Inspired by a TED talk I recently watched,  I threw together an impromptu math problem on the fly today while out with the boys.

We love Melona iced milk pops, available here in Barrio Chino.  Today on the way home from church, we stopped to pick up three to eat on our walk between train and subway (8 blocks).

I told the boys I had gotten 50 pesos change... so how much does each popsicle cost?

"How much did you give him?" piped up Simon, indicating his understanding of needing to obtain relevant information to the problem.  I responded, "$104".

From there, they were able to figure out that three pops cost $54, and so each one must be more than $15 but less than $20.  Eventually, the discerned that the cost per pop was $18.

Not to negate the beauty and importance of exposing children to pure math, but if we're going to teach at least part of our math program as "authentic" problem solving, then the questions ought to be, well, authentic, rather than contrived.  

Right?

Mmmmm.... Melona! Yum!

In addition to discussing and reading the Easter story together in the Scriptures this past week, the boys and I tried our best to emulate our other Canadian seasonal traditions this holiday weekend...

A big, family/friends picnic and chocolate hunt have always been a key part of the Easter tradition in our family, reaching back to the days when Jeanette and my mother and Omi would pack a picnic lunch and hide chocolate out in the country at some park outside of the GTA for me and Rebecca and Stephanie and whoever else we managed to schlepp along. With Easter moving, sometimes the picnic falls on a birthday (last year was mine, in the past it's been the boys'), and there's cake to be had.  This year, there were no conflicting birthdays. There were also no friends as one of our friends is currently in the US, and the other two make a living working at the market on Sundays and holidays.  To make matters worse, Tats is away in Florida until May 1.  

So, we were all alone. :(

Happily, the Easter Bunny as well organized.  In addition to budgeting over the past several weeks for a few local treats, she had also arranged with a Canadian friend to bring some "real" Easter chocolate and jellybeans when he came from PEI last month.  And miraculously, there were some familiar blue and pink easter egg papers with blank boxes in which to write something!

Thus, the night before Easter, I wrote clues and hid (and also sampled some) treats.

Clue writing for each boy is an idea I picked up from the family I used to babysit for when I was in high school.  And later, once I became a teacher, and then when I had kids of my own, I realised what an excellent way this was to build literacy skills in toddlers and young children... I remember how excited Alex and Simon were, and how motivated to read, when they were little and found the (then very simplistic) printed clues the Easter Bunny had left them...  heck, they're still excited!  

Needless to say, the clues have become a tradition, and last June, when I was sorting boxes and packing suitcases for our year in Argentina, I made sure to pack our clue templates in the "spring" box.

The boys were not disappointed, and eagerly went hunting around the apartment and onto the balcony.  (Unfortunately, they elected to do this naked, so photos here are limited, sorry, folks!)

Once they had found the first stash and gorged themselves on as much chocolate as they could cram in, I went back to bed for an hour, following which we had a little REAL breakfast, and then headed off to San Isidro.  But not before making a stop at the local verduleria to play Easter Bunny to Mia, the little girl whose parents run the fruit and veggie stand we frequent.  (We also dropped off some chocolate with the family who has recently moved in on a mattress under our subway bridge.  Judging by the state of their dental health, chocolate and jellybeans were perhaps not the most thoughtful gift we could have brought them, but their toddler, in any case, was delighted with the festive treasures!)

And then it was on to San Isidro...

We had heard there was a train that runs along the coast, and which connects directly from "our" train (the Mitre), so we decided to check that out.  The passage between the two train lines was itself worth the journey: the walls and ceiling above the escalators had been creatively plastered with sheet music and old LPs, and there was a plethora of antique shops lining the passage from the Mitre to the "Tren de la Costa".

The latter, as we had suspected, was a "tourist" train.  That means that there were instructions and descriptions in English as well as Spanish, and the price -- instead of the $2.20 pesos round trip the regular (Mitre) train costs us -- was a whopping $40 pesos per person!!!  Since there were few other options at this point, we quickly elected to cheap out on lunch, and I dug into my pants pocket and forked over the money.

