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Centre of the world!  Erupting volcanoes are an unusual local hazard. 

Ecuador appears to have undergone some rapid modernisation in recent years, while still managing to retain much of its Andean charm.  From a purely superficial tourist’s-eye perspective the impression is of somewhere with a healthy national pride; valuing its past, and growing into its future.  Things that struck me early on were the lack of litter in the streets, and even in the more down to earth areas of Quito everyone had shoes, and the community comprised of street sellers rather than beggars.  Six years ago when I was in Ecuador, prices were expensive compared to Argentina, but the policy of dollarization in Ecuador, combined with accelerating inflation in Argentina meant that today the reverse is the case, and we made the most of the opportunity to stock up on shoes.  I’m now crying because I didn’t buy school bags at the same time (which inexplicably doubled in price during the two weeks we were away from Argentina, just in time for the start of the school year.)

The Latin Link conference went well.  It was good to see people, old friends and new faces.  The most interesting developments aren’t really appropriate for public sharing, but we came away feeling positive about how things are panning out.  In fact it’s the first assembly where we haven’t gone home talking about resigning, which I think is good news, (although it might just mean that we are becoming part of the problem in our old age).  I managed to get myself elected onto the “International Forum” which is an overseeing body of sorts.  The job description isn’t exactly a “voice of the people” role, but since it is the only democratically elected body in the mission, it is as much of a voice as the people are going to get, as such carries a weight of responsibility to represent the interests of the majority who don’t get to speak.

Then we went on holiday. 

  Cable car up to the 4100 plateau overlooking the city of Quito.  Views of rugged moorland stretching for miles behind us, and the capital city stretching for miles down in the valley. 

Botanical gardens, monkey gym and horse-riding all courtesy of the Parque Carolina (the central park in Quito).  Joni was well made up that the guy showed him how to control the horse by himself.  Now he’s desperate to make friends with someone who will lend him a horse back here. 

          

We spent three days in Mindo, a little town a couple of hours north-west of Quito, and a unique cloud-forest environment.  Apparently this means that many plant species take their water directly from the clouds which reach down to the canopy of the trees.  This is probably useful in the dry season.  It rained for around twelve hours a day anyway while we were there, but we’re English so we didn’t let a few inches of water put us off our stride.  Everyone in Mindo works in tourism, and being in easy reach of Quito it has become a magnet for off-beat, off the beaten track, lonely planet guide-clutching  European students and young-retired north Americans.  Several people commented on how we were the only ones travelling with kids, and I don’t think many of the local people had ever seen a blonde child before.  We explored town and forest;

  Stuff grows big out there! 

We watched the whole process of making chocolate, from harvesting the beans right through to eating chocolate brownies;

 

Saw more species of hummingbirds than I would have thought could possibly exist;

 

And enticed butterflies to feed from our fingers with sticky juice from over-ripe bananas;

 

Then we took a bus back to Quito to dry out.  For our last day in Ecuador we booked a train ride.  The “real” train looks like this;

but it was booked solid for a couple of months ahead.  So we managed to get tickets for this one;

  

which might not have been so picturesque, but it did the same route as the tourist train and for half the price, so we think we came out well. 

    

Coca Cola and Panpipes; Danny getting to grips with local traditions. 

View over the distant 5200 metre peak of Cotopaxi, imagine seeing snow on the Equator!  Llamas on the line.  And someone give that man a parking ticket.  The train took us on a four hour ride through the volcanoes and valleys to a smallish city of Latacunga, where we had a couple of hours for lunch, exploring and souvenir-shopping.  And then it was back to Quito, then back to Argentina, and practical geography concluded for the summer because real school goes back this week. 

The Economy…  Our corner-shop grocer this morning: “Every day I have to write out a new price list.  When my father looks after the shop he has to have the prices written down, and every time anyone comes to deliver me anything all the prices have gone up.  Yesterday I took a delivery of cold meats and the new wholesale price to me was more than I was charging for retail yesterday.  So now I´m writing the list out again.  And later on today someone else will come by with the dairy products and then I’ll probably have to write it out all over again again…”. 

Inflation is officially 8% here.  In reality it is estimated to be around 30% and rising.  As The Economist columnist observes, better to use an accurate unofficial source than condone the fiction of the official version. 

Fledgling Faith… Joni was delighted by the notion of a God who answers prayers:  “Remember the other night when we were sick and we asked God to make us better so that we would be OK to take our trip to Ecuador, and then no-one got sick anymore…?”  Big grin.

My resolve… It took an hour to set the sewing machine up, followed by twenty minutes to do the sewing.  If I used it more often I would probably figure out how to set it up in five minutes.  But the experience of doing battle is what causes me to hide it in a corner of the office and avoid it for months on end.  I could sell it, but I’m blowed if I’m going to be beaten by a stupid sewing machine.  Although I’m pretty sure it won that round. 

