas, 3 hours at another airport for a layover, and another 1 ½ hours to Arizona. OMG. So, after the trip to Los Roques, we’re now thinking about having Albert fly with me and Kahlilah back to the states. He’d just stay for 3 days and then fly back to Venezuela for work, but at least I’d have help on the that first international flight with Kahlilah.

After the trip to Los Roques, we mostly hung out at home or in/near Caracas, which gave Kahlilah time to play with all the new toys Nanita brought with her! It was perfect timing, since she seemed to be getting tired of the old ones we had for her. Her favorites among the new toys seem to be a bunch of plush flowers (they suction cup to the table, so she’s able to play while at the table with us), Taggie books (soft books with a bunch of tags sown to the edges for her to grab and mouth), and a vibrating bee (she loves gumming it).

So, that’s the update for the last two weeks. Please take a look at all the new photos we uploaded on our Flickr page (link to the right) from my mom’s visit!

At the beach…

Just wanted to let you all know that we’ll be away for a little while…we’re going to Los Roques, an archipelago off of Venezuela’s coast known for its beautiful beaches and excellent snorkeling and diving.  Also, my mom is visiting for the next 10 days so I’m probably not going to be posting much.  But, when I do, I’m sure I’ll have some good photos so stay tuned.