:: je suis très fière de toi ::

I'm so proud of you. 

Often, during the day, I think of you and am filled with a sense of love and respect for you, knowing you're out there every day working for us, making it possible for me to be at home as our children grow. I'm even more grateful to you because I know you're not working in an easy environment...

Eti managed to almost walk straight into a job here in New Zealand. It was a position we heard of through someone we knew and we pursued it, and a couple of months later he was starting his first job in an english speaking world. It turns out that, in spite of glowing reports of what the job would involve in terms of training and possible future opportunities, he walked into a very messily run organisation. Some issues make us groan thinking "Surely this is not rocket science to anyone?!" with solutions being so easy to spot. Lately I've had to reassure Eti that this is not how all organisations in New Zealand are run!

Eti, what fills me with pride is the way you approach your work each day. You often tell me that you laugh off the terrible organisation of some of the jobs you are given, instead of letting it stress you. I know it's tough to be interacting with people in a second language and to not understand much of the humour that is bantered around among your colleagues. I cringe at the thought that most days you have to go to the head office and wait to be told where to go for the day because it's not properly organised beforehand, and for you to know that others notice you sitting waiting often for over an hour at a time and think you're not working enough. I know you do your very best and you're a hard worker. I'm impressed at how you seem rather nonplussed about it all, brushing off others' misconceptions by saying "What else can I do? If I'm not being given jobs ahead of time and not being trained to do them on my own or sent with someone else?!" Very true. I have suggested that maybe you might like to look elsewhere but you reassure me that when all is going well (which is rare, you confess!) you really enjoy it and so you carry on. In the meantime I bite my tongue and restrain my fingers from making contact with the company to let them know what I think (I guess that might be appropriate at some point in the future with our children, but not so much coming from a wife to her husband's employers!).

So I observe you with a heart full of pride and gratitude for who you are. I admire your ability to deal with it all in your stride, your perseverence to be committed to the company, to observe and learn as you go without the promised training, your humility to ask, even several times, for someone to repeat themselves if you can't understand, that you can be assertive when people treat you without respect, and your ability to laugh when I would most likely cry and want to run home to everything familiar on the other side of the world! I know that, together, we are grateful for this job at how it seemed to be handed to you on a platter, so-to-speak. There are also other things we really appreciate from it, and we do trust there's a reason. 

In the meantime, while you're at work, I often tell our girls that you're a wonderful papa. You're a good and a hard worker, and I'm thankful they have you as an example of someone who is not only fun-loving and adventurous but also committed, loyal, and perseverant. What a gift for them to grow up with, and an example to me as well :o)