paraglider vs. baby

Going to the town center to buy food and everything else, I’m reminded of how different this place is to where we live.  The Home Depot, Costco and our local Super markets sell tens of thousands of items each.  Yet when you’re there, you can’t find an employee to save your life (especially in the Home Depot).  In a larger Mercado in Chile it is much different.  Many of the markets specialize in one area, so you aren’t going to find food and clothes like in Costco or plants and tools like in Home Depot.  Your definitely not going to find the volume and/or variety of stuff sold in these markets.   Yet, today I had a hard time maneuvering down the isles due to the sheer amount of employees cleaning, selling and working in various capacities.  It seems that Chile doesn’t want to “downsize” their employee base to increase their profits.  Maybe this is a key to the success they are experiencing in the global market.  Everybody has a job here.  It’s amazing!  Perhaps we can learn something from these emerging markets.

On a personal note, we are struggling with how best to travel with a baby and a paraglider.  It appears the paraglider has taken a back seat to the baby.  We just flew up to Iquique, a paradise for paraglider pilots, boasting some of the best flying in the world.  However, I had to send my paraglider here via snail mail because the airlines could only accommodate a certain amount of weight.  Baby clothes, toys and pac-n-play win, my paraglider lost.   Oh well, it should show up in a couple of days and I’ll be flying once again.

Jaden is doing okay.  I’d be lying if I said that he loves sleeping in new places every few days or weeks.  Kate and I are starting to get really excited about settling into a place for a few months.  Kate especially.  She’s been doing a tremendous job keeping this little baby happy and asleep at night.  He’s been waking a lot lately and we’re hoping that this all settles down as soon as we settle down. 

He is an amazingly resilient boy though.  His vocabulary is simply taking off.  He now points up into the air and says airplane.  He also knows the parts of his face: eyes, ears, mouth, and teeth.  These little things bring joy to our lives and we love watching him excel even in the difficult situations of travel.  He’s learning patience, acceptance and a lot more that I can’t even imagine.   I’m so happy to get to spend so much time with him at this point in his life.