Happy polling day to y’all. Can’t say I mind missing out on the three hours queuing in order to be turned away at the door; the words banana and republic come to mind. But the idea of a hung parliament might make life interesting. Politics here is so complicated that I couldn’t begin to explain that which I barely have any possibility of understanding. So it’s probably fortunate that we can’t vote anyway.
First week of trying to get the village involved in transporting kiddo home from school and it was already off to a bad start. Last week the village confirmed that they would be OK for taking him home this week, starting on Wednesday. I chased the social worker on Tuesday to make sure we were good to go. “Oh that’s tomorrow isn’t it?” Yes, that’s the traditional order of the week. “I’ll get back to you to confirm”. Reminded me of a conversation I had a couple of years ago talking about how a friend here might have resolved a certain situation; “Well, if I was Argentinean, the first thing I would have done is nothing, until I absolutely had to do something…” Sure enough, social worker comes back to me on Wednesday morning to say that the taxi can’t start till Thursday, but kiddo can miss school for one day on Wednesday. I’m not sure I really like this, but we’ll live with it.
Thought occurs to me; has anyone told the family that kiddo’s not going to school today. The question appears to hit the social worker as if I had suggested storming the Bastille. No, she hadn’t thought of speaking to them. Pause while I wonder why she might not have imagined that the family would have kiddo ready and waiting today like every other day unless we speak to them first. Nope, I give up. Unfortunately having asked me to contact the family, she then phoned them herself to say that kiddo wouldn’t be expected in school, while simultaneously I was rearranging my life to enable me to take him both ways… between us we screwed it up and in the end it all became too complicated and he didn’t go.
That was yesterday. Thus 4.30 pm today found me hopping around the house wondering if the taxi was going to turn up, and how mum and the school might react if it didn’t, and whether I ought just to think about becoming a taxi driver as my permanent day-job. I had armed the staff at school with my mobile number in case of disaster. Fortunately everything seems to have gone OK, according to mum when we texted her later to check that they were home safely. One day down, here’s raising a toast and a prayer for next week.