How They've Grown...

2010 - preschool, 4th grade, 2nd grade

2011 - kindergarten, 3rd grade, 5th grade

2012 - 1st grade, 4th grade, 6th grade

Happy first day of school, boys!
We sure do love you!

Libertad

The Argentine national anthem has the word Libertad in it more than any other. As you can deduce, libertad is the Spanish word for freedom or liberty and is something very important to our friends here. However, even though I try not to, I often doubt they are truly free.

The poor are trapped in their poverty by free subsidies given to them that take away all incentive to work. Strawberries weren’t harvested this year because they people who typically work the fields during the 3 month period the fruit is ripe, were given an irregular amount of money through the “work” given to them during the election year.  As a result, they decided they didn’t want to get dirty in the fields.

When a woman gives birth to a baby, there is a list of approved names she can choose to give to her newest addition. If the name she desired is not on the list, well, she needs to pick another one.

Recently, we learned that an Argentine economist was fined a huge amount of money because he had contradicted the official inflation rate. Ask anyone and they will tell you that the prices on everything have increased between 20 – 28% in the past year. I mean, I can give you a breakdown of the increase in prices of milk, flour, and sugar. Anyway, the official report has the rate at just under 10%. This economist challenged it and got big-time-busted. Any other economist who publishes data on inflation that conflicts with the official measure is threatened with large fines per a new law.

The tax system is incomprehensible and changes every 4 months. This obviously makes any type of business forecasting or planning very difficult.

Voting is required. You do have a choice in who you vote for (depending), but you do not have a choice whether or not to vote. If your DNI (national identification number booklet, kept with you at all times) doesn’t have all the appropriate stamps for every election, you cannot leave the country and things are withheld from you.

Everything requires a stamp and signature or it’s not official. The secretary of the school has her special stamp as do the pet store owners, teachers, summer camp workers, grocery store clerks. I haven’t gotten my own personal stamp – I’m rebellious that way. And anyway, what would I stamp? (I can actually think of lots of things… hehehe.)

I’m so thankful for the opportunity I have had to learn more about another culture. I love my Argentine friends. And, for the most part, we have had very nice experiences with strangers on the street (except for being called raro).

It’s funny to me that my boys know the Argentine anthem better than the USA one. Both the USA and Argentine national hymns give tribute to the freedom that our countries have as a result of war-filled revolutions. They also speak of having patriotic pride and the cost that freedom often has. I guess, ultimately, I’m beyond thankful for the libertad I have in Christ and His truth that sets me free.

English Village, Week 1

This past week, tutoring at "English Village" was so much better than we expected.  My personal expectations were quite low and my attitude was not good.  It was a very full week and we were able to learn so much more about language acquisiton by listening to Roman's teaching.  After the participants filled out a self-evaluation and we did oral interviews, Chris and I were both assigned the "low-beginner" groups.  These sweet people knew nothing more than "Hello" and "How are you?" when they arrived.  (Basically, the same words our boys knew in Spanish when we arrived in Argentina 18 months ago.)  It has been so much fun watching our new friends learn English.  They have worked so hard and go to bed every night with headaches because their brains are in overload. 

Between Chris and me, we are tutoring 5 people who plan to work in various countries in Africa or the Middle East where English is the common language in addition to the national or tribal language.  It has been so good to walk through this process with them.

In one of the sessions, Chris was asked to give a 4-step list of instructions on how to prepare mate.  He is a faithful mate drinker, but he has never prepared it.  When he gave the first instruction: "Boil the water", he was met with a horrified corporate gasp.  Such a cultural faux-pas.  You never boil the water because if the water reaches the boiling point, it will burn the herbs and therefore make the resulting round of mate bitter and, well, burned.  So, the correct instruction was "Heat the water." I know he'll never make that mistake again and I have to admit that I was laughing along with the rest of the crowd.

The boys are having a great time too.  Exploring, playing, reading, studying, English-talking, swimming. 
It's been a great week and we're looking forward to the second.

18 Months and Being Raro

Today marks our Argentine 18 month anniversary.  One year and 6 months.  78 weeks.  548 days.

We spent the entire year of 2011 in Argentina. 

Probably every single day of the last 548, someone has told us that we are raro (in other words, weird).

It could be for any number of reasons:

• What we wear – for instance, I have chosen not to reveal half of my rear-end when I wear a bathing suit

• How I wash dishes – drying them on a towel or having the drying rack too close to the sink, I have learned, is not normal

• How we talk – no example needed

• What we eat – fruit with a meal, peanuts for a snack without beer, or garlic bread to name a few

• What we do while waiting in lines – reading is the only way we can sanely pass the time

• The number of times we call a doctor – I tend to avoid the doctor when a child has a fever or the barfs or gets stung by a bee.  I've learned a lot about illness since being a mom and I am confident in my mama-intuition.  I'm so thankful that we have a wonderful clinic here and I promise we will go if it's warranted.  Raro, I know.

 Raro 1 and Raro 2

Raros 3, 4, & 5 

Anyway, here is another instance of our raro-ness, from any cultural perspective:

We were recently on our way home from a neighborhood about 40 minutes away. As is always the case, I was the only female in the car. I have heard it said that females have an innate need to speak, I don’t know, about 20,000 words per day in contrast to the male species meager 7,000 or something. I just want you to know that I did not speak at all – much sighing, but no speaking – during that 40 minute ride home. However, I think the Frohling males in the car did not stop talking the entire ride home and each used at least half their aforementioned word quota.

Whoever did that study on words per day, obviously did not study our family. I have to remind myself that I want to treasure these detailed thought sharings of my boys because it may not always be this way. And, I’m sure I’d miss it.  I have to admit though, that sometimes I reach my words-listened-to quota at about 9 am.

Have a nice, quiet day.  And embrace your raro-ness. 

What We Came Home To...

Sorry for that unnecessary cliff-hanger.  I'm not going to go into the adventures of our drive home (we are disasters, but at least there wasn't any barfing) or some of the news we found out while in Bariloche (it's old news now anyway).

When we drove up to our house after being in the car for 2 entire days straight (I'm telling you, we can be disasters), our amazing friends Roman and Bethany and their sweet girls were there with a home-cooked meal.  After eating palitos and stale galletas for the past 2 days (um, we had lost our ATM card so we had no cash and had scoured every last moneda from the car and the boys) food served by these friends was quite a gift.

That was what we came home to: good friends and a home-cooked meal.
And we went to bed very thankful.

As a side note, I am so very glad that it's now the month of February.  January, in Córdoba, is basically a lost month.  It's a bit depressing and boring because, basically, everyone does nothing except talk about the heat.

During the first 2 weeks of February, we're looking forward to helping out at an English Immersion for international workers who need to learn how to acquire a new language.  Then Johnny starts 1st grade with an acclimation week and then it's back-to-school for them all.  I think I'm going to go back too for that final Spanish class I've been avoiding.

Happy February!