The L-word, the G-word and me.

This morning I had to give myself a stern talking-to and push past the part of me which loathes goodbyes. 

The kids went back to school today for trimestre deux (oh, how I only just made it through these holidays!) and I had to meet the school director to give him our final attendance date and then run around to finalise the payment of cantine. And since my French is tres mal, it required meeting a friend to help translate.

Because of this, I had to cancel what has become part of my Monday routine: hosting drum lessons. Which meant a friend would host instead. Which meant I could have done my chores this morning and then gone home and pretended drumming has finished for me, given that it would be my second-to-last week, and I wouldn't have to talk about the L-word. 

Leaving.

And it's close pal, the G-word. Hello, goodbye.

I argued with myself in the car heading back from Koné, having just emptied my wallet of pieces and borrowed 300f from my friend in order to avoid writing a cheque which may not clear before we close our account. I could just go home. Make coffee. Quietly keep on with the packing.

Or I could go home, put my coffee in my carry-cup and just be a little late for practice. And have fun.

I chose fun. Yay me! And though the discussion around *leaving* and even more, what will we do/where will we live etc was prominent, it was okay. I suppressed the fear and anxiety. Filed under 'deal with later'. Great coping!

I was sad to talk about future plans for the group. To be sitting outside on a breezy, fine autumn morning in the back blocks of Koné, knowing it has finality which is right there. To be drumming well, finding my groove and be told that I will be missed. And to know I will miss this, this moment of doing something refreshing and joyeous and for no other reason than because I like it and dammit, I'm good at it. But it has to end. Bahhhh!

Leaving is hard and goodbyes a bitch because we don't want to fun to stop. Leaving is easy when there's no enjoyment. So it's a credit to New Caledonia and all the amazing people who have been part of our lives for the past 3 years that my gut response is to just pretend it's not happening and walk away and ignore the pain of parting.

I wrote a couple of years ago here about being on the opposite side, of having to say goodbye to friends leaving NC and returning to Australia. Now we are them, and I understand it better.

So I hate goodbyes but bring them on. Perhaps the pain is therapy and the tears help to wash it away. The talking makes it real so that I can't ignore it. And the drumming helps to find the groove that will transport me, and the beat will keep me going to the next adventure.

Our experience :: living in NC with a disabled child (part two)

So this is the next part of our adventures on a French Pacific island with wheelchairs and walkers. As I write now we are watching the category 5 tropical cyclone Pam leave a path of destruction in nearby Vanuatu as it heads past the south of New Caledonia. The adventure never stops!

If you didn't catch part one, this series of posts is my attempt to impart a bit of firsthand knowledge of what it's like to have a normal life as an expat in New Caledonia with two small children, one of whom has cerebral palsy. It's the type of insight I searched for but failed to find when I did my own research before we embarked from Melbourne, Australia in 2012.

On y va...

Jack with his second aide Cynthia

Going to school (part 2)

Another hurdle we overcame, at least partly, was access to the school cantine - about 20 steep steps. The French school system has the option to enrol for a canteen lunch, which most families do. The alternative is to pick up your children at 11.30am, home for lunch and then back at 12.30. No lunch boxes here, which is probably not a bad idea given the climate (cheese sandwiches and bananas do not do well in a hot school bag, I still have vivid memories.....). 

It took over 6 months to convince the school director that we needed a ramp to enable canteen access. My inquiries up to this point were usually met with typically French shrugs and mumblings of "n'est possible". Unfortunately, even with the new ramp, Jack needed to be taken out the front gate, down the street a short distance where there was no footpath, and then pushed across a sports area to the canteen. A few months later the marie (council) finally paved a footpath as well. So now, although the long route to lunch, it is mainly paved although still quite a bit of muscle-work for his aide.

Sitting outside to listen to a book at school

Jack loves being able to stay at school for cantine. He sits with his class and is served a hot lunch. His aide eats lunch with him and helps where neccessary. After lunch he plays with his friends until classes restart. It's an opportunity we wouldn't have in Australia and we didn't want him to miss it.

The experience  of asking for and finally getting access to a school lunch highlighted the fact that our adopted community had not considered the possibility that wheelchair access might be needed at their school. Many Australians today would find that unusual. I think the resistance we felt in this instance was the rationale that building infrastructure for one child wasn't economical, although of course accessible ramps and paths are for the benefit of all and economics shouldn't come into it when discussing such a basic thing. We also see it as having helped to provide access for not just our child, but future children in the community with mobility difficulties.

