>Car, plane, bus. Fourteen hours of flights. Four people, six duffels, three backpacks, one wheelchair, one walker, one saxophone. Nothing like the opening chapter in Atwood’s Poisonwood Bible (the things they carried into Africa), or Tim O’Brien’s amazing short story of carrying thing around Vietnam, but nevertheless overwhelming when it had to be moved from Point A to Point B.
Fortunately, all legs of the travel were uneventful, except for the minor inconvenience of Emily vomiting during the plane’s landing in Buenos Aires. A bit of apple juice followed by a bit of turbulence does it every time.
All long days of travel do eventually end. Three days later, home now is in
City Bell (yes, that’s the town’s real name, pronounced in Spanish as “see-tee behl”), which is a suburb of
La Plata, which is about an hour away from
Buenos Aires. City Bell wasn’t exactly where we had planned to live, but this is where we found a house to rent. The act of making plans is usually overrated.
It’s okay to wonder what exactly the Sinton family is doing in Argentina anyway. After all, wasn’t it just a few months ago that they up and moved from their beloved Vermont to the foreign land of Southern California? The short answer: back in 2006, Chris applied for a Fulbright Fellowship, which he was awarded in early 2007. He was to teach/research at the University of La Plata (in their center for ceramics/materials science) and we’d planned to live here in Fall 2007, but then the move to California happened, and it seemed too crazy to come here within weeks of moving, so here we are now. It’s a short trip: we’ll be back in the States on June 1.
Meanwhile, our employer, the University of Redlands, has been very gracious, accomodating, and supportive of this foray (or is it a folly?). I’m exploring new ways to work remotely, and Chris will return to full-time teaching in the fall.
diana maps 