Author: Hazel Frost

Christopher Robin lived at the very top of the Forest. It rained, and it rained, and it rained, but the water couldn’t come up to his house. It was rather jolly to look down into the valleys and see the water all round him, but it rained so hard that he stayed indoors most of the time, and thought about things. Every morning he went out with his umbrella and put a stick in the place where the water came up to, and every next morning he went out and couldn’t see his stick any more, so he put another stick in the place where the water came up to, and then he walked home again, and each morning he had a shorter way to walk than he had had the morning before. On the morning of the fifth day he saw the water all round him, and he knew that for the first time in his life he was on a real island. Which is very exciting. It was on this morning that Owl came flying over the water to say "How do you do?" to his friend Christopher Robin.

"I say, Owl," said Christopher Robin, "isn’t this fun? I’m on an island!"

"The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately," said Owl.

"The what?"

"It has been raining," explained Owl.

"Yes," said Christopher Robin. "It has."

"The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height."

"The who?"

"There’s a lot of water about," explained Owl.

"Yes," said Christopher Robin, "there is."

                   With acknowledgements to A.A. Milne.

After twelve days of rain, the forecast here today cheerily predicts that it will continue in similar vein till next Tuesday.  

A reminder to take time to notice the little things in life…

Apologies for those who don’t like creepy crawlies, but I thought that was beautiful with the water shining off the web. 

It has been raining almost without ceasing for the last eight days here.  We’re doing OK, but spare a thought for folks flooded out up-country.

Closer to home, the Baby has been going to nursery for two hours a morning since Monday, which is improving relationships at home, and might even mean I don’t growl if Teen asks me occasionally to look after him of an afternoon/evening. 

And we have successfully wrangled a special cinema screening of the new Jungle Book movie next Saturday afternoon for the three Scout groups in our district. 

So it’s not all bad. 

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

If you received our newsletter, you might be wondering how my paper-work trip to Cordoba went this week.   Here are the gory details. 

Left home at six in the morning.  Arrived in Cordoba, and made my way to given address.  The building is unmarked, down a back alley, between what looks like an electrical substation and a disused garage.  But a bunch of Argentineans look like they might be going to do what I’m doing, so I follow them and thus discover that I am in the right place. 

Located an information sign which says I need to be in office six.  Ask someone manning a desk to direct me to office six.  He doesn’t know.  Spot office six about three metres in front of where said employee is sitting.  I guess it might have been his first day. 

Stand in queue at office six in order to be given a small green piece of paper.  This is apparently the explanation guide to the process to be followed.  It is in tiny print, poorly photocopied, and dominated by an unintelligible diagram featuring a bunch of arrows pointing in random directions.  I have a sinking feeling that this is going to go quite wrong quite soon.  The woman in office six points me towards the next queue across the corridor. 

Stand in second queue in order to be given a second small piece of paper, in white.  This is a payment slip, which needs to be taken to a “rapipago” (payment system) office two blocks down the street, where I will need to pay 30 pesos (about £1.50) in order to progress. 

Paid up, I call into a stationery shop next door.  Experience tells me that stationery shops can be good sources of useful information.  Sure enough…. “Yes, you need to buy this type of folder, and an index sheet like this, then you need to fill in the index like this, and I’ll make two photocopies of it for you, then the folder needs to be put together like this, and that will be twelve pesos please (60p)and I’ll lend you a pen and a hole-punch and you can let me know if there is anything else you need…”

Back in the original building, apparently now I need to be in office four from which the queue is oozing down the corridor, so I decide to take a break for lunch.  Head across town to the house of a fantastic woman who I haven’t seen since Joni was a new-born baby, hardly surprising I didn’t recognise her kids either.  That was the best two hours I’ve enjoyed in a while. 

All good things come to an end, and too soon I am in the queue outside office four, until I am finally called in.  The first woman receives my paperwork with an encouraging “Oh, I don’t know what to do with you, I’ve never dealt with an foreigner…”  She calls a friend.  Who calls another friend.  Who confers across the office with a fourth friend.  The jury is out.  Two of them think they can receive my paperwork.  The other two are less convinced.  So they go for the safe option: make it someone else’s problem.  “You need to go to this other address across town and consult with this person”.  