This is not the case in all schools here. Two newer schools near the neighbouring town of Koné both have much better accessiblity, including lifts and handicapped parking spaces. My battle to find a carspace at our school to unload and reload the kids and the wheelchair is a weekly lesson in creative parking and muscle-building. It's a private battle that I'm not going to take further. I really can't see a handicapped parking spot being built. Some things just need to be endured!

First day of school this year

Despite the challenges, the sleepless nights, the disappointments and steep learning curves, being brave enough to tackle the French/New Caledonian school system is paying off. Jack speaks French with an accent that melts my heart. His marks in maths are great. He writes in a beautiful cursive that he wouldn't be taught in Australia but which belies his fine motor skill difficulties. He's a wonderful role model for his little sister Nellie who started at the same school last year at the age of 3. This year his reading of French has blossomed, adding to his wonderful English reading skills that we've fostered at home. And he has many friends who love him and greet him each morning with kisses (this is France, people) and cheers.

The next post in this series will be able how we've tackled therapy and medical care in the province nord of New Caledonia. Please feel free to message me any questions or your own similar experiences, which I'd love to hear, below or on the France has Coconuts Facebook page. Á la prochain!

Our experience :: living in NC with a disabled child (part one)

As our time here in the French territory of New Caledonia comes to it's conclusion I have begun to reflect on how much we've learnt and how far we've come. In particular, how we've tackled the challenges presented when living with a physically disabled child in the somewhat remote reaches of the South Pacific.

As we have almost 3 years of experience to relay (and in particular because I am terrible at self-editing) I'm chunking my words of wisdom (ha!) into about 4 posts.

There is nothing unique about our family except that we happen to have a child with a severe disability and we've temporarily relocated to a French tropical island. I'm not an expert on New Caledonia or disability. My husband and I don't have all the answers and we've certainly made lots of mistakes but are hopefully wiser for the experience to this point. I only share our experience in the hope that it might give some helpful insights and tips to other families contemplating a similar adventure. 

So I decided to put a few thoughts together on the type of information I would have liked before we arrived. In this post: school, part one - actually one of the scarier challenges for me.

But first: some background

If you were to approach me a few years ago and ask if it would be wise to take an 18 month old little girl and an almost-four-year-old little boy with cerebral palsy from the comfortable and leafy streets of Sandringham, Melbourne, to the tropics of a small French island I'd barely heard of in the Coral Sea, I'd probably say have another skinny latte and macaron and get a grip. Your life is great. Consider a holiday in Bali.

Now, with almost 3 years of expat-tery under my belt, I'd  still recommend the latte and macaron but also offer some background of how we've managed - mostly with smiles on our faces - the daily grind in the northern province of New Caledonia (yes, we had to check Google Maps for where it is too. For some reason most Australians are fairly unaware of the fact that France is pretty much on their doorstep).

Dawn on our first morning in Pouembout, New Caledonia

We arrived in New Caledonia, to the tiny, slow-moving farming and mining community of Pouembout in the week our son Jack turned 4, July 2012. Jack has quadraplegic cerebral palsy with spastic dystonia, GMFCS III-IV. At this time he was able to walk with the aid of a small walking ladder or a walker. For outings he was in a pram with his little sister. He couldn't walk independently and was in nappies full time. He had full oral control and no significant additional complications.

As well as the ladder and walker we brought a wooden corner chair, wooden kinder chair and table plus his BodyCycle tricycle and grasp bars for arm extension. We brought a slant board for drawing and a standing frame. He had his AFO splints, arm and leg wraps and a potty as we were toilet-training. 

Going to school

Getting Jack into the local school was a big challenge and an anxious experience for me. We needed assistance from a local organisation that specialises in helping expat families to settle. He needed to have a medical certificate from the local doctor as well as his tuberculosis vaccination, which is mandatory in New Caledonia and is given to newborns here.

Jack's classrooms

I employed the assistance of a friend who translated in all the initial meetings with the school director and class teacher. One of my big concerns was the toilet situation as the children's toilets were small with no toilet seats, which would be unsuitable for Jack to have stability when sitting. Eventually the school remembered that they did in fact have a disabled toilet, only it was used as a janitor's closet, so that was tidied up. We provide a kids seat which sits under the standard seat, and take it home on Fridays for a clean and back to school each Monday.

We also provided the school with a wooden kinder chair which has a lap belt and a slant board to assist with writing and drawing. These were left at school until the end of school year. We also worked hard to get Jack daytime continent before he began school as the school is not equipped to deal with nappy-changing.

Most significantly, we had to organise a fulltime aide for Jack as he needs assistance not just with mobility but with toileting, using books and pencils and play. In New Caledonia aides to the handicapped are provided by Fleur de Vie. For non-French citizens this comes at a price and we were lucky to find funding. Without funding we simply could not send Jack to school and in fact would have had to reconsider the whole endeavour. 

