InteGRATion into GRATeFULLness
Singing&Sounding keeps me Sound

Friends in all kinds of Colors

2007_06_30 I have a friend, brown like chocolate 2010_05_12 [I can't find the tune, and Mika is still not able or wanting to teach me...]

lyrics: Chana Goldberg

tune: Yoni Roaeh

This "educative" song , performed by Sarit Hadad, I played over and over again, when my grandchildren were smaller and some of them had problems with Ethiopian children in their kindergarden

to former song to next song

10~10~10
October 10, 2010

Immanuel flew to Los Angeles ('the angels') already the night before and Efrat fetched me from Lod train-station.
We fetched Mika from kindergarden, and she got dressed for her dance-lesson, but there was still some time.
On the veranda they talk to Tsilla, the neighbor, and to a newly discovered boy on a veranda below Tsilla's.

[I'll tell -- much later --- about the letter to Efrat, after the fall of Mika from the stairs.. A letter which I did not send....]

"Slichah!" On Yom-Kippur each child dictated a quest for forgiveness to the teacher. The Slichah was given to me today: "To grandma Rachel, I ask for forgiveness that you think that I got lost in the pool and [that you] got very scared. I promise to tell you when I want to move away from you. Mika" [this was 2 months ago...]

The "makhol-tchiq"- The Little Dance Course takes place in "the violet House", (which brings up sad associations; Ya'acov worked their with youth-in-danger, and was fired) Ingrid, the teacher ("what name?" I asked surprised. She is from South-Africa, German background) awaits the 7 little girls, mostly dressed in pink. Imma helps her to put on her ballet shoes, Parents are allowed to watch the lesson on TV outside. I watch, while Efrat does some work, but we also have 5 min. to remember Mika's fall from the staircase, and the meaning of it. Then the lesson is finished and Mika meets her mother as radiating joy as most of the time....

When we leave that building and approach the car, drops of rain come down on us!
I was exhilarated - for the "First Rain" (Yoraeh) did not visitate Arad,
but only in the North and in the center ("a flood for 5 hours in Tel-Aviv", claimed Efrat).
In the car, we sang: "in the month of Heshvan the Yoraeh came down and danced on my roof"
Mika and I, were enchanted by the drops on the windshield illuminated by street-lights.
I photographed twice, but then Mika begged for the camera and continued.
By then the car was already moving, which caused the photos to be colorful.

The next morning, October 11, 2010, she sits in the corner in front of "my" open bathroom, plays with Nella and says: I love her so much!

Qeshet comes home with Mika from kindergarden I am not allowed to be present, and since I declined to leave "my" room with the computer, the girls moved out to the living-room. I still had to keep the door open, while Efrat was away for a short time. The open door caused almost a scene with Qeshet. Luckily Efrat came back, and I could close my door, but even Efrat was "banished" to the veranda... Much later I allowed myself to take two pictures

When Efrat wanted to prepare supper and asked Qeshet, if she would eat it, the girl claimed to be ready to eat only two kind of dishes, one of them being industrial corn shnitzels. Efrat, who starts to have difficulties with this girl and her mother anyway, called the mother and asked her, to let her daughter eat at her home.

The next morning, October 12, 2010 - the day on which my niece's family arrived at 3 AM -
Mika asks me to sit with her, while she eats her cereals.
The evening before I had asked Efrat to allow me, to put the milk into a tiny jug,
from which Mika could pour it on the cereals herself,
thus, perhaps, preventing, that the leftover of the milk had to be thrown away.
To sit with Mika, while she is eating, is difficult even for me.
She simply forgets putting the spoon into her mouth.
She is so busy with ideas from the inside and items on the outside.
Like yesterday night, after I had been permitted to spend 20 minutes at her bed,
and we dived deeper into the story of Abraham and his brothers Nahor and Haran,
and the exodus of Abraham and Nahor, their father Terach and Haran's son Lot, from Ur to Kharan,
she was so full of Adrenalin, that she said to her mother
(after she had threatened from above: "if you don't come up to me once more, I'll come down!"):
"Your life is so wonderfull", said Efrat and pointed out details, but Mika said:
"But Life is irritating me (me'atzbenim), for it demands, that I go to sleep,
while I have so many things to do!
Why do I have to sleep?"

Back to breakfast, - she liked the idea of the jug and pouring milk herself
(she had the experience of making the dough of the "Aya-Lia" two days ago),
but still stopped eating after every spoonful.
I said, that I would bring my own work to do .
I wanted to cut the papers of my novel, so as to photograph the halves for my site.
It was then, that she took the camera and spontaneously shot this funny picture"

Already yesterday I began to teach her the song about a spring and a white kid
She wanted to learn it and asked me to repeat passage by passage.
Now - after having again acted out the scene on the breakfast table,
Mika went back to her drawing chest in "my" room and drew the scene,
inspired by an image in Wikipedia

Since Efrat sings another tune, in which the dialog piece "where do you come from, kid ?" And it answered and said: "From Kharan" is missing, I opened several performances for Mika with the tune of Immanuel Amiran

Then it was time to go to kindergarden, accompanied by Nella

INstead of images, which I did NOT try to catch on October 12, 2010, the day when my niece's family arrived from Germany,
I'm inserting this amazing drawing of Mika - shown to me with pride and wonder by her parents: "the BRAIN!"

In a parents' meeting it was decided, that Immanuel would photograph each child and compose the pictures together with names and phones as "Communication Pages", which each family would receive. Mika , at home, made an enormous effort to copy all the faces, but when she was interrupted, she did not return to complete her work