Our Life in Argentina
Three legged football
Story time
Tree Planting
Happy as a piglet in a sandpit
Just got back from cub weekend away in a field in Quebracho Herrado, and about to go off to our mission team meetings in a hotel in Carlos Paz. Sublime to the ridiculous… but which is which?
The moral of the story is… don’t plan a sophisticated outing if you’re travelling with a two year old. We went off to Rafaela today, in lieu of the bank holiday tomorrow (bank holidays are really rubbish here; the roads are completely blocked with people visiting their relatives, and if you don’t have any relatives to visit, you’ll find everywhere else shut anyway). Rafaela’s just a big town really, bit bigger than San Fran, similar sort of design, probably founded at around the same time… but last time we went on a bank holiday, so this time we thought we’d like to see it with some life on the streets. In the centre is a large green plaza with a kind of arboretum affair, lots of native trees, each with its corresponding information plaque. Joni tailed us around, until he finally whispered “mummy, where’s the slide?”
Luckily, about five blocks away, opposite the police building (nicely kept solid colonial affair) we found a small park, complete with one monstrous death-slide which we avoided, and several smaller ones which we put through their paces before heading to a handy cafe for spaghetti bolognaise (“Spasta” he calls it, which I do think sounds quite derogatory, but maybe I’m just over sensitized after too many years working in learning disabilities).
When I grow up I’m going to be a:-
Raddish
Cabbage
Beetroot
Chicory
Scientist? Train-driver? Bob the Builder?
I’m really excited about those baby plants (naturally I’m also excited about my son’s future, but that’s more of a long term project). The seeds were being given out for free by an organisation called INTA which stands for something that I can’t remember, in conjunction with a government project to encourage people to eat more vegetables. I planted them ages ago and nothing happened, and I read the book which said that they should be through by now, so I thought the frost had finished them off, and then suddenly, here they all are… I’m not a great gardener, but there is something magic about little shoots pushing upwards, bringing with them the promise of something edible later.
My list of things to do today said “write a blog” (as well as go to supermarket, go to Quebracho, talk to social worker, buy nappies for disabled kid, take my own kid swimming, etc). All the other stuff’s either been done, or can no longer be done because the day’s finished and everyone’s gone home. So that leaves “write a blog”. What to blog about?
Life? Well there’s the supermarket… Actually, there’s a change shortage on here of late. That means that when you go to the supermarket, if you don’t have the exact money (and whoever goes to the supermarket knowing in advance that their bill is going to come to $54.37?) then first you have to convince the till operator that you don’t have the exact money “no, really, look, I haven’t got any coins at all”, and then you have to queue up at the far end of the till until she’s made enough change from the people coming after you in order to reimburse your sixty three centavos.
Theology? Haven’t done much thinking about that of late despite the fact that we’re supposed to be Christian workers. In fact I deleted an email from a Bible college today that I had been thinking about doing an MA with, but one, we can’t afford it, and two, another overseas qualification isn’t worth anything here anyway. At the moment I’m intrigued by the suggestion that the only place that John Mark might feature in the gospels is in Mark’s own account where “a young man” is mentioned running away naked as Jesus is arrested. Why does that intrigue me? Well I’m not exactly sure yet.
Work? I bought those nappies, but didn’t see that social worker, nothing unusual there, except that it was my fault rather than hers this time; car was double booked so I didn’t get to the village. Apart from that, I was looking at the guys at the special school yesterday and wondering if we could get hold of an old-but-functional computer and think about inventing some sort of single-switch access for it without having to spend zillions of dollars on “proper” hardware (or software come to that).
Other stuff? Martin just got back from the prison and went off to the mens’ group. He reckons the prisoners are more switched on in general than the men from church; he’s been using a lot of the same material for both groups. Our kid found a bit of fluff on his bed and became convinced it was a bogey (he says that very clearly), and then bizarrly became equally convinced that the bogey wanted to eat his trousers. Too much Dr Who I say. I wrote a bunch of emails and tried to get my head around various forthcoming events… Scout training on Sunday (the kitchen and bathroom both need cleaning, motivation for same not as high as last time I did it), Scout camp next weekend (not done very much towards that yet, nobody else thinks this is a major issue except Mrs European me), Latin Link Argentina team conference/retreat starting two days after Scout camp, and then Frost family retreat to England a few days after that… As last year, we’re happy to share a beer with anyone who’s willing to travel to Baldock to collect it.
Is this long enough to be a blog yet?
