I have written a hundred blog entries in the last week; in my head. Sleep deprivation is an interesting phenomenon. Probably comparable to taking drugs, only without the fun part, my mind and my body are totally out of sync and I’m continually having to wait for my mind to catch up in order to figure out what my body thought it was trying to achieve:
Why are you holding the fridge door open? I was going to reheat the coffee. And the fridge? Uh.. may have mistaken it for the microwave.
It finally stopped raining last Wednesday, so Thursday I attempted to make it to the hamlet. I received a text from the grandmother there informing me that the road was passable. She doesn’t drive. The “main” road in (dirt track) had been totally churned into soup by the tractors and milk lorries; definitely out of the league of a family hatchback, so I diverted round to the “alternative entrance”; footpath through a couple of kms of grass, just about wide enough to squeeze a vehicle through. Unfortunately a few people had been there before me so it too was fairly ploughed up and slippery. We slithered, skated, and ground to a halt, wheels spinning ineffectively against wet grass. Joni and I decamped and hiked a few hundred metres to the municipal rubbish dump, where my “pathetic female accompanied by cute blonde kid” presentation quickly persuaded a couple of butch males to come to our aid. They extracted our wheels with embarrassing ease, made me think I might have been too pathetic for bottling out so early, but they gave me a chance to restore my image of competence by watching me reverse back up the slippery path. I’m not sure I was grateful for the opportunity, but we made it out in one piece. I think Joni was more impressed by the diggers at the tip than his mother’s prowess with a Corsa.
Friday we left home at six in the morning for a crazy day in Cordoba… paperwork in the Ministry of Social work, more paperwork signing Danny up to our health-care scheme “You should have come within five days of him being born…” Yes, and I’m guessing that as a male who lives here in the city rather than three hours away, you have absolutely no appreciation that it was plenty hard enough getting here, albeit five weeks late? Cue more pathetic female impersonations, this time we played “dim foreigner doesn’t know the rules, accompanied by cute baby” and the guy took pity and walked me through the signing up process. Oscar duly won, we went on to meet some good people over lunch, no impersonations required. (Really enjoyed meeting you guys… be patient with yourselves, you’re doing great). Then on to some long-standing friends who Joni always enjoys. Martin made the most of an opportunity for a siesta. I mooched into town with Danny. For some women “Retail therapy” means shoes and handbag. Having never owned a handbag (and there’s a limit to the number of pairs of trainers I can use), I was well pleased with my two sexy plastic crates, into which I have since sorted the toys from the dining room floor. Final visit of the day started out as a social call, and later became apparent that we were in a situation of some need; “God’s timing” became a late night. We arrived back in San Francisco at one in the morning, just time to catch some zed’s before Martin was off to the prison for his breakfast-time Bible study, and me n’ the boys were on the bike to Scouts. Fortunately the weekend was a low-key one; Gonzalo and Adriana were here, and we did a minimal round of prison, Scouts, church, and declined the opportunity to go out on Saturday night in favour of staying in, opening a bottle of wine and lighting the fire.
This week and life chugs on (I say that because I can’t quite remember what I’ve done all week and now it’s Thursday). The village (homework on the French Revolution… I don’t know anything about the French Revolution, I wasn’t there I didn’t start it), the school, the hamlet (road now dried out), various jobs round town, couple of visits, tracking down a couple of blankets for our itinerant friend who then failed to come back and collect them… thinking I might need to take the blankets and track her down, it’s cold at night. Oh and we did the round of possible schools for Joni… my baby starts kindergarten next year, and we need to sign him up. The last year or so I’ve been canvassing opinions on potential options for school, and we’ve decided to send him to a state school at least for primary level, since my market research on “What’s the difference between the state schools and the private schools?” has elicited “better uniforms” “better textbooks” “the private schools give out more photocopies” and not one single person has mentioned a higher standard of education. On the contrary, specifically asking about academic levels has resulted in a resounding “not really”. The director of Joni’s nursery reckons that we would really hate the whole private education scene because in San Francisco it’s all about “brand named clothes and what sort of car you drive”… hopefully she means “I recognise that your priorities aren’t as shallow”, and not “you guys should really think about cleaning your car”. So anyway, we have identified three state primary school with a good reputation in reasonable distance from home, so we went to look at them. One seemed like a bit of a zoo, one we really liked; staff were friendly, and there was a nice working atmosphere in the kindergarten where Joni would start in March; and the third the director wasn’t there, so we’ll check it out properly another day.
Meanwhile, I’m halfway through cleaning, but I took a break for some coffee and to write a blog, so I should go back there, except that now the cause of the sleep deprivation thinks he needs some attention so I ought to go see him first, and by then I’ll probably have forgotten what I was doing in the first place; Why are you holding the fridge door open? Looking for the spare toilet rolls? And the fridge? Really, who knows?