Jack and his first aide, Emmanuelle

Over the years we have had three different aides. Although none of them were specifically trained in working with handicapped children they have all been very enthusiastic and worked well with Jack. 

The aide meets us each morning at the school gate and effectively takes over Jack's care until the end of the school day. She does transfers between wheelchair, walker, desk chair and toilet. She changes his pants if he has an accident (happens occasionally) and helps him in the classroom and canteen. The only thing she doesn't do is teach. The only downside to this system is that if the aide is unable to work then Jack misses school as he can't be at school without assistance. 

Understand that this was also the first time I'd entered a child into a school system. Jack left a wonderful childcare centre in Melbourne which was providing us with 3 full days a week of kinder plus a full-time aide. Leaving there was difficult as we had great support from both staff and other families. Entering him into the Victorian school system and navigating my way through finding an aide, accessibility, equipment etc would have been nerve-wracking enough. But then do it in New Caledonia, in my shoddy French - it was stressful for sure.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was assuming that Jack's teachers had some training in working with handicapped children. We had an upsetting experience later in Jack's first year when I mistakenly assumed his maitresse had him included in the choreography of his class's dance for the school spectacle. 

The experience left me determined to be closer to his teacher the following year. I made sure to meet with her regularly but particularly when she was planning the class choreography. I really wanted to advise on Jack's restrictions and some ideas to ensure she felt confident and could include him properly. The result was that we were all very proud of his participation, front and centre no less. More importantly Jack loved the experience and was proud of his achievement (you can view his class dance here).

Next post will be another school test for me - getting some accessibility in place for Jack to access the canteen - with mixed results.

The end is nigh.....

A few weeks ago, more than two and a half years since being in New Caledonia, a milestone occurred. One of my children was invited to a birthday party from a local kid. It was a modest affair with his lovely friend Felix and his parents were very nice. Even better for us, they spoke English, so conversation was easy and enjoyable.

The sad part is that we are at the tail end of our stay in New Caledonia. We expect to leave in only a couple of months as my husband's contract comes to an end.

As we get closer I feel more sadness and even a little panicky. It's been a challenging and unique period of our lives. We have been transformed from sheltered, myopic city-dwellers, our lives orbited by a cycle of long work hours, reality TV, local news and supermarket wars. We've become more aware of world politics, the reality of life on a south Pacific island, finding friendship, trying new things.

I've learnt to not be alarmed when a complete stranger picks up your baby and kisses and plays with them. We're confident that our kids are getting a good education at the local school, even though the infrastructure and technology is far less than in the average Australian primary school. I cherish the fact that Jack is greeted each morning by his friends with kisses or, as was the case yesterday, with nose rubs by his best friend.

I miss the aisles of fresh vegetables in Australian supermarkets, decadent with more that one variety of potato and with green vegetables luxuriating on beds of ice. Ice! But then, having only a simple selection of fruit and vegetables does make life easier. At least, dinner planning. The only fresh leafy vegetable in my local supermarket this morning was lettuce. So it's salad tonight. No poring over glossy foodie mags or trawling Pinterest for dinner inspiration for me tonight.

But we do have the luxury of local prawn farms. I can buy a kilo of frozen local prawns at my local supermarket (with the fresh lettuce) any day of the week for about A$25. The price is on par with Australia and the food miles less than a Melbourne market.

I've learnt to appreciate the struggle that visitors and migrants to Australia have when learning and understanding English. One of the reasons I find it hard to learn French here is that people speak so quickly and use a lot of vernacular. In turn, those local who speak English with me say I do the same. It's a hard lesson learnt and a habit difficult to break.

We've learnt to appreciate French wine. Why wouldn't you when it's cheap and sold in the supermarket? But the local beer......well, we do miss Aussie beer. But you drink what's available. And 'Number One' is stupidly easy to order.

But there's no returning to the navel-gazing people we once were. Being an international tourist doesn't do it. I did that. And I still didn't get it. But I do now. About how occupying all of my preoccuations to whether we need pay TV, or what haircut I should have, at getting the cheapest petrol, whether to buy a Thermomix.

The only pay TV available to me is mostly in French, I haven't cut my hair in 6 months, petrol prices are regulated here and I don't have enough storage for a Thermomix. But I do care that there is only a couple of orthotists in all of New Caledonia, that the world heritage-listed reef here is being rapidly destroyed (a fact ignored by most of the world) and that incest is prevalent in indigenous tribes here, as it is in Australia.

So our next venture, whatever it is, we be an ADventure. We will make it so. By our new outlook on life, our approach to the local community and our understanding of the opportunities life holds, no matter where we live.