I wend my way to the second address from which the person in question has now left for the day.  But I am attended by three other people.  They offer a bunch of possibilities, all things I have previously attempted.  I start getting the impression that they are playing with me.  Finally, one of them suggests I go back to London.  Being fair, at this stage in the day there are few things that I am going to find amusing.  And this isn’t one of them.  So I’m annoyed and I leave. 

Partway down the stairs one of them catches up with me.  “Don’t leave like that” He says.  Well how would you like me to leave?  “It’s OK I understand you”.   No you don’t, you really don’t.  “Calm down, come back upstairs and we’ll talk”.  I take a deep breath and follow him back up the stairs.  Bless him he was quite a sweet guy in the end, and he did everything he could to help me, including giving me his email address so that he can let me know if he manages to make any progress with any of the other people who by then had all left their respective offices and thus weren’t answering their phones. 

The one thing that we did manage to ascertain was that I thought I had revalidated my secondary school qualification when I took a bunch of exams here about five years ago.  But no.  Apparently that is referred to as the “formacion nacional” (National formation), and in order to finish revalidating my secondary school, I need to take those certificates, together with the certificates issued by my country of origin (you know those bits of paper that I’ve never been asked for since the age of sixteen and I have absolutely no idea where they might be, even to the nearest town; those ones) and book an appointment in Buenos Aires to complete the process.  Fantastic.  

And I missed my bus.  Fortunately by the time I made my way back to the bus station, it was nearly time for the next one.  And there were still some empty seats. 

Que Dios te bendiga con incomodidad ante las respuestas fáciles, las verdades a medias, las relaciones superficiales. Así vivirás en lo profundo de tu corazón.

Que Dios te bendiga con ira ante la injusticia, la opresión y la explotación del pueblo. Así trabajarás por la justicia, la igualdad y la paz.

Que Dios te bendiga con lágrimas derramadas por quienes sufren el dolor, el rechazo, la inanición y la guerra. Así tenderás tu mano para consolarles y para cambiar el dolor en alegría.

Y que Dios te bendiga con la locura de pensar que puedes hacer que el mundo sea de otra manera. Así harás las cosas que otros te dicen que son imposibles.

(Libro de culto y oraciones, Consejo Mundial de Iglesias, IX Asamblea, Brasil.)

I prayed that on the 28th of January and since then I’ve been running ragged.  There may be light at the end of the tunnel soon now all school-aged kids are back in term, and we should have a nursery place for Baby starting in early April which will give me a couple of hours a day with two hands to tackle the rest of the to-do list. 

Sweet moderation, heart of this nation
Desert us not, we are between the wars

Billy Bragg – Between the Wars

Currently we appear to be in a period of calm between episodes of manic intense activity. 

Teen is in a good place at the moment, she and boyfriend are getting on well and spending more time together now that they have officially split up – I wouldn’t dare to attempt to fathom any reason or understanding beyond appreciating the peace while it endures.  We’re still no further forward regarding paperwork, and we are still not sure what will happen to Baby when Teen goes back to school.  Both of those things are technically in other peoples hands, although the net effects of either will of course fall onto her and us. 

School goes back for everyone on the 29th, floods and teachers strikes permitting.  I think we have gathered enough paperwork and equipment, but there’s usually something I have forgotten or didn’t know about.  The idea of ensuring that people have access to sufficient information in order to fulfil requirements isn’t really part of this culture.  I find it hard that I am unable to do anything other than be in the wrong most of the time, but I suspect that people who are born here just accept it as part of life. 

The first ever camp with our church teens went well.  I don’t feel I have a great affinity with teenagers in general, so I was amazed that they seemed to enjoy the games that I organised, and they even appeared to be listening when I presented my teaching slot. 

Now between camps, preparing for the Scout summer camp for the final week of the school holidays, from this Saturday till next.  I am actually slightly worried that I am not stressed enough about this!  Normally at this stage I would be running around like something headless, but it all appears to be under control, so I am hoping and praying that this is really the case and that anything major I may have forgotten will come to light preferably in sufficient time to fix it. 

We’re arming for peace, me boys between the wars

Teen’s life currently resembles a soap opera.  Most details not appropriate for public viewing before the watershed, but all prayers and wise counsel gratefully accepted.  She and baby decamped to Cordoba for a few days this week.   On the way back from dropping them off at the bus station I realised this meant that we could actually fit the whole family in the car, having effectively been grounded since Baby’s birth in December (being six in a car thus illegal to go anywhere).  So we made a spontaneous decision to decamp to Miramar for a few days. 

