Thursday, August 28, 2008

Importing Olympians of Another Kind...

Traditional Bolivian danceImage via Wikipedia The recent posts/comments on the blog about the changing nature of the Olympics and how coaches are imported to the US and athletes to various countries perhaps planted a seed.

With the NFO away at dance camp, a mini "perfect storm" of activity came down on Wed. morning.

The kids are off from school until next week.

We had Jorge, from Bolivia, fixing the lights (those that had been the cause of the Fire Dept. visit.)

Lorena, repping Guatemala, had moved her usual cleaning day to come in and tidy up the house (since Jorge's work was creating a bit larger mess than usual) and prep for our esteemed weekend guests.

Lastly, our stalwart Amharic speaking (Ethiopia native) Nanny is playing zone on the 3 kids.

This is the FOJ Domestic Assistance Olympic Team, all imports as well.

Anyway, after coordinating the activities (they all arrived at 8.30am), and getting the kids settled, I turned to 2 of them and asked:

"Are you guys working for free today?"

They looked at me with a perplexed look, sensing the humor in my voice.

Jorge said: "I wish we could."

"I figured," I replied. "So, if it is ok with you, I am going to go down to the mancave and try to figure out how to pay for all of you!"

Seriously, it reminded me of the other "house full of immigrants" days (part 1 and 2) and gave me one of those perspective enhancing moments to appreciate our country.


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