The Algeciras area apparently has one of the worst unemployment rates in Europe.  The crisis is evident.   Businesses are closing, for sale signs are mounting, and the bands of young men with nothing to do multiply.  Yet money is obviously still moving in the streets.  Opportunities do exist.

A critical assessment of my skills suggests I should capitalize on my position as a foreigner.  The import-export industry always presents opportunities in today’s global economy.   I live at the intersection of two continents. Entrepreneurs do well here.  Importation from Morocco is particularly lucrative.

However,  786 people found their pharmacutical-importation careers  cut short by the police last year.

786 arrested.  Is that bad?  I wonder what the success rate is?  Or maybe I could sell cupcakes.

But once in a while I feel the need to drop some cash in a larger, one-stop-shop type of grocery store. Sometimes I crave a more anonymous and efficient experience.  The flourescent lights and generic design are a relief from gossiping with the neighbours while waiting half an hour for the local fruit guy to sell me 4 pears.   It’s telling when you find benches in the butcher shop.  They are prepared for you to wait, so you better be as well.

Luckily, I don’t have to travel far to reach a large grocery store either.  It’s perhaps a 500 meter walk, cross-country.  But if you get tired, there is plenty of seating as well.

500 meters of garbage, or a lovely place to curl up and enjoy Algeciras green space.  Depends on your point of view.

It’s also the local discount copper wire source.  Ah, European living.  We really do have it all close to home.

We average about five visits per week to the neighbourhood playground and are consistently alone.  We own that park in the winter.  The local kids are banished to indoor locations until May.

So shortly after arrival there were trucks, sweaters and half-eaten apricots strewn from one end to the other.  Why not, we weren’t bothering anyone.

Everyone was in their glory and shirt sleeves.  Yago was six feet up a fence, yelling obscenities at the high-school kids.  Río was crawling the perimeter, eating apricots off the ground.  I was  collapsed sprawled on the ground, soaking up the sun and congratulating myself on superior parenting.  Superior parenting defined by:

• nobody crying
• limbs intact
• eating healthy (the apricots were organic)

A Spanish trio entered stage left; a well dressed, perfectly coiffed grandmother and grandfather with a vacuum-packed toddler in stroller.  All you could see were the kid’s eyes, the rest was buried under layers of wool and plastic.

Yago stopped mid profanity to stare.  Visitors?  To our park?  At only 12 degrees celsius?  Unheard of!  I could see his social expectations rising with the temperature.  Perhaps we wouldn’t be social lepers after all.

Alas, it was not to be.  We are a Spanish grandmother’s worst nightmare.

• Poorly shod foreign woman face up on dirty surface.
• A gravity defying,  hatless toddler.
• A baby eating hippy food off the ground.

They took one look at us and high-tailed it out of there, as fast as Grandma could push the vacuum-packed stroller in her high heels.

“Phillips or flat head?   She’s getting some mojo flowin’, is she?”

“Mojo?  That might be going a little far.  But she shaved her legs while I pelted her with rubber ducks last night.  I heard her say that she is finally starting to recover from three years of sleep deprivation.  Hmm, what do we have for bonding agents?”

“Glue gun or welding torch.  Sleep deprivation?  Isn’t that how they extracted illegal confessions from Guantanamo Bay prisoners?”

“Torch.  Thanks.  Sleep deprivation torture, complete with reduced cognitive performance and poor psychomotor functioning, exactly.  Just ask Mommy what’s for snack-time and girlfriend will tell you anything you wanna hear.  Jackhammer please.” 

“Why is she so tired?  Shall I check the tolerances?”

Please.  It’s the hourly breast-feeding sessions, dude.  But now that you have backed-off the boob at night she’s not cross-eyed in the morning.  Haven’t you noticed she isn’t wearing her pants inside-out as often anymore?  Pass the titanium.”

“Now that you mention it, I can’t remember the last time we wandered a parking lot aimlessly searching for the car.  So, do you think a rested Mommy, could be, like, witty?  Or efficient?  An interesting conversationalist?  I always took her as three potatoes short of a tortilla.     For example, this diaper bag is completely lacking in radioactive material.  Will a juice box do?”  

“Remind me to call the Russians this afternoon.  Anyway, a witty and intelligent Mommy may be a stretch, but she brushed her teeth today.  That has to be a good sign.  Careful you don’t snag a leg warmer on the hydraulics.  There!  All I need is a purple crayon and this puppy is as good as new.”

