It is always tricky dipping back into England every year but this year it was particularly hard. We were homeless, in limbo and I think we all felt disconnected and confused. I always go for a month but by 3 weeks I am on my knees.
The intensity of trying to catch up with a year of family trials and tribulations can be emotionally exhausting. Dashing round and trying to spend some time with my oldest friends is great too, but usually demands a bit of drinking and bad parenting (i.e too much TV and bad food to keep them quiet while I chat, no baths or teeth cleaning and every routine goes out the window). All this usually leads to lots of bad behaviour and two cheeky boys fighting and refusing to sleep.
Last year I went without the boys and just with Saskia who was 5 months old. I only went for 2 weeks but after the first week I was missing the rest of the family so much it felt strange but was certainly an easier and more relaxing visit. I even managed a great little trip to my beloved France to visit Saskia´s godmother, which really did feel like a holiday. Great food, wine and chat and swimming in a pool surrounded by ancient oak forest.
This year for the first 3 weeks we were staying in a cottage in a beautiful Cotswold village close to my mother and sister full of smart well-preserved retired people. I had ordered a USB internet connection, which did not work and always have my mobile phone reconnected (which had no network coverage). I had happened upon a village that had communication problems that rival Cuba. I had so many things to do and so many people to call and catch up with on the phone but could not do much more than try to get through the days without one of my children spilling food on English carpets or waking up the neighbours during jetlagged nights.
We climbed up to Broadway tower with Paulo´s godmother and watched the boys chasing sheep trying to catch them and stroke them in their red El Che T-shirts.
They became experts on CBeebies, rude English words and fruit pastels, maltesers, Fruit Shoots, Hula Hoops and all the rest…….. I was so sad when they didn´t like cherries!
Before Rafa arrived ……… just trying to work out all the appliances, recycling and the TV and get them all in the hire car every day to shop at Budgens was enough. And having the elderly couple, who owned the place pop in all the time to remind me of the various recycling collections. Phew………..
By the time I managed to get them all up and fed in the morning Saskia was ready for her morning sleep and I had to put the TV on to keep the boys quiet and feed the pay phone, then it was lunch for the three of them and maybe a stagger to the park to see if I could find a corner of the playground where my phone might work whilst keeping my eye on three children ……….. not easy believe me.
I was supposed to be sorting out all the admin of my English life: banks, credit cards etc, shopping for the whole family for a year (no shopping in Cuba and 3 growing children and things as ridiculous as bath plugs and car parts, deoderants and low sugar Ketchup, tampons, toothpaste, digital radio).
We spent a wonderful half an hour in John Lewis with a fantastic Indian mama who kitted us out with footwear for the children for a few months. I dragged my non-consumerist man into New Look to get a wardrobe for Cuba in a 20 minute Sunday Summer Sale power shopping session before hitting the amazing Salisbury Cathedral. That was after a 20 minute Stonehenge stop off.
My boys had their first taste of surfing on a Devon beach and ate fish and chips and sausage rolls. We buried them in the sand of the dunes and experienced every weather in one day. Typical English seaside stuff.
When Amy Winehouse died it hit my hard. A strange thing when the death of a famous person feels close and personal. It was quite a shock and I hadn’t even been living in the UK for her rise to fame but I loved her voice, her style and her vulnerable irreverence and never read all the tabloid rubbish about her life. Maybe there is a bit of Amy in me, or maybe it was just the moment.
Then the riots ………….. a sociological disaster that will be discussed in newspaper columns for years. At this point we were all staying with a friend in London close to the action and the police sirens were going off all night. It felt quite strange to be with my Guatemalan husband in London during the worst social unrest in 26 years, But such is life ………
So my beautiful England I do love you, but I am not quite sure I understand my old world so well anymore. But thanks to all my family and friends for making this trip so wonderful despite the challenges of being on holiday in your own country, you always make me feel so welcome and loved.
My life has begun here in Havana but I still feel a little bit in limbo, mainly because the school term hasn’t begun for Rafa or the children …….. but after a few amateur mistakes, things are falling into place faster than I ever imagined.
Most importantly, we are all happy and relaxed as we never were in Guatemala and I haven´t even made any friends yet! But I feel so optimistic and happy for Rafa and I and our family life for the next 4 years. The energy here has let us all unravel. Rafa seems to be relishing his new role, and is getting up earlier than any of us every morning to swim in the sea and do Thai Chi. The children have hardly had their clothes on, especially Saskia, whose fat little bottom I am getting used to seeing waddling around the garden or sitting in her paddling pool. Her hair has also gone wildly curly and she looks prettier than ever! The boys spend more time swimming, chasing crabs, sailing off in their pretend boat to the island of Juventud ……. than fighting, as they had been during the last few weeks of uncertainty and stressful travelling.
Cuba loves children and everywhere we go my three are running around making friends. I feel so relaxed that I don’t have to worry about kidnapping or guns or narcos or just plain old uptight rich people judging us. Everyone has been so friendly ………..
I will always love Guatemala but living in that ridiculously unequal, repressed and violent society was not good for me. I feel things too much, even the things you don´t see. I wrote about Antigua life in this blog and will always love my friends but I can’t wait for them all to visit me here to see me in this new world.
When I think about the uptight rich Guatemalans and arrogant Americans who had never visited Cuba, but were so quick to tell me that it was a disaster. I will tell them, take a good look at yourselves before you criticise others. Cuba ain’t perfect but there is something intangibly special here.