We were soon on our way.

The outrageously overpriced train was at least as run-down as the regular BsAs trains, and had orders of magnitudes more graffiti sprayed on the sides.  But it did indeed run along the Rio, which we caught glimpses of on the way to Barrancas station, where we disembarked, and walked through yet another antique market enroute to what we hoped would be the "beach".

As a summer Islander, my schema of "beach" is so very specific, and I keep forgetting that when Portenos refer to "beach" in the greater BsAs area, what they usually mean is "small patch of publicly-accessible grass from which one can see the murky waters of the delta".

Indeed, there were a few of these patches; some folks were fishing there; we had lunch (one order of chicken and pasta with salad -- all shared -- and fresh squeezed orange juice) near one of them, and could see the San Isidro Cathedral in the distance.

After lunch, we walked to the San Isidro train station, which in itself is quite a pretty place. Here we elected to hold our second Easter Egg hunt.  (The boys -- although happy to get more chocolate -- noted that it just wasn't the same without the thrill of the chase.  With no other contenders, they had no one to fight for the loot!  I offered to fight them for it, hehe!)

Next, we wandered through the feria (I bought some pecans -- hard to find in the city!!), and stopped to watch a performer swallow fire and juggle a floating glass ball before heading up to check out the Cathedral up close.

Having devoured all our chocolate, and being pretty much broke, we decided to head home and eat dinner at the apartment.  We were soon back on the overpriced "de la costa" train from which we connected to the Mitre back to our little corner of Palermo Hollywood.

Back at home, we dug into our "Kartoffelpuffer" and apple sauce, and all agreed it had been a reasonably nice family outing for our first Easter away from home and family.

In the surprisingly dark days following the disappearance of my iPad and laptop, I am trying to maintain a positive outlook.  Although we were not robbed, and no violence was involved, I nevertheless feel incredibly vulnerable, knowing that someone has full access to all my files, and that I've lost some extremely valuable personal documents.  

And, yes, I feel unforgivably stupid for not having backed up more recently. 

The hours of labour and love that have gone into the labeling, filing and organizing of various family photos this year as well as teaching ppts and other work-related materials are irrecoverable, and it's a hard pill to swallow, knowing someone else has them and is about to delete them all, if s/he hasn't already, since the value of such work is meaningless to someone "outside" the field who just wants to make a quick buck selling a hot-ticket item here in the large, impersonal metropolis of Buenos Aires.  

It's as though I've had involuntary brain surgery.

There are, of course, much worse things that one could experience, than the theft of some electronics due to one's own stupidity and carelessness in a city known for its high levels of crime.  Every time I look at Alex or Simon, I am grateful for two happy, healthy, intelligent, curious, compassionate little boys, and -- having experienced the speed with which my stuff went missing -- I am more appreciative than ever of this precious, fleeting moment we call life.  Whenever I walk along one of our now-familiar local streets, I am grateful for our safe neighbourhood, for friendly neighbours, for favourite grocers, cafes and ice-cream shops.  When I consider the rich cultural and spiritual experiences this year has given us as a family, I am also grateful.

But that doesn't negate the inevitable pessimism that works its way into my soul like a worm consumes a rotting apple (not to imply that my soul is rotten!)... How can we live in a world where there are countries and cities in which -- when one shares the story of the recent loss -- people nod knowingly, because such dishonesty is so "normal" here that everyone has been touched by personal theft in some way?  What kind of desperation drives someone to -- within minutes of its being left behind accidentally -- pick up someone else's personal belonging and, instead of turning it in to a cashier for safe keeping until it's claimed, walk off with it, for keeps?

One of the hardest moments was when "Find my iPad", which Tats had set up for me, sent me an email on Friday afternoon to notify me that my stolen device had been found: Staring at the screen of Alex's netbook, my brain worked hard to process the  photo map of the downtown intersection across the city from the original "crime scene", and it became apparent to me that -- despite my wildest hopes against the odds -- my laptop and iPad would not be turned in to the cashier at the McDonald's where I had so carelessly left them unattended for 7 minutes on Thursday night.