Race against time…  We’re going to Ecuador tonight.  We didn’t start packing yet.  It’ll be fine… 

Here are a few moments from Scout camp:-

   

   

   

It was a good camp as ever, it even went cold for a couple of days so of course no-one had enough clothes, everyone having packed for the forty-plus which has been standard weather for this summer.  Still everyone seems to have survived and all the feedback has been positive so far.  I’ve spent most of this week trying to get used to the idea of being back, catching up with the washing slightly compounded by the washing machine breaking down and having to go away for 24 hours to be fixed, fending off marauding landlords (that wasn’t pretty, but we do at least have a contract agreed for the next two years), and preparing for the turnaround where we set off for Ecuador on Wednesday.  We have just five minutes ago booked the bus tickets for the Buenos Aires leg of that journey in fact. 

Next week in Ecuador is the Latin Link international knees up jamboree assembly which happens every four years.  Previous experience of these things hasn’t been fully positive, but our Southern Cone team meeting last year was an unprecedented success, so I have higher-than-usual hopes for the assembly on the back of that.  And there are people who it will be good to catch up with whatever else happens.  Then we are staying on in Ecuador for an extra week as a family to have some holiday.  We won’t venture as far as the Galapagos (too far, too expensive, kids aren’t old enough to appreciate it anyway), but hopefully we’ll find some fun things to do as a family although at this stage we don’t have anything as radical as an action plan. 

Bags packed

Sleeping bags rolled

Packed lunch ready in the fridge

Programme planned

Resources prepared

Paperwork in order

Kids in bed and asleep

All pigs loaded and ready to fly

We’re off to Scout camp in the morning

Catch you next week 

Have fun.

This week’s fun fact from our local paper: of the 242 working days last year, there were merely 50 where there wasn’t at least one municipal department on strike. 

There is a local quip which goes “What does a United-Statesian do when he’s made a million? Starts making the next million.  What does an Argentinean do when he’s made a million? Stops work until he’s run out of money.”

Your perspective on these phenomena will vary according to context, e.g. depending on whether you are in the USA preparing a seminar on work/life balance, or whether you are in Argentina trying to track down a competent plumber willing to put in a decent day’s work. 

Danny has taught himself to swim in our garden paddling pool this week.  I wouldn’t yet go off for a coffee and leave him unattended, but he has an unmistakeable doggy paddle with all legs and arms off the bottom.  Most importantly that crucial metre or two would probably be enough for him to save himself when he falls into someone else’s paddling pool, garden pond, horse trough, sheep dip… given his propensity to go exploring where he wasn’t invited.

Martin also caught him eating the fish-food this morning. 

Is he about to metamorphose into Nemo (or possibly a shark)?

If you give the fourteen year old a computer and a pair of large speakers to plug into it she will entertain herself for as many hours as you like (we’ll apologise to the neighbours afterwards).

If you give the two year old more or less anything; tricycle, bucket of water, parent’s phone, he will entertain himself for as long as it takes till someone notices and confiscates the phone (oops).

If you give the fifty-something year old a computer and a coffee machine he will entertain himself for as many hours as you care to allow him. 

If you give the forty-something year old a collection of ingredients and a peaceful kitchen she will entertain herself until the hungry hoards arrive to shatter the tranquillity, and that was one fantastic moussaka if I do say so myself.

So that just leaves the six year old.  “Mum I’m bored what can I do?  But I don’t want to do that, what else can I do instead?  But mu-um.  Ooohhhhhh….”  There’s always one. 

Happy new year.  Hope you had a good one.  We had a quiet evening, invited a couple of friends in, Martin did the barbecue and I made chocolate brownies to go with the ice cream. 

It’s ridiculously hot beyond amusing here.  Praise the Lord for that paddling pool otherwise I’d be taking up residence in the fridge.  At least we’ve had electricity all day today though, unlike two days ago when we lost it for six hours which was even less amusing than it sounds.

I harvested my first crop of sweet corn (we are in the Americas after all) the other day, and made humitas, which is a traditional Andean food involving lots of corn.  I borrowed this recipe which you can read in English or Spanish, and the cultural article before you actually get to the recipe is quite interesting too.  They were pretty fiddly with all the messing around with corn leaves and the like, but they turned out OK, and I’m not sure what else I’d have done with that many sweet corns, given that they don’t keep for months on end, unlike my trusty butternut squashes. 

Today’s theological conundrum… “Mummy…?”  “Yes?”  “Listen… if you have a daddy, like our Daddy, and then you have a baby, like Danny, then you have one daddy and one baby.”  “Yes…”  “So how can God be the Daddy and the baby?”  Well, (I didn’t say)  Rutherford decided it wasn’t possible so he wrote a different story, but most people don’t agree with him, but if we’re honest even most of us who don’t agree with him are still trying to get our heads round it even though we think it’s true, and if you can come up with a concise answer which can be equally understood by a six year old and a theologian, publish! 

Now I’m off to climb into the fridge see if I can find something to eat.  Have fun, hope 2014 turns out well for you. 

