Doing stuff around here at the moment feels quite a lot like a game of snakes and ladders… sometimes you go up; sometimes you go down; and if you keep throwing the dice enough times you’ll get to the end in the end.
Between one kid in nappies full time, other kid in nappies at night, whichever one of the dogs it was that decided to poo on the office floor, and the fact that the left shoulder of everything I wear ends up smelling of stale milk, I suddenly seem to be spending my life wading in bodily fluids. On the plus side, the author of the stale milk managed to spend five and a half hours in his own bed last night. That might not sound a lot, but believe me it’s welcome progress.
They give the BCG injection in the first month here so I dutifully took Daniel along for his on Tuesday morning. Handily the little community centre in our neighbourhood (Barrio Jardin) doubles as a health post in the mornings. Less handily I found a big sign taped to the door saying “Barrio Jardin Health Service suspended for three weeks; nearest alternative Barrio Bouchard”. Goodoh. So we leapt onto the bike and peddled along to Barrio Bouchard. Here I found another big sign on the door saying Go to Barrio Jardin not quite… announcing that the health service for Barrio Bouchard will be functioning in the afternoons. Super. But the door was open, so I went in anyway and asked the guy inside if he could confirm that I would be able to get a BCG done if I came back this afternoon. Technically yes, except that we’ve run out of vaccinations. Better and better. But if you go along to the Centro de Asistencia then they should have some. The what? The health post in the centre of town. So off we peddled to find it. The Centro de Asistencia turns out to be a big government-run walk-in clinic housing twenty surgeries distributed around a maze of corridors. The scene reminded me of those post-earthquake disaster shots on the TV; thousands of people milling randomly around looking glazed and confused. We stood in line at reception long enough to be given a plastic card, and posted off to surgery 19, the vacunatorio, where standing in line some more won us an appointment to come back on Thursday. That counts as progress.
This week we received a threatening “Pay up or we’ll impound your car and castrate your horses” letter for an unpaid traffic fine which I already paid two months ago. Praise the Lord for my husband’s anal obsessive comprehensive filing system… I honestly never thought I’d hear myself saying that… so he took letters and bank receipt to see one of his students; well-known local business man who also happens to be a qualified lawyer. Oh no you definitely can’t ignore this, otherwise they really will impound your car (and castrate your horses) and then fine you through the teeth. Is this likely to be a genuine mistake, or are they deliberately trying to charge me twice? Who can tell? (shrug) The most important thing is that even though you’re in the right, in order to have any chance of winning, any contact you make has to ingratiate yourself with them… go for friendly, careful, polite… I know, why don’t you just leave this with my secretary and I’ll see what we can do. Hooray… we hope.
Today we took Daniel to the civil registry for the final stage of applying for his birth certificate, after which we would hopefully start the process of two passport applications. The British passport used to be really easy; they were all produced in-house in Buenos Aires, and took a week. Now, all passports for the Americas are processed in Washington, and the website says allow four to six weeks… except that mine took nearly three months, and they also have a premium rate phone line, payable by credit card (yes really) so they get to make a profit on their inefficiency. I guess sometimes it does us good to be reminded that Argentina doesn’t have a monopoly on ridiculous government services. Meanwhile, where the British system has been centralised, Argentina has just devolved their passport system out to be produced in-house in the local civil registries. Unfortunately, in San Francisco, the machines arrived late, didn’t work, no-one was trained to use them… etc. and so they now have a three month backlog and won’t be giving out any more appointments until August. However, we arrived at the civil registry this morning, and were shortly greeted by our insider friend from church “come and knock on this door when you’re done with his birth certificate” OK. So we did. “I’ve reserved him an appointment to do his passport application on the 13th of June. I’m really sorry but it’s got to be at midday, because there aren’t any appointments so I had to create him one at a time when we don’t usually see people…” That probably means that she and whoever else she’s roped in are sacrificing part of their lunch break. Big big ladder. Seriously please don’t apologise for fitting us in at midday… and may your mansion in heaven have roses over the door.
Actually this one’s just a ladder… We formally presented Daniel at church on Sunday, so he was held-up, blessed, prayed over, and generally made a fuss of. He seemed a bit non-plussed by the whole thing but he behaved impeccably. I really want my boys to grow up knowing their creator and redeemer, it’s my continual prayer that God will keep them close, and give us wisdom as we nurture them, be that in this church or wherever else we may end up along the way.