So here goes my little update on life …….
We arrived to find out that both our cars were off the road. But now we have two cars outside our house. Mine is a big Chrysler Voyager with 3 rows of seats. Yikes! But there is no traffic in Cuba. Imagine 1950s England. After Guatemala and a month in UK this is driving paradise.
I had to deal with the cook, who introduced herself to me in February (our first visit) saying that she was in charge of the house. That is going to change, I thought to myself all those months ago. I didn’t like her from the beginning. Just her very presence in a room irritated me even before she opened her mouth and she would follow me around like a nurse in a mental institute.
The house had been empty for 8 years apart from the odd event or dinner and she had been ruling the roost. I couldn’t even go into my kitchen and get a glass of water without her breathing down my neck ……. literally. After 5 days Rafa came home to find me holed up in my bedroom like a depressed teenager on a school exchange. So she had to go! Her food was rubbish anyway and she hadn’t helped me find any of the things I had asked her. She wanted to be in control. Also there was a suspiciously large amount of food coming into the house that we certainly weren’t eating.
I think we have also found a nanny. I am not sure anyone can replace our beloved Juju but I have a really good feeling about this woman who is a friend of one of the ex-employees from the house and is a kind and gentle woman from the country. She is a teacher and a mother in her fifties looking for something less stressful and close to home (she lives in the first block of flats next to our house about 200 yards away).
Next the school issue. We were expecting to send the boys to the International School but after a quick visit to discuss payments we were blown away by the fees. The Film School had offered to pay for one of the boys but still we could not ask them to pay what they were demanding ……. a price expensive for anywhere in the world never mind Cuba. It was a bit of blow but sometimes things happen for a reason. We discovered the French international school was just 5 minutes from our house, a quick phone call and we found ourselves in the headmasters office filling out forms and laughing about how the French school was bringing rugby to Cuba. I have a feeling my little Nico will be good at rugby just like his grandfather and uncles …….. vamos a ver. I liked the headmaster, he had a little sparkle in his eyes like a good Santa.
So the boys will have another language, their third. They even offer French classes to parents which I will be taking ……… its 20 years since my days in France and I love the language. On top of that we have a very good French bakery round the corner with baguettes, croissant and pain au chocolat.
The food issue has not been such a big deal as I imagined and I have only been here just over a week. We are lucky as all our basics come from the Film School. I won’t have to shop for vegetables, rice, beans, meat, chicken, cheese, milk, yoghurt, flowers, water, beer, wine, cola, juice boxes, coffee, chocolates, serviettes ………. and a whole lot more. What we have already found is supplies of fish and prawns, Serrano ham and Olive Oil, Malta, tomatoes, bananas, onions, cream cheese and a bread that you could just about call wholemeal. All at cheaper prices than we paid in Guatemala.
What I foresee as the consumer issues are getting hold of good cheap clothes for the children and Rafa and good sunscreen and toiletries. But Rafa will be travelling and friends will be visiting ……. we shall survive outside the consumerist world I think.
Now to the technical issues. Rafa was so proud that he had sorted out my almost impossible to get hold of mac external modem and got me connected to internet in the house in a matter of days, only then to have a storm burn our modem 4 days later! He has just interrupted me to tell me that a Cuban Mexican friend from the school has already found us another modem in Mexico and is arriving in a matter of days to come to my internet rescue. She is also bringing Rafa a new MacBook which the school will pay for. We’ll be having a few mojitos with her watching the sunset when she arrives …….. my internet saviour!
We have also been told that all our things have got the green light from customs and we should have them by Monday. Oh my bed, my pillows, my kitchen stuff, Saskia’s toys, the boys Lego and bicycles we shall soon all be reunited!
So in a couple of weeks the children will be back at school, Saskia will start in her Cuban nursery, I will have a nanny, I will be online, we will all have the food we need, I will have time to write again ………. and maybe, just maybe, Rafa and I can get out for a night and go dancing.
We are coming up to a period of shooting stars apparently. As we sat outside last night looking at the stars I was wondering out loud to Rafa that maybe I felt happy here as I come from a little island off a big continent and here I am again on my island.
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I bet you have all forgotten what that sounds like. I have to admit to feeling very nostalgic when I heard that old familiar noise.
Sorry for my absence from the blogsphere but the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster and I feel I have dragged my children all over England to family and friends for way too long with the usual highlights and low points that it always entails.
Now arrived in Cuba and just spent a wonderful day eating delicious food and tropical juices and swimming in the sea and most importantly getting my family back to normal.
So far loving the relaxed rhythm of Habana and the chatty friendly Cubans. My children seem so happy and at home and Rafa and I feel as though we are having the honeymoon we never had, holding hands and being wistful. Lets enjoy it while we can …….
Just watched the sun set over the sea and all my children are asleep in their own bedrooms albeit not in their own beds. Got all that to come … getting our stuff.
Will blog soon about jumping back into British society during a tense and sad summer of a mix of death (Amy Winehouse) and disappointment (the looting of new trainer and plasma screen riots).
My wonderful girlfriends that I left in Guatemala and London.
We finally moved out of Guatemala, and are on our way to Cuba via the UK. So much has happened in the last few days that I don´t know how to coherently write it all down but feel I must blog something.
