Day Six of our Great American Adventure. They say that for every time zone crossed in travel, it takes one day for a person's body to adjust -- thus, the six hours of time difference between Amsterdam and the Eastern United States should translate to six days of jet lag before our bodies feel normal again. And while this seems to be true for Marci, Elliot, and Cor -- I'm not so sure how the rule-of-thumb applies to me and Olivia.  Ah well.  One of these days we should all be back to normal (and let it be said that I am eagerly anticipating that day!).  Our laptop computer's screen was damaged during travel, so I haven't been able to blog as much as I would like (somehow, writing things down in this space helps me to process the events for myself). But borrowing some time on a friend's computer is allowing me to check in here and now -- and though I can't write for very long, I thought I would share some interesting (though rather random) observations of cultural adjustment

I'm finding it difficult to train myself to not use the word WC ("vay-say") to refer to the restroom facilities.  I constantly feel tempted to ask "Where is the WC?" or to excuse myself from a room with an explanation like "I need to go use the WC."  And though I'm sure no one really cares if I use the Dutch/English word for the toilet, I find it important for myself to make the cultural adaptation (still working on it)

Elliot has "forgotten" how to speak Dutch already, less than a week into our visit to the USA.  People will ask him, "What's the Dutch word for ______?" and he will invariably reply that he can't remember.  Even when I talk to him one-on-one (initiating in Dutch), he will say that he can't or won't speak Dutch -- "because the people here can't understand it."  I'm surprised that his cultural perception is so acute.  But then again, it makes sense.  I guess he just doesn't want to be the weird European kid or some kind of performing circus monkey.  And frankly, I can completely identify with him.  So we're still figuring our way out here in our "homeland."

I always used to hear European people complaining about Americans asking "How are you?" without expecting (or even being prepared for) a sincere reply -- but I never really understood it (at least not on the felt level) until this trip to America.  Especially in the Southeast part of the United States (where we've been visiting up to this point), "How're you?" is not really a question as much as a salutation.  In a post office in Virginia I heard one person answer the "question" of "How're you?" with a response of "How're you?"  Very odd indeed.

Perhaps I will be able to add more observations later.  But for now my blogging time is up.  I'm off to the next great experience in this Great American Adventure.

For the first time in a long time, I had ham-and-cheese sandwiches with mustard for my lunches this weekend.

The above sentence may very well qualify as one of the most boring, mundane, ridiculous opening lines for a blog post ever.  And let's be honest:  for the average blog browser, it may very well serve as a ridiculously boring opening sentence for a ridiculously boring post... But then again maybe not.

I think my ham-and-cheese sandwiches with mustard are actually kind of significant, in a way.  For me personally, I think they may serve as a sign of acceptance, perspective, and coming-to-terms with the past five years of my life.  You see, when I first moved to Amsterdam, in January 2003, I probably ate ham-and-cheese sandwiches with mustard for my lunch four or five times a week.  Partly because they were very tasty -- made with fresh, crusty, European bread, topped with salty ham and finely aged Dutch cheese, and accented with sharp, zingy, French mustard -- and partly because they were one of the very few things that I knew to prepare as I learned a new system for grocery stores, kitchen utensils, and daily routines.  For the first month that I lived in Amsterdam -- in an apartment on the Leidsekade just below the old Zolder -- ham-and-cheese sandwiches with mustard were a staple of my diet.

But then, as I moved out from the Leidsekade apartment and into the city, and as I grew tired of the same old food every day for lunch -- to the point that I was willing to overcome my inhibitions for trying new things and acclimating to the culture around me -- I moved away from the ham-and-cheese sandwiches with mustard.  I fell back to the old American classic, peanut-butter-and-jelly.  Or I had roast beef.  Or I made pasta.  Or I ate at one of the cafes in the city.  And for whatever reason, I never came back to the ham-and-cheese sandwich with mustard again.

Oh, sure, I probably had a ham-and-cheese sandwich with mustard every now and then -- most likely if someone else had prepared the lunch for me... But I found myself very deliberately avoiding ham-and-cheese with mustard.  I would sooner eat just ham.  Or just cheese.  Or maybe ham-and-cheese with no mustard.  But however it happened, I developed a subtle aversion to a ham-and-cheese with mustard because it reminded me, quite viscerally, of a very awkward and painful period of my life.  It left, in a very literal way, a bad taste in my mouth.  Those early days in Amsterdam have a certain nostalgia and "glory days" feel to them, on one level -- but really, when I think back on those days, even now I get a bit of a sick feeling in my stomach.  Of course that was a necessary period of my life, to get me to where I am today (living and functioning in daily life in Amsterdam), but those early days were a very uncomfortable period of my life -- feeling ignorant and useless and powerless and lonely most of the time.  And although I'm glad that I went through the whole process, and I feel confident that God directed through that season of life, I would never relish the idea of going back to that time.  And for whatever reason, without really giving it much thought, a ham-and-cheese sandwich with mustard came to symbolize this to me.