Up for an adventure, and undeterred by an experience that was not her own personal drama, our French tutor suggested that we go check out the address and see if perhaps a pawn or computer shop was nearby; fluent in Spanish, she could pose as a customer looking for a laptop, and, if mine was produced for sale, we could negotiate its release.  

I was not optimistic, but at the boys' insistence, I agreed to play along, and we set out to Aguero y Cordoba.

Needless to say, our outing did not prove fruitful.  The entire block -- with the exception of a small green grocer -- was apartment buildings.  Somewhere, in one of those buildings, someone had turned on my iPad a few hours earlier, connected to the Internet, and been greeted with a request to enter a passcode and a message that read "This iPad has been lost or stolen, please contact blah, blah, blah to return it."  And they hadn't.

So much for our planned "take-down"! ;-P

The next day was not a good one for me emotionally.  I woke up feeling incredibly guilty for the stress I had caused and time imposition I had made on my girlfriend, who was supposed to be focusing on learning to fly multi-engine airplanes in instrument conditions in another country, but who had instead spent the first night doing emergency remote email set-up on one of my kids' netbooks so that I could at least be communicatively functional, and another night providing emotional support via email and Skype (the latter on Alex's iPad mini).

Again, I realised that in the grander scheme of things, this was not such a big deal, and I was feeling like a bit of a crybaby.  After all, people were starving in the streets, and here I was all in a fluster over a $1500 piece of equipment while our household had four more electronics that one could use in a pinch.  My goodness, $1500 is several months of rent for some people down here!!!  Nevertheless, as I prepared for a math lesson I soon realised I couldn't teach the boys because I didn't have the software installed on their netbooks (nor could their small machines handle said software), and then went to look for an alternate lesson on my website before realizing that I hadn't posted it yet, so it was lost forever since I was a moron and hadn't backed up any of my laptop data since before leaving Canada, I began to feel increasingly depressed.

The idea to just succumb to defeat seemed like a tempting one, and I crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over my head, thankful that we had no commitments until later in the day, and that the boys were busy engaged in a project of their own and would not miss me while I hibernated.

Eventually, however, Simon came and got me out of bed to have "breakfast" (it was nearly lunch time!) and do Bible study and watch the Cosby show together, which we've been doing most mornings lately.  Despite the non-violent nature of the crime, both boys had been rather deeply affected by the discovery that not everyone is honest, and their world post-theft had become a very different place, one in which there had been a certain loss of innocence. They were desperate for a return to normalcy and routine, and were watching me closely to ascertain for themselves how and whether to maintain hope for humanity.

Hitherto, I'd done a decent job modeling hopefulness and optimism for them about this whole ordeal.  Today, however, I wasn't so sure.

After about an hour of Jesus and Bill Cosby (in that order), I decided not to give up just yet. If there was any chance for redemption, I thought, I wanted to provide that opportunity for the poor schmucks who had made off with my laptop and iPad.  I was willing to suspend judgement and presume positive intentions, especially if there was some remote possibility that I could get the contents of my "brain" back!!!

I decided to write up a poster, in English and Spanish, and go back to the "secondary crime scene" (the street on which my iPad had first been located via wifi the day after it was stolen), and post said flyers so that if the perpetrator saw and read them, his/her heart would be moved, and s/he would email me and make it right.

We set out for the boys' piano lesson, with a plan to get the posters copied and put up afterwards, before volunteering at the dog park in the later afternoon.

Modeling hope in a hopeless world is no easy task, but it sure is more plausible when you meet the number of kind and empathetic people that we have come across in our travels... our piano teacher's power was out, so today's lesson was canceled.  However, he met us at the door with an old keyboard he had dug up for the boys to borrow (free of charge for the month) and practise on!  And the guy at the photocopy shop was very sweet, too.  He was just closing up for the day when we arrived (Sat hours are limited at best in this country), but he let us in and made the copies for us, and gave us counter space to work on to prepare them (we wanted to underline headlines in colour to draw attention).  "I'm sorry", he said, genuinely, when he read our poster, "I hope you find."