New Caledonia gave us this moment.

Lately there have been mixed feelings in our house. We learnt a few weeks ago that my husband's work contract will expire in April 2015, so we will be moving on from New Caledonia.

This has prompted in me a range of emotions, and each day I oscillate from excited to nervous to regretful to quite sad. This is a reflection of the challenges, opportunities and joy felt since we moved here in July 2012.

Take my son Jack as an example. Jack turned 4 the week we arrived. He has spastic quadraplegic cerebral palsy with dystonia. He needs assistance or intervention to do most things from the neck down. He requires specialised furniture, a wheelchair, walker, footwear, commode, bike, stroller and physical therapy. We left a very supportive family, friends, medical and therapy network to come to a country where wheelchair access is haphazard and experienced therapists difficult to find. The sight of a child in a wheelchair or walker is rare, especially in the small farming and mining community where we live.

We weren't sure if we were being brave or just plain irresponsible about our son's health and potential. In fact I'm pretty sure there were many who thought the latter.

One of the driving factors for us, assuming we could address Jack's physical needs, was the opportunity to integrate both Jack and his little sister Nellie into the modest, local school and experience French language immersion in a mixed group of cultures. There have been some frustrations with organising an aide, plus access within a school not used to wheelchairs, but it has paid off in ways I couldn't have imagined before. We have discovered a community intrigued and surprised by Jack, but proud to include him in their number.

It's his ability with picking up French which constantly delights us as parents. His accent is delightful. His confidence defies his genes. And he just plain enjoys it. Bliss.

This morning out of the blue, he sang me a Christmas song he learnt at school. I asked him to sing it again so I could record it and share.The next challenge is how to retain and build on this lovely new skill he has once we leave the island....

It's been a while...

I have been a bad girl. Neglecting my blog for almost 6 months - the shame!

 

Although it's not like I haven't had distractions. We had a quick visit to Melbourne with Jack for medical visits to organise and do.  Nellie to be enrolled in school. My French Life articles to research, photograph and write. Perpetual internet hassles, which is one of the biggest distractions from writing a blog, where a quick post becomes a whole day headache. I've started drumming with a group of great people. My own health challenges. Blah, blah, blah.

 

 

But now we find ourselves at the pointy end of the year. School will be finished soon and I have to prepare, mentally more than anything else, that my almost-3 year old baby will be joining the chaotic hordes at the local school.

 

 

We had a couple of hours orientation with her in the 'petite maternelle' class a couple of weeks ago, the non-French speaking kid in the room. My head knows she will cope, but I will worry every day until I pick her up at 11.30 each morning. And then, when she doesn't need the afternoon 'sieste', she will be full-time like her big brother.

 

 

She will sing, dance, draw, play dolls, be assertive, follow the pack, eat lunch, make friends. I do worry about the toilets. Despite the fact that she is pretty much daytime toilet-trained, her first attempt at using one of the toilets was a fair disaster.

 

In the bathroom, which resembles a miniature prison toilet block (no seats, toilets all in a row with no privacy walls, round fountain-like washbasin in the centre of the room) she had trouble sitting by herself on the little toilet. Cue mess. Need to work on that. We have a few months.

 

 

Jack, on the other hand, as the only wheelchair using child at the school, will be using the canteen for lunch next year. Again, this presents mixed feelings for me. Firstly because it means he is cast into the crazy, noisy, messy school lunch system, which for a kid who can be picky occasionally, will be interesting.

 

But it also means that he is reliant on his carer to make sure he can manage it - seating, eating, cutting up food, taking his cup from home as he can't use the school ones - plus the toileting. It's a fair job.

 

 

On the other hand, it means half the wheelchair-lifting for me. I can't pretend I'm not excited about that. That bugger is heavy.
 
Perhaps the biggest impact that Jack will have on the school in the next few months is that they will be spending the Christmas holidays building a very big ramp for Jack to actually access the canteen. The school is built on a hill and the school buildings split across 3 levels. Jack's classroom is on the middle level and his carer has to push him up a large ramp to access the classrooms and playgrounds on the upper level.
 

The canteen is on the lower level, currently only accessed by about 20 steep steps. I will be tracking  progress of the new canteen ramp with interest. Jack's time at the Pouembout school will be felt long after he leaves, hopefully helping lots of other people access the canteen as well.

So, into the Christmas crazies. A plus tard!

A week in the life of Us.

A big week in our household this week. School has entered our lives. We are now one of the gazillions of families who juggle the school drop-offs and pickups, exchange pleasantries and sidelong glances with other parents waiting at the school gate and worry about school marks and nits.