I love the fact that our kids are still unsophisticated enough to be able to have fun with sand and water.  We pitched tents in the usual spot and mostly divided our time between the beach – sand and salty water; and the swimming pool – chlorinated water.  We also threw in a boat trip to see flamingos because Joni wanted to go on a boat, and I never get tired of flamingos; and a trip to an otter farm which we hadn’t done before.  “Nutria” are a local delicacy, and technically aren’t otters, but it’s the best translation the dictionary can come up with. 

Now we’re back home, catching up on the next instalment of the Teen soap opera (thought briefly about killing her yesterday but today we have calm on the western front), drying off tents (inconveniently rained all day yesterday for packing up), catching up with washing, and preparing resources for games and activities ready for the next decamp, with the church youth group starting on Monday. 

Halfway through January already!  Here are a couple of updates on recent stories for people who have been following via blog or newsletter or both. 

We won one fight; our Scouts have been given use of the municipal bus for our summer camp in February.  That has been an ongoing saga since the local council agreed to provide the bus way back last July, and then out of the blue at the start of December tried to withdraw the offer by claiming that it was never made.  For a month we attended the council offices almost every day, and were passed from pillar to post, fobbed off with promises of meetings and phone calls, which mostly didn’t happen.  So finding ourselves in January and no further forward, I took charge of things and decided to finish the job once and for all.  We had nothing to lose, and even a big fat no would be progress in that it would be a proper answer that we could move on from.  So I rolled up my sleeves and went to war and after two fairly frank meetings, we had a bus.  So now we are finishing raising the funds.  Tonight we have a folk evening, known as a peña in Argentina, so we have been hard at work all morning, and will continue working hard until the wee small hours tomorrow, hopefully with a goodly haul as a result. 

Teen’s paperwork is still an ongoing battle, to the extent that we couldn’t even register the baby.  Teen is missing from the care system but at least she does have an ID card albeit out of date, whereas Baby doesn’t officially exist at all and won’t exist until either Teen’s situation is progressed or Boyfriend regularises his immigration status – he has temporary residency which ran out last June and apparently renders him incapable of fathering a child (go figure!).  He won’t be able to move his case on until March because the relevant office is on holiday till then.  Meanwhile Teen is making progress, Baby is thriving and has put on 300 grams this week.  I suspect we need to be driving a difficult balance between applauding Teen’s progress and pushing her to do more; together with knowing when to get involved because they need our involvement, versus when to stand back and let them figure things out for themselves because they need to do that too.  Good news is that Teen has mentioned that she would like to go back to school this year, we weren’t even broaching the subject at this stage so we were surprised and thrilled to hear it.  So over the next month or so we need to be thinking together and finding out what sort of support might be available to facilitate that. 

 

An unmarried teenage girl of uncertain parentage gives birth in poverty and his own compatriots did not receive him.  It has been an interesting Christmas in our house. 

Foster Teen’s baby, Lian Piñero Zambrano made his appearance nearly a whole month ahead of schedule, on the morning of the 23rd of December.  Mum and baby were discharged on the 24th.  I questioned this at the time as it seemed to me that he wasn’t feeding properly, but the public hospital were keen to send everyone home for Christmas so home we went.  Sure enough on Saturday 26th he was readmitted to hospital suffering from dehydration and having lost a significant amount of weight.  Since then he has been in the neonatal unit where they have been getting his weight back up, and working with baby and new mum to improve his feeding. 

Fortunately Christmas in Argentina is a simple affair.  Half an hour’s buzz round the shops on the morning of the 24th gathered me enough loot for presents for all children.  For the main celebration we get together with friends and throw some meat on a fire.  Martin bought meat and drinks while I rooted around the house and located enough ingredients for a couple of salads, and the kids and I made a cake to share for dessert.  