After we had posted our "last hope" signs, we went home to set up our new keyboard, get some long pants on (fall has arrived in BsAs!), and go do something completely unrelated to "the theft", the direct topic and tangents of which seemed to have taken over most of our conversations and activities over the past 48 hours.

We ended up at Palermo woods, and -- after a bit of negotiating with the bike rental owner, who didn't want to rent to us without "documento" -- we found ourselves on a heavily refurbished "cuatriciclo" with questionable steering, careening around the mercifully empty paths of the windy park for an hour.  Smiles and laughter abounded.

I am not optimistic about our "please return the shit ya stole" signs.  I'm fairly certain we'll never see my laptop or iPad again, and I feel like I am living in a fog.  Apart from the general lousy-status-of-the-world depression described earlier in this blog post, there are the ongoing practical implications of being without my tools.  Each new day brings another realization of something I can't do anymore, or can't do as efficiently.  I had not realised how tech-reliant I'd become, and in fact, it frightens me to think how "incomplete" I feel without my iPad and laptop which -- in a sense -- have become an extension of my mind, my very being.  Some of the things for which I have been most admired in recent years were only possible because I had mastered the technology that facilitated me being able to manage them all.  Without those scaffolds in place, how much longer will I be able to keep up the charade of competence in my workplace, in my family and in the world around me?

One of the first things the boys asked after the initial shock of what had happened has worn off was "Mommy! How will you be able to blog?!"

It's not easy on slow, borrowed equipment with limited software and the organizational systems of a hard drive I'm unwilling to commit to, because I know it's not really mine...

I feel like I am living in limbo.

Waiting... to see if my brain can be fixed, or a new organ found and transplanted, so that I can get back to living my life.

In the meantime, though, I am determined to show the boys that their old Luddite of a mother can indeed blog in word and photo, even on their tiny, crapped-out machine which they insisted I borrow until such a time when I can get a new laptop of my own!

It's a bit strange, being a Canadian preparing for Christmas in the midst of 27-degree-Celsius weather... but this is Buenos Aires!  Enormously tall, Swarovski-crystal-adorned Christmas trees stand proudly under fresco-festooned ceilings of touristy malls in the city's core while outside, the sun is blazing and summer is bursting forth on every green tree-lined street and avenida.  

Not a snowflake in sight.  

Reflecting on this strange, new "winter/summer" experience, I feel a little bit like some of my immigrant students back home in Canada must, when they rush to the windows  of my classroom in late November to marvel at the first snowfall of their lives.

Here in Buenos Aires, the boys are eager for the traditions of Christmas to begin, snow or no snow!  And so, I went searching for some holiday sheet music on the iPad, preferably some app that includes -- in addition to the secular favourites -- some carols that underscore the "reason for the season", so that we could incorporate them into our morning Bible study time as we approach Christ's celebrated birth date.

One app that looked promising was Christmas Karaoke - 12 Carols by Popcorn Grenade, a small, Toronto-based company inspired by their own child to make fun and educational apps for children in general.

I downloaded the app and shared it with Alex and Simon at breakfast this morning - they LOVED it, and immediately began singing along with the easy-to-follow lyrics on the screen.

Although only 12 carols are included for the 99 cents you pay for this app, I would argue that less is more in this case.  The app has a clean, streamlined feel, and the 12 carol icons fit neatly on the page and offer easy selection without having to scroll through endless options.  The variety includes both secular favourites like Jingle Bells and Rudolph as well as classic carols like Joy to the World and Silent Night.

The boys enjoyed changing the backgrounds (there are four colour themes, just for a little variety and to suit personal preference while reading the lyrics), and soon discovered the "voice optional" button, which turns the app into a true "Karaoke" experience!

Christmas Karaoke 12 Carols delivers a fun, attractive, easy-to-use app for all ages, and includes the basics without extranous bells and whistles.