So I actually think it's kind of significant that I made a specific and deliberate choice to enjoy a few ham-and-cheese sandwiches with mustard this weekend (even though there were other options at my disposal).  Laugh at me, if you want (it is kind of silly).  Congratulate me, if you want.  But I'm glad to be eating ham-and-cheese sandwiches with mustard again.  Though I wouldn't want to do it every day.

Oh the adventures in Dutch bureaucracy! Seeking to fulfill my employer's requirements for a three-month "home service leave" with the entire family, we submitted an application for our six-year-old to miss his last seven weeks of kindergarten, way back on the 29th of January (I can recall the date with such specificity because it's stamped on top of the centimeter-thick stack of related papers that have accumulated throughout the course of the last several months).

Within a week or so, I had an appointment with the government official whom I've affectionately dubbed our "Compulsory Education Bureaucrat" (a literal translation of his Dutch title: leerplichtambtenaar), and after talking for over an hour-and-a-half together, he gave me a massive homework assignment -- translating GCM employmee manuals, submitting a detailed travel schedule, filling out an education plan for Elliot, and more. I estimate that I spent approximately ten hours completing these assignments and turning them back in for inspection and approval by the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat.

Then over the following few weeks, I'd guess I had another (cumulative) two or three hours of telephone conversation with our Compulsory Education Bureaucrat. I didn't necessarily enjoy these conversations, but in a strange way I came to admire the conscientious dedication of this public servant and the rigorous system for which he was working. Of course, the whole process has been frustrating! It's highlighted a number of European/American differences in the philosophies of education and government. Still I have to be impressed with the system -- because it seems to genuinely reflect the will of the Dutch People. Just about every Dutch person with whom I've spoken about the situation has repeated for me the stories about the Turkish and Morroccan immigrants who took their kids out of school for weeks at a time, causing the taxpayers to shoulder the burden of offering special education to get foreign children back up to speed after they had so wantonly disregarded the system. Just about every Dutch person (even those who are sympathetic to our cause) has knit their forehead together when I tell them how long we're requesting that Elliot be allowed to miss school and said, "Well, seven weeks is a very long time for him to be missing school, you know." Through the whole process, I've come to more deeply understand and appreciate the differences between the two cultures which dominate my existence.

But still, I've been stuck: between the requirements of my local Dutch government and the requirements of my American-based employer (not to mention my own personal desires to allow my family a greater opportunity to connect with our American roots) on the other hand.

Anyway, after a long drawn-out process -- throughout which the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat repeatedly warned me that he was inclined to deny our application, only to allow me to spend a few more hours preparing and submitting another piece of evidence that might be able to sway his decision -- we learned about two weeks ago that our application was definitively denied. In spite of our hours and hours of conversation and administrative aerobics... in spite of impassioned pleas by Elliot's teacher and school principal (who have been a great help and encouragement to us in the process)... in spite of our (and maybe even your) dedicated prayer for a favorable ruling -- our request for a leave-of-absence was rejected.

We initiated the appeal process right away -- which starts with a hearing before a Commission of Compulsory Education Bureaucrats (our guy's colleagues), and which could eventually move to a court within the regular Dutch legal system (if the Commission upholds the original ruling and we still desire to press our appeal) -- however, the first stage of the appeal process could be up to eight weeks... And our predetermined travel dates fall within this time period. Which is to say: It's entirely possible (and probably even likely) that we could have no official ruling on our appeal until after the time has come for us to leave! So we inquired about the possible penalties for disregarding an official ruling -- and it turns out that we would be looking at a minimum of €250 per week (or a total of €1750 = $2800 USD) plus probation and a maximum of €500 per week (or a total of €3500 = $5600 USD), potentially even including jail-time for "serious offenses!" Obviously, even the minimum penalties would be too much for us to afford... So we had to reluctantly start looking into developing a "Plan B" for our trip back to America -- seeing how doors had been slammed (or were poised to be slammed) on all of the legal channels that we had pursued.

