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If grainy scans of other people’s unborn foetuses leave you cold, then you should probably look away now (or come back next entry).  For those of you who are still with us (hi Mum!) the pictures below show the face of Baby Frost 2 at five and a half months gestation.  Almost definitely male, he weighs 870 grams, all limbs and organs present and correct, and as far as it is possible for the technology to predict, looks like he’s doing just fine. 

 

Now starts the process of discarding the names in Spanish that we couldn’t possibly inflict on a child in English, e.g. Geronimo (yes that’s really a name here) and Kevin (that too!); discarding the names in English that we couldn’t possibly expect anyone to pronounce or spell in Spanish, e.g. anything with a th as in Matthew, anything with a ph as in Christopher, or anything with a gh as in Vaughan (not that I’d call a child Vaughan in any language anyway, apologies to any Vaughans reading our blog); and then we see if there’s anything we like out of what’s left following the discarding process.  If our last experience is anything to go by, he’ll be half-way down the birth canal before we come to a definite conclusion.

Talking with one of our neighbours today who has four sons, I wondered how I might have any chance of keeping order when I’m about to be so heavily outnumbered by the men in my life.  She said, “easy, you tell them that since you are the princess of the house they will need to run around and wait on you”.  I’m not sure she’s speaking from a position of successful experience, but it’s got to be worth a try.

This video was taken by our local TV station for a news item a few days ago. I actually saw it by chance being aired on a dozen TV’s in a shop window in town, so I went to the TV station and asked for a copy. For some reason they decided that I would prefer it without the sound. They’re probably right; it was mostly a couple of local politicians in self-congratulatory mode about the fantastic facility that they have built. Credit where it’s due; it is a jolly nice pool, just don’t mention the changing rooms, which funnily enough neither of them did. It’s a great place to work; spending the mornings in the pool is the only saving grace of the sweaty summer in San Francisco, and I also thoroughly enjoy the folk we work with, both staff and students, and that of course is the most important thing, which money can’t buy and politicians can’t legislate for. I have lamented a couple of times that summer scheme doesn’t run all year round, although in fairness the attraction of an outdoor solar heated pool might wane on those days in June and July after the overnight temperature has dropped to minus three. So we make the most of it while we can, and the video shows us making the most of it, including a few clips of me looking pregnant and working with kiddo from the village.

Sometimes real life turns out to be more far fetched than a Venezuelan soap opera.  What I perceived would be a simple house-call yesterday has had me embroiled in a still-on-going saga.  Can’t go into details, but yesterday we had allegations of abduction, deceit, love and lust, elopement, driving around the countryside collecting pieces of conflicting storylines, people who apparently know nothing and then suddenly manage to provide a raft of details, two different police departments and the San Francisco family court.  Today’s revelations if anything have contributed another layer of mud to the waters, and I really have no idea how all this is going to play out. 

We were also dealt an unexpected, and unrelated, subplot today in the form of a sick ex-pat a couple of hundred kilometres away, on whose behalf we were trying to make important decisions by remote control, and for whom we had no insurance details.  Why we had no insurance details will form but one part of the follow up after all this is over.  In the meantime Martin was dispatched to deal with the subplot in person.  Here at least everything now appears to be stupendously under control and progressing as hoped, leaving me free to save the day flounder in the shifting mud of the Venezuelan soap opera. 

Two great quotes that I have purloined for personal use this week. 

The first is a Franciscan benediction, purloined from the blog of some missionaries working in Haiti:

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships – so that we may live deep within our hearts. May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people – so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace. May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war – so that we may reach out our hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in the world – so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

And may our discomfort and anger be multiplied seven-fold when we see those half-truths and injustices disguised as strategies and dressed up in corporate jargon and being modelled by our churches and our Christian organisations.  Amen.

 

And the second is a simple but profound one-liner purloined from the newsletter of some friends working in Bolivia:

“I haven’t the answers but I want to be changed by the questions.”

Lord give us courage, integrity, and chocolate fudge cake as we face the future together.  Amen. 

Joni: Mummy…?

Mummy: Yes Joni?

J:  Have you got a baby in your tummy?

M: That’s right, I have a baby in my tummy.

J: Mummy…?

M:  Yes Joni?

J:  Will it get out?

M:  Well it has to grow a bit more first, but it will come out one day.

J:  Yes.  And then we can eat it. 

M: !!!!!!!!!!