Leaving Guatemala was harder and more emotional than I had even imagined. I am not so great at goodbyes and in the end I was emotionally drained and the logistics of packing were tough. We left in the shuttle though the streets of Antigua that held so many memories for all of us. We were all quiet and reflective, even the boys!
After many rainy grey days the sun was shining as we left so we got to say goodbye to those beautiful volcanoes. The country that give me my wonderful husband and three beautiful little hybrids and so many great friends is now officially a chapter of my life that is over. We will visit of course but we are on our next chapter now, a page has turned ……
The Casa Comal leaving party was amazing. Grown men were holding back tears and so many hugs and goodbyes all from the heart. Thanks to everyone for such an amazing night, and yes we danced a lot!
Leaving Juju who his second mother to all of us was tearful and traumatic.
We arrived in Habana and one of our 5 suitcases was stopped by the famous customs and I was imagining hours and hours of complications but in the end it was the two children’s lunchboxes that I had filled with English tea and Indian spices that were causing the problem and a quick check to prove that they weren’t hard drugs meant that we left the airport pretty soon and got to our future home without too much of a problem.
We hardly left the house the two days we were there and I spent too much time fighting back tears whenever I thought about all the good people that I will miss so much in the next few months. The boys were delighted to spend the two days swimming in the Caribbean and eating way too much icecream.
The flight to England alone with the 3 little ones was relatively painless compared to previous trips. Although I think I will be ordering a children’s meal on Virgin next time I fly as their food was much more yummy! I only had the energy to eat comfort food pasta and suck apricot puree from a tube.
My noble sister had got up at 6 to get to Gatwick and meet us and got caught in bad traffic on the M25 but was there within minutes of us passing through the gate. I was slightly annoyed that with my 3 children and 3 suitcases I was supposed to magically have a pound coin for the luggage trolleys. Gatwick Gatwick you really need to get better, no wonder Richard Branson has been fighting to get more slots into Heathrow.
Now we are installed in a little village in the Cotswolds that seems to have worse communications than Cuba (my mobile (cell) phone does not work in my house nor the USB internet connection that I had ordered) but the flowers and gardens are picture postcard beautiful and we are settling in nicely!
Moving into an unknown house with jetlag and trying to work out all the appliances was trickier than you imagine. I had forgotten the stress of recycling. It seems you have to wash and file all your rubbish. I know this is all good but surely the responsibility lies with the big companies who insist on so much packaging and pollution.
The children are delighted to see their British family but seem to have forgotten that they need to listen to me sometimes ………. Their exotic transatlantic accents aare already sounding more English but they are still speaking Spanish to each other. We spent the first morning at their cousin’s sports day in the village school in summer drizzle. Saskia is very chatty and will learn a lot of English words in the next month before she hits her Habana nursery in a few weeks.
I just feel happy that I am holding it together. An old friend is arriving tomorrow to visit and my cousin will visit the day after. Rafa is meanwhile still in Cuba evaluating students finals and will arrive next week.
Thank God for British TV, it still leaves the rest behind especially when you have the scandal of the Murdoch case going on amongst other things.
Our possessions have all disappeared and are due to mysteriously arrive in another country where I am sure we will spend an eternity fighting with the customs …… but we are ready for it.
What if the ship sinks? I forgot to take the negatives out of my old pre-digital precious photos. No time for that kind of neuroticism, now we are officially on the run with all that we can carry, but we have been kindly lent a safe house in Antigua by Rafa´s sister to hide out in our last rainy days in Guatemala. I have to say it feels a bit weird ……. halfway between tourist and fugitive!
Calle Camposeco is a lively little street not far from the beautiful Merced Church. However, the day that we arrived it was extra lively. It happened to be their Catholic street party and THE procession event of their whole year.
So, shattered, after moving all day, or nervously watching the ants of Caniz dismantle my home at a frightening pace, we arrived to the pre procession party which in this neck of the woods means loudspeakers outside your window blasting out Mexican ranchera music. Not a genre that I am too fond of, and not one that I associate with religious festivals, no! far from it ……… generally fat ugly men being lovingly stroked by hot young babes on Bandamax videos.
They packed up at 11pm but were hard at it again at 4.30am the next morning whilst they made their flower alfombras, we had a brief interlude of marimba music before the ranchera music was back to terrorise us ……..
Love the carpets but why the awful very uncatholic music?View from our windowOur temporary neighbours
By the end of the morning Paulo was playing football with the neighbours (the ones of the elaborate shrine) and the procession had passed …….and quite nice it was too in the end to watch it all from our little window.
Look at those pious faces passing right by our house ....
We have moved out of our house and our things have left in a big truck headed for Cuba but not without some interesting issues along the way. One of which, I would like to share here as maybe it could be symbolic of my future life in Cuba!
Anyone who is British or has visited a British home or spent any time living in the UK knows the importance of the toaster and the kettle as the most humble but most valued of kitchen appliances. We are brought up on TOAST ……… Marmite toast, beans on toast, egg on toast, honey toast, toasted sandwiches, toast can be for breakfast, supper or just whenever you feel like filling up. Toast can be beautiful wholewheat toast with smoked salmon, toasted bagels with cream cheese, toast soldiers to dip into your boiled egg, or just plain white sliced toast soaked in melted butter ………. and they all can be equally delicious depending on your mood.