Life’s quite busy, I’ve got quite a few half-starting projects and ongoing things to think about, but my brain-cell’s gone into weekend mode, so today’s blog isn’t going to be about any of it.
Today I bought my kid a ball. It’s a plastic green thing, to make up for the several others that have been punctured by the dog’s over-enthuseastic football-playing. It cost five pesos fifty, which is a bit less than a pound, so it won’t matter too much if we soon have to buy another one. Joni loves it, we had to take it out in the car with us this afternoon, and he kept touching it and saying “that’s for your birthday” (you and your are his favourite all purpose pronouns).
My first thought was “what evil parents we are that our kid thinks it must be his birthday because he’s got new stuff”.
My second thought was “fantastic, how many years can we keep this up?”
My third thought was “if we can raise a kid who doesn’t need to measure his worth or our love by how much stuff he gets, then we’ll be doing something right”.
At the moment he’s only two, and we don’t have a TV, so the hard bit’s going to come later. Just to show that we’re not perfect parents (in case you don’t know us very well) this evening, he put a plastic bucket over my head and announced “Mummy, you’re a Dalek”! He watches Dr Who back-episodes on Daddy’s lap, and he loves it. Like father like son.
Four years ago Martin was nursing his broken neck and I was well into the world cup on the loaned TV. This year I haven’t managed to get the hang of it at all, maybe because we don’t have a TV so we’ve got used to doing other things with the time. Not necessarily more worthy things, just in case you’re worried that we’ve gone saintly or anything, just different ways of occupying ourselves. In fact, I completely forgot there was an Argentina game on Thursday to the extent that when I went out and found San Francisco resembling a ghost town, I wondered if there was a bank holiday on that we didn’t know about (which does happen quite often). In fact it turned out to be even better than a bank holiday because not only was the supermarket open, but it was also completely deserted and I did all the shopping in five minutes flat and still had time to go home and walk the dogs, so they were pleased too.
I’m not the only one who hasn’t managed to get into the world cup this year, judging by the lacklustre England performance yesterday. I did manage to see half of that game, and it was so boring that I abandoned the patriotic attempt and went out visiting instead. A fellow mish in South Africa who saw the match writes on his blog… “I love it when England play because it allows the rest of the English footballing fraternity know what it’s like being a Palace fan” which pretty well sums up the half I saw at least.
Apart from lack of media, I’ve frankly been far too busy for watching grown men playing ball games. Four trips to the hamlet of Luis Sauces, two trips to the village of Quebracho Herrado, one hospital visiting session, seven trips to the Cottolengo (site of the special school), not to mention the usual stuff of kid to nursery, swimming, walking dogs, playing in the park, supermarket, Scouts etc, and it becomes clear why we’ve never missed that TV, and why I’m looking forward to Monday, which is a bank holiday that we actually managed to find out about in advance.
Top conversations from this week.
Discussing the world cup;
– What time are Argentina playing
– Eleven o’ clock
– Eleven? That’s a strange time for a football match.
– That’s because of the time difference from Africa.
– Oh, are they playing against Africa?
– Yes, the whole continent at once (actually I didn’t say this bit, the joke would have been wasted anyway)
Early Saturday morning, the phone rings, female voice at the other end;
– Is Martin there?
– No, he’s in the prison.
– (Information digesting pause….)
– Oh. When he gets out, will he be going back to his old job?
– (another pause while Hazel engages the braincell…)
– Are you looking for a different Martin? My husband’s name is Martin, and he’s a volunteer at the prison. (Martin is quite a common name in Argentina)
– You’re not the people who sell mobile phones?
– (phew) No, sorry about that.
– No, I’m sorry to disturb you….
Did Billy Graham ever have this trouble?
A frend of mine with serious hearing difficulties recently was chatting with me by MSN and said:
“I mostly get the banging of drums and some nasty cacophony on top.”
whilst referring to Church worship.
How strange I thougtht. I too, so often have the same experience!
I do wonder quite often what it is that God wants from us here… every time someone or something reminds us about our dire financial support situation… every time I think about my “sleeves rolled up tackling the front-line of poverty” ambitions for my life… every time I think about the seven years I trained to gain the qualifications which Argentina doesn’t recognise… So why do we keep being here in a place where we can’t afford to be, where most people don’t need us, and where our mission may pull the plug on us at our next home leave anyway?
Well, apart from the fact that the food’s good, and our bi-lingual child is thriving, maybe this has something of an answer:
Which I think is beautiful, courtesy of Asbo Jesus
Small child being offered a jar of sweets…
“Just one Joni”
“Yes mummy. I got two ones”