“Smooth legs, fresh breath.   Looking good, Mommy.  So, do you think there’s a chance of us getting another little brother out of this deal?”

“Don’t count on it, kid.”

Yago:  “Ya baby!  These winter beach days are the bomb!  Shades on, sand between the toes.  Pay attention kid, this is the life.”

Río:  “Whatever you say, bro.  I don’t have a clue what’s happening, but I’m your man.  So what’s the program?  Sand eating?  Shovel throwing?  General skin exfoliation?”

Río:  “Or how about I walk over there and bonk you on the head with this rake?”

Río:  “Dang, I haven’t really gotten the hang of this walking thing yet.”

Yago:  “You’re pulling a John Wayne, kid.  Get those legs together.  Look, this walking stuff is just physics.  Don’t sweat the low center of gravity, your ass is hardly off the ground.  Now.  Lower you leg-lever-length to weight ratio, maximize toe thrust and stick your tongue out.  That fine tunes the balance.

“Huh?”

“Sigh…  Kids these days.  Never listen to the voice of authority and reason.”

“F**k your toe thrust.  With my 4×4 speed I’ll hit the water before anyone catches me.”

The first step was to admit defeat.  Obviously, everything I was doing was crap.  Then, I enlisted the assistance of an expert.  Someone with recent and relevant experience.  Someone with skills clearly superior to mine.  Because success was instant.

And now, I just man the mop.

Right?

Hell no.  Over in Spain I still have to look at this.

No offense, baby Jesus, but I’ve seen enough of yo’ ass.  I need a change of nativity scene, so to speak.

Granted, our nativity scene saw a lot of action, but even Yago is bored with it now.

As nativity scenes go around here, ours was tiny, but it still occupied an entire table, plus compliments of Lego and Playmobile for over a month.  But I can’t complain.  Check out our friend, Fede’s.

His wife had to park on the street for a month while baby Jesus took over the garage.

This is the Algeciras municipal nativity scene.  Thanks to the crisis, it was significantly scaled down this year.

But they couldn’t do without “El Cagon.”  That’s right, “The Pooer”.  You can’t have a Spanish nativity scene without some guy taking a crap behind the stable.

And dude, I’ve seen enough of yo’ ass too.

Tomorrow is the big Christmas finale in Spain.  The Kings come with the graft and the calories come with the official holiday baked good, the Roscón.

I’m an improviser.  I chuck stuff in the bowl until it looks about right. I can eyeball 4 cups or a couple of tablespoons.  But Spanish recipes leave me baffled.  650 grams of flour?

No clue.  So I actually got the precision scale out today.  It goes against my principles, but for the sake of avoiding store-bought Roscón, I’ll sink to new lows of order.

I used the same recipe as last year.   The key of course is a healthy swig of Rum and orange blossom water.  Other than that it is just run of the mill sweet bread.

The other identifiable feature of Roscón is that it is decorated with candied fruit, something I never have on hand.    More improvisation.   This always amuses Rogelio, who cannot imagine Roscón anyway but “the official way”.   As a foreigner I am not confined by convention and tradition.  So mine has poppy seeds and dried cherries.

The shape didn’t turn out quite as pretty as last year.  And what in tarnation is oozing across my floor?    This year I have one more kid “helping ” me.  One more kid raining me with broccoli from the high chair.  One more kid hiding kitchen implements.

One more load of laundry every meal time.  And one lumpy Roscón.

I’m OK with that.  I like a clean kitchen, but that’s just not where I am in my life.  I have to choose.  I can have a clean kitchen or I can make dough with two kids, run off to a parade, then tag team bedtime with Papi during the aesthetic portion of my baking extravaganza.    So my Roscón looks a little, well, improvised.

But when the kids are asleep and if you don’t look at floor level, the Roscón tastes good,

and I’m OK with that.

So here’s one for the relatives.

Río outright refuses to eat anything pureed.  On a few occasions I have snuck a micro-spoonful of sweet potato in there, but that’s it.   No fruits, no veggies, no cereals of any kind.  He has survived almost ten months on breast milk and finger food, (which is perfectly healthy by the way.)

This is the only way he will eat.

This kid is destined to be a gourmet, or a caveman.

He locks down at the sight of rice cereal.  The lips seal in the presence of mushy pears.  But give him a hunk of something yummy and he goes to town.

And don’t think that he just sucked the juice off that chicken leg.  By the end the bone was cleaner than his face, but that’s not saying much.

Did I mention that this was breakfast?

Video below rated G for grandparents.

“There have to be some more chocolates around here somewhere. “