As a nation we are not so obsessed with having huge fridges, enormous gas fired barbecues and ridiculously extravagant domestic appliances that after a few days get forgotten about. But we always have a toaster and a kettle in every kitchen.
Now that I remember there was even a hit in the eighties by that popster Paul Young when he was still singing with Streetband called Toast ……… everybody was humming it. (I have shared the lyrics at the bottom of this post for your amusement). So you see our affection for toast reaches quite tragic levels that others really should not mock. Toast crosses all regional and class boundaries and in school common rooms is almost like currency, or in mine it was!
Anyway, not to put too finer point on it, the toaster is as important to a Brit as the comal is for the tortillas of Guatemala. I don´t think anybody would make a fuss about a Guatemalan wanting to import their comal into Cuba but I suppose it doesn’t have a tiny electrical element which apparently is not allowed. However I think I can bring my hairdryer so not quite sure about the logic. Rules are rules I suppose.
Anyway my poor husband has learnt the importance of toast to his wife over the last few years and now we even have toast with our desayuno chapin (typical Guatemalan breakfast) that my husband always makes for us on Saturday mornings. I now do not miss HP sauce but have chili sauce on my breakfast, something a few years ago I would have found impossible to contemplate. So I don’t see myself as someone rigid and inflexible but TOAST is TOAST!
When we visited our future house in Cuba there was no grill and no toaster and we were reduced to microwaving Bimbo style bread until it become like a rock. The two women in the kitchen urged me to bring a toaster and anything else similar. So on my list of essentials was my toaster and my little oven/grill. Anyway a few days ago we were told absolutely not to even contemplate bringing anything like that. I have to admit I took the news badly, there are many things I am willing to give up ………. potatoes, lemons, avocados, mangos, grapes and whatever else, as usually it is liberating to discover other alternatives and expand your gastronomic horizons. However TOAST is TOAST!
The Offending item - my humble toaster.
Needless to say my concern about not having my, soon to be abandoned, toaster (pictured here) seems to have incited what I can only describe as thinly disguised prejudice. Me and my humble toaster have become a symbol of extravagant capitalism rather than a simple cultural reference point. We have been told that the Cubans have lived for 50 years without toasters and we should use our contacts in the diplomatic world to acquire our toaster in Cuba as though it is diamonds or a Rolls Royce that I am hankering after.
So once again I feel difficult and my poor husband has been fighting nobly for my right to have TOAST but now I have been made to feel like the Princess of the Toaster ……. it could be the next Harry Potter sequel. I bet JK Rowling likes toast no matter how many millions she has made.
Toast by Streetband.
Morning all. I’d like to tell you about when I was a young boy. I must have been three or four months old at the time. I didn’t really know what I wanted, and if I did, I wouldn’t have been able to tell anybody, ‘cos all I could do was gurgle. So I sat there in me highchair, thinking one day, looking at me tray and thinking what I’d give for a meal on there. So I started looking round to see what I could have. I was rubbing me eggy soldier in me head, trying to think, and then I looked in the corner and there’s a little breadbin with its mouth open, just staring at me, like. And then I looked in and I saw bread.
I thought, oh yeah, I’ll have toast,
A little piece of toast.
Well, then I started getting older,
I hated this, I hated that,
Expensive state was ludicrous
And cafes couldn’t cater for the finer things in life:
The upper crust was not for me,
I could tell that.
So I’d go back home,
Switch the kitchen light on,
Put the grill on,
Slip a slice under
And have toast,
A little piece of toast.
‘Cos there’s so much to choose from.
There’s brown bread, white bread,
All sorts of wholemeal bread;
It comes in funny packages
With writing on the side,
But it doesn’t matter which one you have
‘Cos when you cut the crusts off,
Have it with marmalade
Or butter, cheese, tomatoes, beans,
Banana
Or chocolate if you’re strange,
It doesn’t really matter.
Oh no, it all goes with toast,
Just toast.
I’m gonna think about it some…
That’s toast, mmm yeah,
Just toast,
That’s toast,
Just toast.
Well I go down the supermarket
With me basket in me hand,
I’m walking from one counter to another
Trying to find the bread stall,
But I can’t find it anywhere
And then I bump into a mother
With a baby in a basket
And she says
“Oh look, you’ve started him off again,
I come down here for a little bit of peace and quiet
To get some bread to go home to make toast,
Just toast,
I like toast”
Yeah, but I don’t half like toast.
OK, scrape that toast, boys.
That’s toast,
Yeah, just toast.
[Spoken]
I can’t think about it any more. I’ve got to go and have some, it’s no good. Here listen, I’m getting a bit browned off standing here. Me too. Shall we go and have some toast? Good idea. Why not? OK. I’ve got the grill on. Got any brown bread? Yeah! Have you got wholemeal bread? Wheatmeal bread? All sorts of toast. Let’s go………
(They proceed to make toast, accompanied by various kitchen noises.)
The boys are leaving their little school here in Guatemala. They have only been there half a year but have been very happy. Academically they have both excelled which really helped their confidence, especially Nico who learnt to read and also discovered that he is pretty good at maths, better than his smarty pants sabe lo todo big brother who excels in all the communication departments.
It is their last half day tomorrow but today they had a party. Unfortunately, the teachers in prepa, neglected to do a party for Nico so the pile of doughnuts we sent all got eaten by first grade and he was so upset that I had to give him 4 fairy cakes when he got home. Paulo´s class had all made him cards and given him little presents. A lot of them were quite religious giving him blessings and the virgin etc etc.