   

 

Since then the week has been filled with zipping backwards and forwards by bike to the hospital several times a day and trying to coincide with times that they need someone to look like a “responsible adult” to meet with social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist, paediatrician…  Sometimes this is tricky when meetings don’t occur at scheduled times.  Technically Teen is still the responsibility of the Province of Cordoba, who appear to have mostly washed their hands of her since losing her paperwork, but without giving us any legal basis for doing anything on her behalf, and particularly not enabling us to claim any of the benefits that she should be entitled to, neither for herself, nor baby Lian who by accident of birth also finds himself without legal status.  So it lands to a couple of not-particularly-wise people from a far off land in the east to provide not myrrh and frankincense, but food and shelter for those who find themselves excluded in their own land. 

“He came to his own, but his own did not receive him.” 

At the moment they are talking about sending him home on Monday, so we celebrated New Year with another hospital visit, and then went home and put together another cake with the chocolate numbers that I had made using some funky new number moulds. Simple pleasures.  Happy New Year.

For those of you who live in the northern hemisphere, just imagine for a moment what would happen if you combine the manic winter weeks leading up to Christmas, with the manic summer weeks leading up to the end of the academic year.  Now you have some idea of what December looks like in Argentina.  Tis  the season where mental health services burst at the seams, and not because Cameron’s Government has closed the beds. 

This is a summary of the last week:

Kicking off the end of year events we had the swimming club’s annual display:

   

Next, Danny’s school year performed their end of term production. “Murga” is a traditional Argentinean style of music and dancing.  It is a lot of fun and quite raucous – about right for Danny, and he loved his hat:

 

Then Danny’s little music club held their concert in a local club hall.  Danny was an enthusiastic performer on his wood blocks:

The following day, Joni was away overnight on his end of year cycling camp, the first time he has ever been on a camp without me as Scout leader:

 

Simultaneously Danny and I were off running the end of year “Pan con Leche” kids’ club event; silly games in a plaza followed by a pizza making competition:

That took us to the weekend, which was filled with Scout activities.  On Saturday we marched four miles to meet with the other groups for the district end of year camp fire.  Each group had to bring a banner with a theme of Peace:

 

“When the power of love is greater than the love of power, then the world will know peace”

On Sunday the leaders had a meeting with the newly installed Bishop-  That was an interesting experience for me, being the only non-Catholic leader in the region.  The overarching assumption was to talk about Scouts as inherently Catholic, although one person did mention that this wasn’t necessarily the case!  Then we went for mass together afterwards, always a nice change for me, I’m starting to get to grips with the liturgy in Spanish, can do the Lords Prayer, now trying to learn the creed. 

   

On Monday we had visitors from Cordoba, a previous foster family of the Teen, who have recently adopted a two year old with significant disabilities and medical needs.  They came for lunch, for which I made a lot of pizza, and then took Teen out for the afternoon.  In the evening I was representing the Scouts as a witness to the handover and swearing in ceremony for the new city mayor and councillors.  It was interesting from a cultural/phenomenological point of view, I’m fairly sure I was the only foreigner but we’ve been around long enough now to bump into a variety of friends and acquaintances. 

   

Today is a bank holiday for the 8th of December and the first day for ages when we haven’t had any commitments.  In line with Argentinean 8th of December tradition, the boys and I put up our Christmas tree and nativity this morning:

Santa was swiftly borrowed from the tree and set off on a round of the train track.  Shortly afterwards I found myself cutting out a net of a 2 cm cube having been informed that Santa needed a present to take on the train with him.  And shortly after that, I found myself being detailed to sew up a miniature red draw-string bag for Santa to keep his presents in:

And that’s December a mere eight days in.  Possibly plans for this afternoon include setting up the paddling pool.  Or finding a cool cave to go to sleep in for the next month. 

Advent calendars are one of the few traditions that we have exported from the UK.  It gives us a nice way of reading the Christmas story in 25 bits every year, and you might be horrified at how many church kids here couldn’t retell the Christmas story because they never hear it, even in church.  And it also helps the kids not to go mad with excitement on the 1st (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th…) of December because we have a graphic representation of just how many days there are still to go. 

Here is this year’s creation:

  

Each pocket has a bible-verse card, and three home-made chocolates, one each for the young-people of the household. 

Note to self (and anyone else stupid enough to need the advice); an ambitious project involving melting chocolate and lots of sewing would normally need to be started before the 1st of December, unless you are either very skilled or have the entire day to yourself, neither of which was remotely true in my case. 

The other English tradition very important to the boys in my household…

…watching Dr Who and hiding from the scary bits!