Every morning before school, the boys and I begin our day with a short prayer, and a look at a specific Scripture passage.  (We look at one passage per week, and complete different learning activities each day to help us memorize the passage and understand its meaning.)

First we light a candle, then we look at the passage, and finally we pull a small stone out of a bag to lay next to the candle, before we say our prayer for the day.   Sometimes, instead of a spoken prayer, we listen to and/or sing a worship song.

There are four rocks in our prayer bag: "believe", "hope", "love" and "faith".  This morning, Alex spontaneously created a new one, by taping a piece of paper to a rock.  His paper read "Awesome God"! 

The first part of this exciting adventure was the journey itself.  Puerto Iguazu is to Buenos Aires as PEI is to Toronto… with the exception that the former offers a greater and more reasonable selection of travel options.

Although the flight from BA to Puerto Iguazu is only two hours, and quite reasonably priced for residents, the 18-hour bus ride is far more affordable for foreigners, whom airlines can apparently charge up to three times as much for the same flight.  And the bus line, which includes “sleeper suite” buses with fully reclining seats, offers a hefty discount if you pay in cash.  So, obviously, we chose to take the bus.  Besides, we knew the view along the way would be an exciting learning experience in itself.

The huge bus terminal in BA is at any time a noisy, busy place. In the evening, when most of these long-haul tours leave, it is even more so:  Nervous tourists huddle in groups, clutching their bags closely, or wander over to check the news stand for some reading material for the long ride (we grabbed two sticker books for the boys and a dirty magazine for ourselves!)  People are drinking mate, having their hair cut, 

The constantly-changing schedule board offers direction to those of us who are new and have no idea which of the roughly 100 gates to head to for our bus.  While we stand near our gate waiting, a father with filthy hands pushes a stroller containing a grimy-looking toddler past us; he asks for some money.  I give him a cookie instead -- I had baked them for the road.  His equally unkempt wife finds me a few minutes later and asks if the cookies were prepared in my “cocina”, which I have learned means “kitchen”.  I confirm this with a nod of my head and a “si”, and she smiles with crumbs falling out of her mouth and proclaims them “muy rica!”, which Jorge taught us means “delicious”.  I wish I had a whole bag to give her.  Instead I smile, say “gracias”, then point to my kids and say “hemelo”, the word I have recently learned means “monozygotic twins”.  We smile a moment longer at one another, and I head back to Tats and the boys.  Our bus has arrived, and it’s time to board.

The service begins at the door, with two friendly attendants greeting us, checking our tickets, and offering us a candy before we head inside and upstairs to our seats.

The boys are wired!

Each seat is quite spacious, fully reclining and with its own adjustable foot rest and individual TV.  On each seat is a pillow, a blanket, and a bag containing headphones (why did I pack my own?!) and a “grooming kit”.  Wow!

The bus leaves minutes after its arrival; schedules are pretty tight here, it seems.

Shortly after departure, an attendant comes around to serve drinks and a small h’ors d'oeuvre.  Tats runs into trouble because -- like pretty much everyone here in Argentina so far (no kidding, she's been chased out of numerous washrooms!!!) -- the attendant assumes she’s a 15-year-old boy, and so won’t serve her a drink!  As Tatsy rummages for her password, I try in broken Spanish to explain that she is in fact “treinta y una”.  Moments later, Tats has the much-needed strong drink in hand.  (As a side note, she continues to avail herself of the free champagne, wine and more throughout the evening – “on principal”, she says, and also because the other three in our party aren't drinking, so she has to make the tickets worth their money, she claims!!)

Exhaustion soon wins out over excitement for the boys, and it doesn’t take much convincing to get them ready for bed.  They each have a window seat, which means they have their own curtain, providing a nice, dark cubicle for sleeping. A few chapters of read aloud and a short massage later, they’re both sleeping soundly.

While I wait for dinner (no point trying to sleep before that commotion is over), I check the TV -- Gatsby is on.  I never did finish that movie when I tried to watch it a few months ago, so I settle in with the headphones.  It’s even in English (with Spanish sub-titles, to help me practice)!