The most heart wrenching letter was from his little nobia Emilia who has been incredibly loyal these last few months! She printed it on the computer and had even put a photo, her email address and telephone number and a little cuddly present. This girl is not giving up on her man. And this is what she wrote translated from Spanish.
Feliz Viaje Paulo
You were the best friend I have ever had and I will never forget you. I am so happy that we got to spend this time together. Your friend Maria Emilia
Sweet Emilia ........ bless her cotton socks
I don´t really believe in moving cats from home to home too much, but definitely not from country to country. So although I am feeling guilty as hell, we are leaving our two cats behind, and so far I am not quite sure where! Every time I look at them I feel a huge pang of guilt. On top of all that, they seem to be making a huge play on the fact that they are happy and smug right now, like only cats can!
Chloe was from Aware, an animal rescue centre run by an eccentric Brit (you find these British animal lovers all over the world) and his Guatemalan wife in a place a few miles away from Antigua. Our dog had died leaving our first male cat Smudge a bit lonely. He had run away a couple of times looking for love but we always managed to find him. I remember once noticing his weighing up as he thought freedom and insecurity versus food and tough love from toddler Nico.
We took him up to Aware for the snip and by chance a kitten had been left at the end of the road a few days before. Anyway along came the noble and dignified Chloe, who was allowed one litter of kittens, one of which was such a beautiful Siamese generation throwback that we just had to keep her. Smudge disappeared and then there were two.
Mother and daughter have not always got on and I am not that surprised. Sophie is a naughty, cheeky, fish stealing youth who pushes in front of her mother at every opportunity. The children love her though as she deals with them with the same cocky cheek she uses on her mother. Chloe on the other hand has always been my cat. She waits for the children to go to bed and sneaks inside for a bit of sofa time with me.
Suddenly starting to snuggle up close .....they know you know ..........
Bizarrely, lately they have been being really affectionate towards each other which makes me think even more that I want them to stay together. I fear that everyone wants to adopt the pretty, cheeky Sophie and noble Chloe will be left to her fate like a poor Guatemalan campesina widow. Oh the guilt ………. I am just hoping that perfect home will appear and my cats can maintain the safe and easy life they have had with us because I ain’t getting on a plane to Cuba with 3 kids and 2 cats.
Here in Guatemala all my friends have nannies, niñeras, muchachas or whatever terminology you care to use. It is par for the course, and a well known advantage of the third world lifestyle – a hangover from a colonial past, or a reality of the present apartheid labour system. It is also a common pastime for mothers to get together and sit around complaining about their nannies´ incompetence. Not me …… no never. In this one matter I am quite splendidly smug.
My nanny is the BEST.
In my native country, to have a nanny is a status symbol of the super rich or royalty. It is also something which harks back to another time. An England of AA Milne and Winne the Pooh and Edwardian nurseries. Not one of my friends in the UK has one, or had one when they were children. I didn’t grow up in a house with a nanny, neither did my parents. And really, I did not expect to live over 6 years with a nanny coming into my house 5 and a half days a week. But serendipity played me a huge hand when I was introduced to Judith Han, who will always remain one of the most wonderful and amazing people to have come into my life. I don´t have a nanny, I have Juju. She has been my support system, my social services, my home grown remedy advisor, comedian and all round superstar. How will we all manage without her?
Smiling and laughing as usual .......
Juju, as she was christened by Paulo, has a Chinese grandfather and comes from a different part of Guatemala out towards the Pacific coast. She has a strong, happy face that always is a mili-second away from a giggle and we have laughed so much with her that I am seriously worried if I can live without her laughter, never mind anything else. Just listening to her good natured funny ramblings to my baby girl and my boys over the years is enough to put a smile on your face. But on top of that huge attribute, she is a person who can grow anything, fix anything, cook anything superbly, clean the house, mend clothes, ……… the list is endless, and all this while playing and chatting with my children.
Right now as I am writing, the rain is pouring down and all I can hear is the sound of Nico laughing with her. Yesterday she spent the afternoon playing football in the garden with Paulo whilst carrying a smiling Saskia. A mother of 6, she takes multi-tasking to a whole new dimension. She helps them with their Spanish homework, plays chess and Monopoly with them and hardly ever has raised her voice to them in 6 years. I wish I could say the same for myself.
I always thought how weird to have a stranger in your house. Not used to servants, it took me a while to get used to the concept, but if there was ever a person that I could hang out with peacefully it is Juju. On Saturday mornings she sneaks into my house so not to wake us up. Faultlessly thoughtful and incredibly kind, she regularly arrives with a little present from the packa for my children: some clothes, some books, toys, silly bands (the latest craze). She always knows the name of a plumber or a painter or a mechanic. She has plastered walls, macheted huge parts of the garden during the rainy season and is always available for more. She drops Christmas tamales at our house every year around midnight. She has come on trips with us to San Salvador and Atitlan. If you have Juju with you, a family holiday almost feels like a holiday! All my friends love Juju and she likes a lot of them too. Especially my great friend Felix who makes her laugh even more than usual.
