Nana arrived

Nana got here today so the house has been all abuzz. She played no less than 3 games with Dominique this after noon while Ivan was at school. Then walked with me and Dominique to get him after school. He came tearing out of the school with his teacher behind him. She was happy to meet Nana since Ivan had talked about her arrival all day in class. I really like Ivan's teacher. She is so nice and gave us a grand welcome inviting us to go see his classroom, where Nana took pictures of everything with Ivan's name on it (which was at least 4 things that I could see).

Tonight, there was a meeting for the school community council where they were going to elect new officers. We didn't know what that meant, but in several places it said that everyone in the community was welcome to attend, so Brian and I asked Nana if she would keep the kids and walked in to a kind of awkward, but ended up a pretty good meeting. Awkward because there were about 12 people and they all knew each other and were obviously familiar with the council or had been on it before and we were totally clueless. But they were so welcoming and thankful we came and asked if we wanted to be elected into the group (we politely declined) but will probably make a real effort to make other meetings and volunteer as we can. The group is to be a support to the school and staff and do whatever possible to reach out to the community and help the students excel if I understood it correctly. We ditched the meeting a bit early since we needed to get back and get the kids in bed, but were glad we had gone in the end. We met a couple of people who live on our street and one of the members was saying that he may have work for Brian. Everyone is saying there is a ton of construction work here all year, so sometime soon, he's going to have to get a better paying job than our own remodeling work (hey I give him meals and love, what more does a guy need??)

I am really enjoying meeting people. They didn't seem outwardly friendly at first, but there is an added bonus that each one I meet lives right here. We ended up walking home from school with a kid on our street, we could run into the bank lady at the post office and the school teacher in the grocery store. It's nice to be so interconnected. And Ivan made a guy friend. Brian and Ivan were walking on our street when a kid called out to him saying "hi Ivan". Ivan said hi back and Ivan explained that the boy was Tyson from his class. I guess that broke the ice, Ivan said that they played together every recess today. His favorite person ever in class after the "alien" Ugboo is Alena who runs away from him at recess, but is so nice to him in class. Ivan gives me a daily tally of her status (in school, not there today, hey- there is her dad), but it's nice that he made a friend who will play with him and lives nearby too.