Presently, dinner arrives.  For me (I had requested a veg meal), it is an enormous tomato and cheese salad, or so I think.  Turns out that was just the appetizer.  A hot meal soon follows; the service on this bus is truly amazing!

After dinner is done and the movie is finished, I attempt to settle in for the night.  I recline my chair, pull up my foot rest, and stuff in my ear plugs.  I close my eyes, but even with this somewhat comfy chair, sleep is elusive; it is too bright, the bus is lurching around corners and stopping at every brightly lit check point for inspection, the thin blanket is too chilly…  I do manage to doze a little… around 1:30 p.m., the curtain opens and Alex checks in on me.  “What time is it, Mommy?”  I tell him it’s 1:30, and he can go back to sleep, which he does.  I, on the other hand, visit the washroom several times and try to get comfortable and warm by adding a layer and tucking my shirt into my pants.  I drift in and out of a fitful sleep until suddenly it is bright outside.  

The digital clock at the front of the bus says “6:52”.  Hard to believe we have 8 more hours to go!!

Alex is just waking up, too, and I offer him the wet cloth from the grooming kit.  (Had I only looked in there earlier -- it includes a toothbrush, paste, a comb, and an EYE PATCH!!  Oh well, now I know for the ride home!)

An amazing sight greats us when I open the curtains:  GREEN!  Everything is green!  There are trees, and fields and just so much GREEN!!!  I haven’t seen this much green (outside the Botanical Gardens) in two weeks!!!  

We are definitely not in Buenos Aires anymore.

Not long after we awake, the attendant is back around with drinks (including tea this time, oh, so wonderful after my fitful sleep!) and a tray of generic packaged foods.  Luckily, I had also saved a peach cocktail and an apple from dinner last night.

We eat, and then it’s time for the boys and I to write a little in our travel journals (me on my laptop, and Alex and Simon on the graphic organizer I made them for the journey; they’ll transfer it to their blogs when we get back home to the apartment).

After the morning writing, the boys have a bit of free time before we begin “school”.  (With such a long bus ride, I decided to bring a few things with me, so that we could continue with our learning on the road.)

School is held this morning in Alex’s reclined seat.  Both boys perch there as we begin with our Bible study (a passage from Romans), and then move on to reading, word study,

Out of commission with a sinus cold, I took to my bed for a few hours this morning, just to rest.

But “rest” is elusive here in Buenos Aires:  Even on Saturdays, there is always a hammer pounding, or the sound of a drill, a saw or a yelling construction worker from one of the invariably nearby towers being built… far below me, the sounds from the streets waft up to my bedroom: the hum of traffic, a radio blaring in the distance, an ambulance siren screaming, horns honking... Buenos Aires is an exciting place, that's for sure, but it doesn't provide much in the way of a lullaby!

No matter... my semi-private refuge gives me some time to digest a few of my first impressions of this incredible place, a place I have spent the past six months or so researching more on a practical level (housing prices, neighbourhood safety, cost of airline tickets, etc.) than a philosophical or cultural one.  

The boys and I did read a few books to get a historical and geographical overview, but there really is nothing quite like living here for a while to get a sense of this world:  In less than two weeks, I feel myself becoming a part of the mosaic that makes up this "gotta be here to get it" metropolis.  

Although we're still getting stopped by helpful passers-by every time we pull out a map, and attracting the advice of other English-speaking visitors on the subte who tell us to keep our backpacks close (they don't know that those generic bags that appear to be so casually slung over our shoulders are actually the virtually indestructible and basically theft-proof "pacsafes" I researched and shelled out good money for months in advance of our journey here!!) , we are becoming more confident and independent as we travel around this cosmopolitan center.

I won't say we blend in; I don't think we ever will, what with a set of little, blond "gemelos" in tow...  