5 of her 6 children on my famous sofa
Some Guatemalans would warn me about being too close and relaxed with my nanny. The apartheid rules are hard to shake. But bollocks I thought. I will eat lunch with my Juju trust her with my life and share my worries and my secrets. I went to her daughter´s wedding, her oldest son´s graduation ceremony, she received me home with baby Nico in my arms with Sopa de Gallina and so much love, and 4 years later Saskia too. Her husband helped us move house, has rescued me from flat tyres several mornings, and often plays football with our boys. All her children adore mine like siblings. And my children love hanging out in her house and garden with all the animals and friends and family. They even met the famous tacuazin in the jaula. Juju caught it while walking the two blocks home one night. She shared the hunting technique with me if anyone´s interested. You see there is just no end to her talents.
Juju in days gone by with my boys and her youngest
Husbands are husbands, and mine is a pretty good one most of the time, but over the last few years if you exclude time spent sleeping next to each other, I have easily spent more time with Juju than Rafa.
Juju has been there for me when no-one else has. She has seen my tears, two panzas, my pain, my laughter. My children are blessed to have known her and be loved by her. She has been my rock. To think that I will no longer have her strong light in my family is the thing that is breaking my heart these last few days. Juju we love you and we will miss you. What more can I say ……………..
Home is where the heart is, that´s what they say. But what exactly does that mean?
For Sale. The Chair Rafa has rocked for the last 7 years ......
A few days before my present home will be torn apart and broken up I have this weird nesting feeling. I want to enjoy these last few weeks in my little home before I have the task of making a home somewhere else. When I look at the larger items I think, well yes I know that some big strong men are going to come and take them away or we will sell them ……. but it is the endless amount of little things that are stressing me out.
I do not see myself as any kind of domestic goddess or material girl obsessed with possessions but I do know how to put my stamp on a home and make it cosy and personal. Now that I am looking around my present home and imagining that in a matter of days all this will be gone: sold, given away or heading on a truck to Puerto Barrios to cross the Caribbean and meet with the famous Cuban customs, it moved me to reflect on the many moves and homes of my life.
So here is the list of my many homes:
North Yorkshire England 11 Years, Co Durham England 7 years, Newcastle-upon-Tyne England 6 months, Dormagen West Germany 6 months, Nottingham England 3 years, South London 6 months, Rambouillet France 6 months, Paris France 2 years, Wissant France 1 year, West London 3 years, The Peak Hong Kong 1 year, East London 5 years, Antigua Guatemala 4 months, Buenos Aires 1 month (short but it felt like home!), San Lucas Guatemala 1 year, Antigua Guatemala 1 year, San Pedro El Alto Guatemala 5 years …………and now La Habana Cuba 4 years and then who knows ……. because we don´t.
So I have been in my present home 5 years, quite a chunk of my life and lasting early memories for my boys. Two out of my three children learned to walk here. All 3 of them learned to talk here. One of our cats was born here. I went to 5 Icaro film festivals whilst living here and twice to Guadalajara festival. We had visitors from all over the world sleeping in our little guest room. We had a few good parties in the garden, some planned some not! I grew a lot of flowers and herbs. We had too many piñatas!! I painted walls and tables. Threw together quite a few meals in my tiny kitchen. Designed my own furniture and had some made. We lit fires and sat by the fireplace many nights. Paulo lost 3 of his teeth here. Saskia was conceived here. We all survived Agatha the storm and a whole load of other stuff ……..
A favourite corner of our garden
So what does it really mean to be a homemaker? For a lot of us women it sounds like a nasty 50s concept of being a wife but to me it means something more. For me it is how you make your home feel, as though it has a heart and soul. A place people want to come round to see you. Primarily, a place where your family can be safe and happy and together.
We had a message last week that Cuba will not let us move our things to Cuba. I spent 24 hours horrified that I would have to sell all my precious and personal things and arrive in Cuba with a couple of suitcases and 3 kids. Was I a material girl or a sentimental nomad clinging on to my possessions like an orphan?
If Cuba possessed Ikea, ToyRUs, Ebay and the packa it could be possible to tell the children wave goodbye to your bicycles, your strange items of artwork, your favourite toys but alas Cuba is not a place you go to buy stuff and whatever stuff you do find it does not come cheap. Right now this family does not own a property anywhere in the world and soon, for a few weeks, we truly will be homeless all 5 of us. but we don´t have much! Which means that what we do have means a lot to us.
Was I being a material girl? I felt like a princess insisting on moving my caravan of possessions! What about the Lego, the wooden train set brought down from New York in the suitcase of a noble friend, all my pictures and photos? The second hand books bought and trafficked back to Guate in my suitcase. My sofa from San Juan that I designed with all my love, imagining the hours I would spend on it with my children. The salvaged old cupboard in the living room that Rafa rescued. Our old door coffee table that has seen many spillages and naughty boys climbing all over it. Our incredibly comfortable bed that we love to come home to. Saskia´s cot that has been in Rafa´s family for decades used by all my children. The boys matching blue wooden beds given to them by their abuelos and Tia Maria Luisa, lovingly restored and painted ………….
Maybe I am a bit of material girl but my beautiful things are not worth a great deal of money to anyone else but us, and they all have their stories. As the song goes ……… these are a few of my favourite things. I am not willing to lose or leave them in a warehouse to rot or be forgotten in a country where we do not live anymore.
Does this sofa and table look flashy??!
Rafa is not a man who enjoys consuming, he prides himself on his lack of possessions. I was a little nervous that he would make me feel un-buddhist but now the father and the husband knows his family needs their things to feel at home.