A few days ago I made an English Christmas cake.  Actually I made two, the first one became a burnt offering, although the middle turned out to be quite edible having chopped a centimetre off all the way round and presented it to the almighty.  That was when I discovered that contributors to cookery pages on the internet are lovely, helpful people, belonging in their entirety to northern hemisphere cultures.  My oven is too hot what should I do?  Three million responses; buy an oven thermometer so you can find out how your oven is calibrated and then turn it down to the appropriate setting.  How about if my oven is only calibrated to two settings, on and off, and I don’t need an oven thermometer to know that on is too hot.  What else should I try?  No responses.  I stuffed a rag in the door to wedge it open slightly.  No points for energy efficiency, and we certainly didn’t need the extra heat through the house, it’s been forty degrees for the last week anyway.  But the cake turned out great, even though the royal icing didn’t set… any ideas there? 

Monday evening we dressed up as magi for a street nativity performance organised by the Christian book shop.  Some were more enthusiastic about dressing up than others, but it seemed to work out OK, and the feedback from the audience was that the message was clear and simple and the neighbours enjoyed it. 

 

Tuesday evening (24th) was the main family celebration for Christmas in Argentina, so we were invited by friends to join them for the traditional back garden get together;

   

Wednesday (25th) is more like boxing day here, it’s a day off and people tend not to do very much with it, particularly since this year the temperature hit 41.6 degrees, so the newspaper delighted in telling us this morning.  We saved our family presents for the 25th, our main present from everyone to everyone was a three metre diametre “pelopincho.”  Pelopincho is really a brand name, but like Hoover and Sellotape it has become the generic noun for the product, namely family sized paddling pools.  So we spent the morning assembling and filling it, and the afternoon playing in it;

   

Thursday (26th) Today isn’t a bank holiday in Argentina, so most of the country goes back to work, apart from anything government related which won’t go back till February.  Joni is doing a swim school for an hour and a half in the mornings, and Danny is at nursery still, so I am making the most of the hour or so each day to get the child-free jobs out of the way.  While the UK is being battered by floods and gales, we are having apparently the hottest December for the last forty years, and much of Cordoba spent Christmas without electricity, in parallel with the South East of England.  The main difference is that here this morning they wheeled out a spokesperson for the electricity provider who set about blaming consumers for not informing the electricity company when they buy new electrical products.  Obviously trained in the school of “leaves on the line”, maybe we could post him across (if only for his own safety)?  Fortunately here in San Francisco our power cuts have mostly been  sporadic and short. 

And guess where we spent the afternoon again? 

If, like me, you love a good paradox then the Christmas story is definitely the place to be (which obviously I’m illustrating by posting this Easter video!).   This week I’m reflecting on how the magi knelt before a baby for a first hand encounter with the most high God.   Back when I was a student (not quite as long ago as Matthew’s magi…) apologetics was the order of the day, partly, I suspect, fuelled by a fear that science was in danger of replacing God and that he therefore needed a bunch of spotty youth to defend his corner for him.  Thankfully most of us (hopefully) have moved on from such nonsense.  The bigger our understanding of the universe, the more in awe we must be of the God who made it, and the more amazing it becomes that the person who flung stars into space should choose to become not only a baby, but a baby carried by an unmarried teenage girl from a poxy village in the back end of no-where and subsequently born in a barn. 

Meanwhile, on the theme of teenage girls from the back end of nowhere (tenuous link), I was playing with my kids in a plaza a few blocks away and an adolescent girl came up and greeted me; "Hazel…!"  We are quite used to random strangers saying hello because we’re the only foreigners in the area, so I said hello politely, and she said "Do you know who I am?"   And I said "No, I’m sorry I don’t know who you are" and she said "E.., from the home in San Marcos…" No wonder I had no idea who she was, the home in San Marcos is six hours drive away from here in the hills on the other side of Cordoba province.  I used to go there once a week when we lived in Cordoba but now we’re another 200 km further away, and I haven’t been there since Joni was a baby.  E was nine when I last saw her, and now she’s fourteen.  She’s been transferred to San Francisco a few months ago, and of course she had no idea I was here and I had heard nothing of her for the last five years.  So, I went to the home here to give them my details so she can contact me, and the staff at the door said "Someone knows this kid….!"   It transpired that she’s been transferred without any information, no-one knows anything of her history, which even the little bit I know involves several children’s homes and even more families.  But the urgency is that the home here shuts for the summer (ridiculous in my book but there you are) so most kids get farmed out to whichever blood relatives are willing to have them, and then there’s a scramble to find placements for those who don’t have anywhere to go, so to cut a long story short, E. is coming to our house for a couple of weeks, and we’ve also managed to put her back in touch with another volunteer who used to visit the home, who lives in Cordoba, we all met up last Monday, and E is going to stay with her for the other couple of weeks.  I have long been thinking and praying about fostering and adoption as possibilities, but as foreigners in Argentina it is nigh on impossible.  And I don’t think I would have necessarily started with a fourteen year old girl as a first placement.  Fortunately we don’t have too many other commitments through January this year, so at least I should have a reasonable amount of time to try and figure out how to suit the needs and tastes of the three very different young people in our care.