But we already get our groceries at a place that is less expensive than the convenient but over-priced Carre-Four Express outside our apartment, we know we prefer the "hilado" shop on Scalabrini Ortiz over the more popular and ubiquitous Freddo chain, and I'm pretty confident that if the boys ever got lost (DON'T WORRY, DADDY -- THEY WON'T!!! ;-P ), they could find their way home on the Subte from pretty much anywhere in the city now (so long as they're not too shy to ask "Donde esta el Subte?" like we've taught them)!

Living a life beyond the "touristy", more short term vacation parts of Buenos Aires, though, means having an awareness of the city's underbelly, too, its many slums and the political and economic struggles both individuals and groups of people here face.  Just one example I've noticed is the number of children living in poverty in the city:  We've seen them begging on the streets with their parents (or sometimes, not even begging, but just living here on the streets -- the other day, I observed a father sitting on a dirty mattress on the sidewalk, preparing a bottle of milk for his grimy toddler while mom took a nap or was sick on the mattress next to him), and we've seen them in the subways, selling stuff for a peso or two to whomever will buy it.

Anyone with an ounce of compassion cannot simply ignore this very real and ever-present part of our host city.  As a parent and an elementary school educator, I am especially moved when I see children living in such conditions.  As Alex noted at dinner last night, when we were debriefing the particularly grubby-faced girl with dirty clothes and unwashed hair we had seen on the subway ride home (I had bought a useless cardboard trinket from her... not because I needed or wanted it, but because I was desperate to help in some way, and wasn't sure what else to do.  She didn't even smile when I handed her the 2-peso bill as she came around to collect her trinkets back or money from those who were buying.), as Alex commented, "I feel sad for those people."

"Sad, indeed", I think, looking out the window from the comfort of my sick bed.  I am looking out, not onto a slum next door to me, but onto a balcony filled with green and growing things, a sunny balcony, that has a door leading into a decently sized living room with heated floors and comfortable furniture.  I think of the healthy, well-balanced meal that Tats is preparing in the kitchen, and I listen to the laughter emanating from the room next to me, where Alex and Simon are playing a game together, a game free from the worries of not enough food, clothing or shelter.

What's to be done?

Our primary mission on this trip is not volunteer work, and yet it is an element I do want to incorporate into our lives here.  The boys and I have always volunteered in some capacity, and I believe it's our duty -- as people of unearned privilege -- to contribute something, even while "on vacation".

The question, as newcomers and uneducated foreigners,  is what?

The view from my window doesn't hold the answer.

In my experience, some home schoolers tend to come from fairly "traditional" Christian backgrounds.  It seems that many who choose to home school their children do so because they can openly teach (my girlfriend would argue "indoctrinate" or "brainwash") them about the Christian faith.

Although this was not my main motivation for home schooling Alex and Simon this year, it is definitely a contributing factor in my openness to explore home schooling for a year.

My main concern with this aspect of home schooling is that I don't want my children to be "sheltered" from the world around them.  I strongly believe that children should be raised in a loving, faith-filled family, but that they should be encouraged to live their faith in the world... to "shine their light", so to speak, and to develop and strengthen their faith in the context of the many challenges the "real world" will present them with.  But by promoting their attendance in a public school most of the time, I feel like we are meeting this goal.  And I think it will be nice to be able to openly and intentionally explore Scripture and various facets of our faith life as a family this coming year.

Since I myself came to faith well beyond childhood (I was baptized when I was 21 years old), my sense of what "faith education" or children's church looks like in the home school context is based largely on stereo-typed media images.  I therefore set out to explore various resources.  

Recently, two faith resources have been shared with me, that I would like to learn more about.  They are this website on Religious Tolerance, shared with me by a writer and retired high school teacher I recently met online, and "Godly Play", recommended to me by one of the Sunday School teachers at the church in PEI, where we spend our summers.

I am looking for something that would address the unique needs of children, while at the same time mirroring my desire for my children to explore what it means to develop a welcoming, open-minded faith, rather than a rigid, fear-based indoctrination based on a bunch of "old, dead, white guys' " interpretations.

At first glance, both the above resources seem like a decent fit.