So we have decided to take our stuff, the things we need or love and see what trials and tribulations we will have to go through to get them into Cuba. One option we have been told is to file much of the children´s toys and clothes as future donations – fantastic I said. This I am more than happy to do, its what I do anyway. When we leave Cuba in 4 years the children will be older and we can shed quite happily all the stuff they have grown out of.
Anyway, we are still waiting to see if we will get permission to enter Cuba with our things if not we are stuck with the lottery of customs and keeping our fingers crossed that we get a nice one on a good day. Otherwise we may end of very out of pocket.
But please Cuba, we are not flash or ostentatious capitalists just a very normal (??) family of 5. And Cubans, I would love to invite you round to sit on my beloved sofa and have a cup of my English tea in one of my English china mugs given to me by my Aunt. I will even bake you a Victoria sponge with jam and cream in my cake tin bought in Guate. I promise …..
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I would like to begin this post by telling anybody who stumbles on to my site by accident that you should visit La Antigua Guatemala. It is a unique, incredibly beautiful and special place. When I am an old lady, and still relatively mobile, I shall return to spend the winter months here and potter around the colonial cobbled streets hanging out in my favourite places with a few of the wonderful people that became my good friends. Also you can´t beat the amazing volcanoes that surround the city.
View of Antigua
I arrived in Antigua in October 2003 and already had a good Guatemalan contact through a friend in England. Through him, I met a handful of good people who have remained in my life on and off over the years. But that was in the early days when I had come for a 6 month adventure, and not to settle down and have 3 children, which is ultimately what I ended up doing.
Antigua is certainly not representative of Guatemala. It is described by some as Disneylandia, and in many ways this is true. You can enjoy a certain kind of life here that you cannot find in most of the rest of the country. Smart restaurants and shops on every street corner. A McDonalds, a Burgerking, 3 or 4 overpriced delis, travel agents, gift shops, silver and jade shops, art galleries, clothes boutiques, every kind of hotel, millionaires who have come to live like kings in this paradise, lost in the last centuries. And most importantly, it is a wonderful place to stroll around with or without children. There are not many Central American towns that can rival its beauty. It boasts magnificent plazas, bougainvillea and jacaranda-lined streets and easy going, smiley people who have mostly accepted the ex-pat invasion here for better or for worse.
Life is not always stimulating but it is an easy life and a lot of people get stuck here for that reason. Unfortunately, not all of these people are the most talented, although many of them, God bless them, really believe they are. When I lived in Hong Kong there were some wonderful expressions for the passing ex-pats. As condescending as it gets, my favourite expression was FILTH. Failed in London try Hong Kong. A friend commented that people come to Antigua because they are wanted or unwanted. Wanted by the law, or unwanted by everyone else. After she introduced me to this expression, I went through a period of meeting some of the weirdest characters of my life and developed my own expression. The 3 Fs. The fakes, the freaks and the felons. People come to Antigua and they reinvent themselves in more ways than one. The small fish in a small town can easily become a big fish with the right amount of bullshitting. People acquire more servants than they ever dreamed of and something else happens to them, the princess complex. The fact that they have more control over other people can make them a little deluded as to their own importance, and then there really is no going back.
Although I appreciated the ease and beauty of Antigua I can´t say it was ever my kind of place. Brought up in another beautiful small town in northern England by 18 years old I ran from small town life. I was drooling for the city, the gritty, the glamourous, the ethnic minorities, the underground music scene………
I like to be a small fish in a big sea, lucky enough to bump into some big fish worth listening to and I suppose when I left London my life reflected that. I was a few years down the road into a new career path and although I still hadn´t established myself I was meeting some big players in my field. Writers, researchers and visionaries that were inspiring. I was even lucky enough to have found a couple of mentors who were benevolent enough to give me their time and wisdom. When I arrived in Antigua to take a 6 month break and carry on with some of my own research I was still buzzing with these ideas and it was my research that led me to meet my husband on that fateful day 27th February 2004. But I met my husband in Casacomal in Zone 10 in the City and discovered that another world existed outside the slightly fake one in Antigua. The world of my husband and his friends in film and art and embassies. My spanish was still rubbish and it took a while for me to join my husband in his social life in the city, so Antigua was my goldfish bowl.
During my first few months in Antigua, pre motherhood, although I was having fun, I actually felt repressed, limited, frustrated. I couldn´t always be myself and I would have to escape for a few days to have my adventures. I felt as though I had made a mistake. I was too old to hang out with the freshfaced backpackers, to fall for the charms of the young Guatemalans who wanted me to buy them drinks, or even less so for the sad old guys that had come here to pick up women. Too old and cynical for this trip. I was bored out of my mind with the guitar playing, sad faced guys in shabby bars. I missed the cosmopolitan underground of London and my other favourite haunts. Ironically just after I met my husband I already had a flight booked to Buenos Aires as I thought I would go crazy if I spent one more week in the one horse town. Little did I know …..
( Incidentally Buenos Aires delivered everything that I was looking for when I arrived in March 2004, but that is another story ….. coming soon).
Suddenly I had a new life and finding myself back in Antigua in a completely different guise as an accidental (serendipity) mother of a Guatemalan from the city, meant my loneliness drove me to look for things for my children and myself to break the domestic grind of two baby boys. My enthusiasm and openness led me at times into a bland world where I would find myself at the usual Antigua events but feeling as though I was having the blood drained slowly out of me as my eyes glazed over. I was becoming a zombie!
