It was a successful first day of school!  The kids were all very “nervoucited” (nervous/excited) about it.  When we arrived in the area outside the gate, there were several little girls Ella’s age that came to meet us.  They were very excited, too, because apparently, word had already gotten around that the new americans were starting class today.  We met a couple of girls who speak English, and a Spanish family with a girl in Ella’s class.  Then the music came over the loudspeakers, and the kids all ran into the courtyard and lined up with their teachers.  I was able to go in and meet the teachers briefly, but generally, parents aren’t supposed to go into the school yard.  Ella and the twins both have male teachers, and Ella’s speaks a little English.  Peter has a young lady, but we met several of his classmates that speak English and can help him translate.

After the kids went into their classes, we met the other English-speaking parents outside the gate.  There are several Americans, some British and I think Irish.  They said they go get coffee almost every day after they drop the kids off, and they invited us to come, but we had plans to drive to Malaga and pick up a few things at Ikea.  They warned us that we might not have time to get there and back before 2pm, but we were optimistic – it’s only an hour away, and we had five hours!  Certainly it would work!  Right?

Well, we should have listened.  As it turned out, it took us a while to walk back up the mountain to home, finish a phone call with mom about Jon’s accident (more on that later), and then get in the car.  Then I forgot my Ikea list and we had to go back home, and then I took the wrong road to get out of town, and ended up driving through some frighteningly narrow one way streets in Las Maravillas (the high, hilly part of town), before finally making it back to the highway, so we didn’t arrive at Ikea until noon!  Well, we figured it wouldn’t take us more than an hour to shop, and we’d have an hour to get back, and all would be well.  Did you know that Ikea is a maze intended to keep you there forever?  We did, but we thought we could get through it fast enough. We were wrong!  In retrospect, we should have abandoned our cart and just hoofed it through every shortcut we could find once we realized time was getting tight.  But we thought we could buy the few things we had and still make it.  Of course, there were long lines and checkout was SLOW!  So it was 1:15 when we left, and we knew we were in trouble.

As we sped back towards La Herradura, I called the school and told the secretary we would be 10  minutes late.  She was not pleased! She told me “This is a school, not a day care!” and warned me that if somebody was not there to pick up our kids, the local police would have to come, because the teachers all leave.  I was mortified!  What a terrible first day impression to make.  (Can you see me wringing my hands and hanging my head?) I had not put anybody’s name on the matriculation forms as others who are allowed to retrieve the kids, because they only people we know here are the Wagoners, and I didn’t want to burden them with that responsibility.  But what could I do?  It was physically impossible for us to get there on time (due to our own newbie foolishness), and we had no other options, so I called Heidi.  Thankfully, she was home and was able to go pick up our kids!  I called the secretary back and explained that another American lady would be coming to get my kids and stay with them until we arrived.  She seemed glad (though I am sure was still not at all happy with me).  When Heidi arrived, another parent we had just met that morning who also knew her had to assure the teachers that it really was okay for her to take the kids, so we had yet another person come to our rescue.  Thank you Heidi and Joaquim!!

When we arrived at 2:10, the kids were all sitting on a bench in front of the school doing their homework.  There were no tears, and no shouts of joy when they saw us, either – they were all engaged in their work!  All of the Americans were hanging out talking and waiting for us, so our shame was fully public in the expat community.  But the kids seemed like it was a good first day!

On the way home, they told us they really didn’t understand much of what was going on. There were several English speakers who helped them, and the twins came home with photocopies of pages from their math book for homework.  Their favorite part of the day was recess, of course!  I will interview them after their first week and post a video so you can see what they think right from their own mouths.