From conception onwards, pretty much everyone around me has been in agreement that I am a terrible mother.  Once I’ve accepted this fact and I know that really there is nothing I can do to change the tenure of public opinion, it becomes curiously liberating not to have to please anyone except myself, and to consider myself free to be the parent I would like to be, rather than the one that everyone else thinks I ought to be.  (I would like to state right here that quite a lot of the time I don’t manage to be the parent I aspire to be either, but I do at least have some idea of what I think that could look like.)  In some ways my child has more limits on him than normal kids around here… I limit his TV, both in terms of time and content.  I limit his diet, particularly its percentage of sugar, and he goes to bed at a time of my choosing, usually a hour in single figures.  In other ways he has a lot more freedom than kids here, to seize every opportunity and

just

to

have

fun

There are stories to tell, but sadly not mine so I can’t tell them, at least not on a public blog.  My little kid from the village has nearly learnt to swim; I’m allowed to say that.  He gets more and more confident in the pool every day, we were playing with water balloons today, I guess he’d never seen them before, but he loved it. 

I first read Rob Hay’s Article on Toxic Mission a year or more ago, but I’ve found myself coming back to it a few times of late, and since I’d promised a couple of folk that I would send the link, I’m putting it up here for anyone who might be interested.  I think it’s a good discussion starter, and probably should be compulsory reading for anyone in leadership in mission and anyone who aspires to leadership in mission (actually as the article points out, most folk in leadership in mission weren’t planning to be there, so probably it should be compulsory reading for all of us on the grounds that we never know where we might end up). 

I’d saved it in the same place as this cartoon from Asbo Jesus who as regular readers will know is someone whose work I appreciate for many reasons;

This is also from quite a while ago, and it had me thinking about the whole concept of “they”; i.e. “The other”…. whether that’s talking about youth workers, church members, mission partners or whatever (and in other contexts disabled people, black people, “the poor” and as many other stereotypes as you like).  “They” are “those who aren’t like me”, and “They” are usually attributed with negative characteristics which I don’t share… “They” aren’t asked for an opinion because “They” aren’t interested, can’t be trusted, wouldn’t respond anyway, don’t understand, haven’t had my training….  All conveniently ignoring the small detail that the main denominator that links the individuals in question is that “They” are all members of the same youth-work team, church, mission organisation, and if “They” really don’t care, can’t be trusted etc.,, then the most logical place to start exploring for a root or a reason is within that shared common denominator.  And then life starts to become uncomfortable, hence the link with the above article.  Oh for a good context for reflexive discussion. 

On a more cheerful note, and swiftly changing the subject;

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.

Yup, it’s Burns night.  Bit hot for haggis here right now, and the whisky’s terrible, and we can’t get “neep”, but here’s a toast to ol’ Rabbie B. 

I’m supposed to be writing a blog.  But it’s too hot.  And I’m too tired… post-scout-camp, middle of summer scheme, mother of a three year old, owner of two lunatic dogs, and I’m nearly five months pregnant. 

So, I’ve tidied the house, cleared up the aftermath of the 3-year-old’s bath, watered the plants (with his left over bathwater), put the rubbish out, harvested some cabbage from the garden, wondered whether butter-nut-squash will behave like a pumpkin if I try making it into jam (and then realised that I don’t have any sugar in the house), written a shopping list to go to the supermarket tomorrow (including sugar), made a savoury tart in anticipation of lunch tomorrow (including recently harvested cabbage), done the washing up, put a table and chairs outside for when Martin comes home from prison (hopefully any time now), and written a couple of emails. 

It may be that the procrastination effort cost more energy than writing the blog. 

The butternut-squashes are threatening to take over the world, the melons are following close behind, while the tomatoes are clinging to life, and the peppers have just about given up the fight.  Apparently it was a dry week in San Francisco, and I forgot to leave plant-watering instructions. 

We on the other hand are sun-tanned, tired, and thoroughly pleased with our week on Scout camp in Rio Tercero, which was spent in traditional Scout-camp fashion.  From playing in the river;

  

To country walks;

    

To learning about the local wildlife;

    

To chores and activities around the campsite;

  

And many other hearty Enid-Blyton-approved activities (bring on the ginger pop).  The balloon-powered cars weren’t an unqualified success; the relatively clinical conditions of our office floor proved to be quite difficult to reproduce in the middle of a field.  However, one child did manage to make his work, so we at least proved the principle, and we enjoyed a water-fight with the balloons afterwards so it wasn’t an entirely wasted effort. 