A large proportion of people have come here to keep on living a life of suburban gringodom. La Antigua can wrap you up again in a safe blanket of ignorance which, lets face it, is what most people want. And if I let slip that my husband was an ex guerrilla it would ruffle feathers. My husband had warned me, but at times I would think why do I have to keep it quiet like a dirty secret. I am not ashamed of him, in fact the opposite. When his film came out, I admit I was a little worried that old hatreds die hard but when you watch Las Cruces you find a balanced film more about philosophy than politics.
We now live just outside Antigua and I have given my 3 children the first precious years of their lives in this beautiful place and that has been my mission, to share with them the paradise, as seen through their innocent eyes. They know nothing of the reality of the violence, hardships and sadness. Unfortunately they have seen a lot of guns, overheard a few whispered conversations about kidnappings and shootings, and at times witnessed their mother´s alienation and disappointment. Their father, well he is older and wiser and knows how this part of the world works.
My husband wasn´t too happy to leave his cabaña just outside the city and embrace Antigua life. He was a city boy who already had a great social life established around his world of films and culture, and old and loyal school friends. I, on the other hand, needed the beauty and convenience of Antigua in my first wobbly steps into motherhood. I have never regretted the decision to set up home here although at times the small town mentality has driven me crazy, but I have been lucky enough to find the good people living on the edge. But honestly I had to metaphorically lift up stones and look behind hedges to find my like minded people, and I did. They are an eclectic bunch, but all the better for it, my friends.
But on a light hearted note. Come and live in Antigua if:
– you are a man looking to pull. For some reason there are way to many pretty and interesting woman living here that strongly outnumber the good available men. I was one of the lucky ones!
– you enjoy living in a clique! (pronounced like leek not click). Antigua like all small towns has a multitude of claustrophobic cliques with the usual bored bitching and backstabbing that goes along with it. Sometimes you get into one without realising and it is not always easy to get out. Take care!
– you want to get pregnant. The men down here seem to have pretty good sperm! Although be careful good sperm does not always lead to good genes! I got lucky again.
– you are Catholic. Semana Santa and Hermano Pedro put this place on the catholic map and the cathedrals and churches are wonderful.
– you are an evangelical missionary. Plenty of your sort down here enthusiastically wearing T shirts and building churches and schools where they can put the fear of God into people. You´ll feel right at home!
– you want to recreate a certain kind of imported condo suburban life. You can hang out with bland but very NICE people just like you, have more servants, still buy from Pricemart and Walmart and Trader Joe´s, fly to Miami to do your shopping and have cheaper medical insurance, botox and plastic surgery, work less hours, have more servants, drink cheaper coffee.
– you are an alcoholic. Being a drunk is cheaper and easier in Antigua and there are plenty of bars to be thrown out of, but if you have enough money that will never happen. Its a small town so you never have too far to stumble home. If you pass out in your own vomit and pee in the gutter, don´t worry its a regular occurrence, people will walk round you or step over you.
– you are a painter. Its beautiful and peaceful and you can rent studio space cheaply. The colours and volcanoes are amazing. Also you´ll probably get a solo exhibition in no time in one of the many galleries or bars. But you´ll have to deal with the fact that most of the people are there for the free wine and not their love of art!
– you are a bleeding heart or need some work experience to get you that university place. Plenty of opportunity to get involved with niños in the huge NGO industry that surrounds Antigua and Lake Atitlan. You can talk up your good work in the bars around town too if that is your way.
– you are a middle aged pseudo intellectual male. You can hang out in a bar and enjoy the sound of your own voice seducing naive young women, but boring the pants off the rest of us with your arrogant inability to listen. If you can´t bore enough people in the bar you can even write in a magazine.
– you are one of those people who thinks the world owes you something, you can come and beg here, pretty successfully from what I have seen. Beg for a job, somewhere to live, beg for expensive hospital treatments, flights, meals and many free drinks. I do not understand why these people chose to come here and moan about their sad lives, it seems terribly inappropriate if you look at the struggles of the average local but I suppose everyone deserves a helping hand.
– you are looking for a comfortable base to tour around the region. Antigua is the perfect place to wash your clothes, chill out, eat some good food, take some Spanish classes, potter around, watch some films, replenish your backpack with some vital bits and pieces etc, etc. That was my plan, but serendipity got in the way!
– you are a single mother who wants to work from home. Never an easy thing to do but Antigua supplies you with great internet access, great nannies and hired help and everything else that you might need at a more competitive price.
– you are a crazy new age freak. You will find it all here and great prices. You can do yoga, massage, reiki, crystals, love therapy (??!), meditation, Buddhism for westerners and hot rocks can even be thrown at you if you so desire and a whole bunch of stuff including shamans real and fake. You can join the party and talk up your new found peace or like me find the good people and keep it to yourself ……
– you are a millionaire who pretends to be Indiana Jones but really is stealing and smuggling artifacts from a country where corrupt people can feel at home!
or, last but not least
– you are a thirty something London girl who fell for a guy from the big bad City and needed somewhere beautiful, safe and convenient to bring up your children (and find a great nanny).
So thanks Antigua and your people (especially our nanny!) for seeing me through these years and sorry to our friends in Guatemala City that I wish I had seen more. We are leaving but we will be back. Besos y abrazos.
