Twenty-Six

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We’ve traded in flip-flops, sandy toes and lazy days of walking in the forest for the city.

Work was a reason.

So too a number.

Last November, I woke up early in our pine tree paradise and drove to Buenos Aires and put our life to the fate of 26.

I was given the number on a piece of paper. It matched the number on a ball in a mesh-wire globe. Two women took turns spinning the globe and taking out balls and passing them to another woman who would read out loud the numbers to a room of parents. Those with chosen numbers cheered and sighed with relief.

Then came mine.

“Twenty-six,” she called out, followed by the name of my five-year-old daughter.

With that, my daughter got into one of the best public schools in the country – in our favorite part of Buenos Aires, a few blocks from our apartment. So too my other children, who would enter because she was in.

In the crowded room, I felt the blood rush from my face. A number had just changed my life, our life. I had hesitated before making the trip, uncertain if we wanted to move back to the city. But we had noted her down for the raffle, on chance.

A friend the day before said maybe fate will tell.

My father asked if I believed in fate.

I said, “I don’t know.”

And the morning of the trip, the cleaner, a lovely lady, told me she’d woken up crying that night. She’d dreamt that we had left.

Anything could have changed this fate. I left with four hours to get to the city, my father in shotgun. It takes four hours to get there without traffic. We stopped for coffee half way there and my Dad said we’d better take the coffee to go if we want to make it on time.

At the last tollbooth, we had a half hour to park the car, go to my apartment and make the 20-minute walk to the school.

We raced down 9 de Julio and snuck past protesters about to block the avenue, and we were the last car to squeeze by.

With 15 minutes to go, I thought of running to the school but hopped a cab instead.

I walked in as they were about to start the raffle. A man came in minutes later and was turned away, too late.

Was this fate? I don’t know.

The Rats

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Well, we’ve done it.

We’ve moved back to the city after a little over two years of living at the beach, with its fine surf, slow pace, big barbeques and a pine forest to walk through, sometimes with not a soul around. The silence and deep-blue skies and singing birds, the green everywhere and the sand.

Why go back?

Well, mostly for work. Like perhaps for thousands of others, the global economic recession hit me.

Thwack!

Less work, slower payment schedules and tighter budgets. A harder time selling stories as a freelance reporter. So we’ve migrated to where the opportunities lie. The big city. Buenos Aires.

Here we come, here we are. Back in the rat race, with three kids, a four-ton dog and a neurotic cat in tow. A house with a garden-cum-forest traded in for a small apartment four blocks from the Obelisco. The dream gone – for now.

The City

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We’re in the city, where we’ve moved for work, leaving behind our home in the pine forest.

My three-year-old son is missing the beach, the forest, the sand and his red bike and Spiderman helmet.

“Want home,” he says.

It’s a phrase repeated throughout the day.

I try to encourage him. “Oh, on the weekends we’ll go, you’ll see.”

He’s not convinced. “Want home.”

I don’t blame him. Back in our pine tree paradise, he can open the back door and roam at will, pick up a pinecone, play with bugs and chase an unwary frog. He can dig a pit and race around on his bike and his scooter.

Here, there’s none of that. He has to hold Daddy or Mummy’s hand, and watch out for dog shit and puddles of dog piss, scoot out of the way of frantic businessmen on the sidewalk. It’s no place for riding a bike. Only gutters for finding cockroaches. No pine trees or sand, and no beach with waves to jump in.

This is crap and he’s pining for home, his home. Not this.

I don’t know how to cheer him up. But I try again and say, “Daddy’ll walk you to school. And we can look at the shops on the way.”

He looks up at me and says, “Want home.”