Joni has pretty well learnt to swim, if you’re OK with a tendency to go backwards (aspiring to be a squid or something), and the Scouts enjoyed introducing him to the age-old art of rolling down a grassy hill; some activities transcend national boundaries;

  

And now we are back to reality.  Summer scheme carries on as normal for me… continuing the theme of children and water, just in a different context.  Joni is back at nursery.  Some idiot yoof crashed his motorbike into the side of our car yesterday, so this afternoon involved a trip to the insurance company and the filling in of relevant paperwork (Form 64f “accidents involving idiot yoof”). 

We followed the trip to the insurance company with a possibly not very fruitful trip to the local convent on behalf of one of the local beggars who we are building a relationship of sorts with.  “Where you from? … Why we not speak in English?” – Mother Superior turns out to be from India.  We had to sit through half a mass in order to get to meet her.  Mass was held in a peaceful, simple, white chapel, accompanied by two acoustic guitars… it did cause us to wonder whether it was worth converting to Catholicism.  Despite our begging house-caller’s insistence that the nuns wanted us to go and speak to them, they themselves appeared not to know who she was, so I’m about to attempt some written communication, using her as postman to try and find out if we’ve got the right nuns, if she’s telling the truth, if they’re trying to get her off their backs, or if there’s some other misunderstanding… could be anything, complicated by the fact that she’s illiterate.  All in a day’s work. 

The title of this blog entry was a favorite saying, many years back of a guy called Chris, an I.T. friend. There’s some truth in it. As a programmer, I have spent endless time sitting through interminable meetings, thrashing things out in front of the coffee machine or over a fag. Eventually, our minds would clear and we could throw ourselves into the code. There was nothing like the hit you got when everything finally came together.
Yesterday, I had two objectives: One was to pay Hazel’s hospital bill for the year (giving us a 10% discount off the cost) and the other was to collect a laptop which a friend had brought over from the U.K. for use in Hazel’s work at the Cottolengo. I thought it would be good to take a friend from Córdoba with me for the ride. Whilst I achieved my objectives not everything went to plan.

Despite having phoned my bank the night before advising them that I was going to make a large-ish transaction, my card was still blocked at the point of payment so I had to phone them (twice) to sort it out and then re-join the every growing payment queue in the hospital for the second time!

Then I went to my friends house. He had developed a severe ear infection to the extent that I did not wish to be on his left side. So, we had a little diversion via the local chemist to pick up various treatments and then to the hospital to have one of the said treatments firmly planted into his posterior. He developed an interesting limp and facial expression as a result.

Finally we set off for Villa Giardino to get the laptop stopping at La Falda for coffee and Lemon pie. (The Lemon pie is particularly good there). Whilst enjoying our refreshments I incurred a multa (fine) for parting in the wrong place. I was totally unaware that I could not park here. I had parked there before but things had changed! In fact, I’m sure all the other cars were equally unaware as well – it was not particularly clear. On top of that, there were no instructions on the form as to how I pay it or for how much it was. Merely an instruction to present myself at the Municipalidad within the next five days to make my defense. So we had another diversion around La Falda trying to find the Municipalidad. It was closed when we finally found it.

So we went on to get the laptop. This passed without incident!

However, we did have plenty of time to talk. His partner, a recent convert and pretty sharp too, has been having a few issues with the church. Last time they went there were four or five collections for tithes and offerings and the preacher took a swipe at the catholic church – the church in which she had been raised and which had taught her, in conjunction with her parents, her values. We talked about other issues too – issues we have visited many times. I asked what they were currently studying in the Bible. “We’ve just started out on 1 Corinthians!” came the response.

Finally, when we got back to Córdoba, we chatted over coffee.

“You do realize that all the problems we’ve discussed can be found in the Corinthian Church” I said. Her eyes lit up. I took just a few minutes showing them issues in the church that can be found there. “All this is not new. The majority of problems we find today in the church can be found back then as well. So we do have teaching covering these things” I added.

It was a quick impromptu study, 5-10 minutes, held standing between the hall and the bedroom. However, it gave credence to her frustrations. It was a surprise too because the approach here to bible study can be very egocentric. That is to say that everything has a direct application to all of us, be it a criticism, blessing, instruction or whatever. A little theology is applied to the worst cases of judgment that we find in the bible so that they can be ruled out.

So, we have now agreed to meet up every 2-3 weeks to go over their recent readings together. If I had done nothing more yesterday than that 10 minute bible study I would have been happy with it as a good days work. However, it could not have happened without all the faffing around with hospitals, municipalidades, English banks etc.

I think my friend was right. 90% of the work is done in 10% of the time.