i have been in the uk for more than 2 months and began realising that some things have developed or changed, i would say. we have sent the children to school. our second daughter and the only son have attended the dollis infant school for more than a week, and found the school fun. our daughter was placed at yellow class and our son was in reception class called brown class. only, they could not really communicate in english as they did not speak english at all when they arrived at uk, and even before they came to the uk, they did not learn english much. everybody i met in the uk whom i spoke about the child usually said that children learnt the language fast, which i was not sure about the truth, or it might take more time for both my children to learn english. yet, dollis had told us that a language teacher which would help my children learn it had been provided, namely mrs william, an old lady who when meeting me said that she knew some languages, but she was not sure about indonesian language. she also mentioned that on wednesdays, the children would work with her in increasing more english vocabulary. apart from that, we had been thinking about their uniforms which consisted of around five outfits and cost more than 10 poundsterling, an amount which we considered very significant as it affected our expenses much.
our old daughter was supposed to start the school on tuesday this week and we had already asked her to go around watling avenue to find the proper uniform for her. we went to a shop in which we met two indians, one is old enough who helped us find the appropriate uniforms and the other is relatively younger, who assisted us in counting the total amount of the price of the uniforms which consisted of a cardigan or pullover with yellow V, a white blouse (which i thought it was white shirt) and grey trousers. we did not buy skirts as we tried to get her familiarised with trousers to cover her body, being the teaching of our religion. it is interesting that in dollis junior school children were tolerated in matters of their uniform. while there were regulations regarding particular dresses, there were also permissions up to a point in practising the religious teaching, such as wearing “head scarves for religious purposes”, as they called it, which should be in plain colours only. interestingly, the uniforms for autumn and spring terms were a bit different from those worn in summer term, showing how the weather affected the dresses, a thing i never found in my country. besides, there was the P.E. kit for sports which included white shorts and socks, House T shirt, trainers for outside play, trainers and tracksuits for colder months.
so starting from next week, there will be three little kids going to school from where we live in 47 limesdale gardens to the dollis infant and junior schools. it will be either my wife or me who will take them to the school as it is pretty far from our rent house. we usually take number 251 to arnos grove or 114 and 302 to mill hill broadway station. after that, we normally take the only 221 to turnpike lane station and stop and either salcombe gardens or copthall sports centre. when we arrived at salcombe gardens, we usually take the children to cross the street with the help of a lolipop man, i was not sure if that is what they called it in the UK. i once saw this kind of man in nottingham when i was pursuing my postgraduate studies there.
my supervisor had been very kind in supporting us so that i was able to manage my time between studying or working which include writing and reading a huge number of books and providing my family with activities which were fun. he has invited us twice to dinners, which means lunch in the uk. we were first asked to go to the so-called ‘relatively cheap’ restaurant near soas that served asian food. secondly, he invited us to have dinner in his apartment in which we met four interesting people at the occasion, an indonesian-british couple, he himself and his room mate, i guess. the couple who were an indonesian husband and a british wife talked about their lives in Medan and Aceh as both used to be NGO workers. at the time we met, the husband was working for BBC London and the wife was in a language-related institution.
during the meeting, the children were very happy as my supervisor and his room mate, who was a brazilian provided many toys for them and played with them.