And then we found a back door.

After reading the actual statutes relating to the enforcement of Dutch compulsory education law (not exactly the kind of reading material that you'd like to take with you to the beach), we started to wonder if there might be some room for accommodating our situation based on the issue of school enrollment.  When we asked a Dutch friend to take a look at the statutes for us, to offer some help in interpreting the legalese, he basically finished by asking us the same question:  Well, why don't you just unenroll Elliot from the school system?  So, a couple of days later, when I was working with our Compulsory Education Bureaucrat on the appeal process, I basically asked him the same question:  "What would happen if we simply unenrolled Elliot from the school system?"

Upon hearing my question, the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat paused for a second, audibly shrugged (if you know what I mean), and replied, "Hmm -- yeah, I guess you could do that" with the tone of voice you might use to decide to go to the movies after dinner instead of going to the library.  I'm not sure if he had ever thought of it before -- but his response was definitely not negative, and though I need to be careful not to read too much into his response, I basically got the feeling that he might have even been relieved that we had discovered such a possibility (since, as I mentioned, all along he was only doing his duty to meticulously follow the provisions of Dutch compulsory education law -- not to meanly and deliberately antagonize us).  Of course, it would have been nice if we could have had this conversation a couple of months ago!  But better late than never, I guess...

Following up on the conversation with the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat, I consulted with a trusted businessman and a lawyer -- and it basically turns out that the ultimate consequences of unenrolling Elliot amount to a loss of less than €150 (total) from tax-related considerations... and, well, that's it.  The lawyer that I consulted suggested that we may want to talk with the school administration at the Frankendael School (where Elliot is currently enrolled) -- just to make sure that there would be no complications with waiting lists to re-enroll in the fall or bitterness about them losing some tax funding in the process.  So last week I talked about it with the principal at Elliot's school, who smiled when he heard our solution and nodded reassuringly that Elliot would be welcomed back "with open arms" to the Frankendael School in the fall.

So, officially, Elliot will be moving to the United States this summer!  He will be un-enrolling from school for the last seven weeks of the school year, he will be written out of the city register (but not the national register, thus leaving his residency status unaffected) -- and then he will be moving back to Amsterdam in August and starting the new school year with the rest of his old classmates.

Crazy, huh?  Talk about adventures with the Dutch bureaucracy... I wish that all of this could have been settled earlier.  But I'm glad that we have been provided with a solution in the end.  We've got a lot of work to do now in the coming month (organizing vehicles to transport us and houses in which to stay), to get everything organized for our three months of home service leave.  But at least we're finally on the right track!  Thanks for your prayers.

You may or may not have seen my post from a couple of weeks ago about some of our family's adventures in cross-cultural existence, specifically regarding our application for Elliot's leave-of-absence from the last few weeks of the school year (for a three-month "home service leave" required by our employer).  Believe it or not, that first conversation with the local Compulsory Education Bureaucrat (leerplichtambtenaar) was just the beginning of the insanity.

Since that initial conversation, I estimate that we've spent over ten hours and over €200 (almost $300 U.S. dollars), bending backwards to meet the demands and requests of the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat.  Just today, I had another thirty-minute conversation with the gentleman, talking through the intricacies of our (what he has described as being a) "highly complex case."  I honestly don't see what's so complex about everything, but I know that the guy is just doing his best to do his job.

According to tentative indications from today's conversation,  unfortunately, it sounds like the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat is somewhat inclined to deny our application.  We talked about it at length, and I'm hoping that our conversation today may have helped to tip the scales back a bit more in our direction, but the whole thing is still very much up in the air.  Thus, I would like to ask if you would seriously pray with us for a favorable resolution to this situation.  It may seem like a silly, trivial, insignificant thing to pray for -- and it may seem like a process that's largely out of the hands of God (and firmly in the inescapable hands of the Dutch Bureaucracy) -- but a negative decision from the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat could have significant ramifications for our family's emotional and financial well-being.  Even if there is a negative decision, we could still appeal the matter to a higher-up "Board of Compulsory Education Bureaucrats" -- and then even if they rule against us we could appeal to the Dutch legal system (i.e. a real court case)... But we really hope it doesn't go that far.

So could you please pray for us in this matter?  We would really appreciate it. 

Is anyone else weirded out by these clown images from the Flevopark in
Amsterdam's Indische Buurt? Even without the graffiti, these clowns
seem kind of disturbing to me.