Travel Diary - Day Four

Day Four

OK, not sure if I want to own up to this one, but here goes. I arrived at the airport in time, although I was getting worried that I would be late and that wasn’t a good feeling! Made my way up to the counter, handed over my passport and ticket information to find out that I was a day early – I really did have a whole extra day. AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

To back up a little, one of the buttons on my watch isn’t working so I couldn’t change the time to Argentina time. So I bought a cheap, $20 watch so I could have proper time – especially important given the last couple of days. What I didn’t realise was that I managed to accidentally set the date wrong – I mean what digital watch these days expects you to set the day and the date separately?? Whatever, my bad. That meant that when I looked at my new watch the date was a day ahead. I didn’t check my laptop because I hadn’t got around to changing the time and date – figured I would leave that ‘til I got to Guyana. The guy who checked my ticket so he could ring the taxi didn’t notice, not that I blame him, it was my fault all the way.

Sooo…an early morning trip to the airport and then another back again, for the grand total of $78. What a waste of time and money! So I’m sitting here writing this up waiting for another taxi. I’m kind of pleased I’m leaving tonight – there is something of a party going on in the room next door and I’m not sad to be missing trying to sleep through it.

Otherwise it has been an OK day. I slept until 10. Had a shower and breakfast and then headed into town for a bit more sightseeing. Decided that the weather would be OK so didn’t take my $6 umbrella or my hat – bad call, but we’re over it. Took the train to a station I hadn’t tried before and found myself next to Plaza de Mayo – named for the date of Argentina’s independence from Spain. (On the topic of independence and other war related thoughts you might like to look at what I have posted on my blog. It’s a work in progress but some stuff worth thinking about.) On arriving I could hear a band playing and thinking that sounded interesting I wandered in the general direction to find large numbers of riot police and barriers arrayed around the Plaza, and I was in between. Fortunately, no-one else seemed in the slightest bit concerned and I just followed people who were clearly about their business and wound my way out as quickly as I could without running. Acutally the band was quite good and as I did a rotation of the block so I could look from a distance a large demonstration marched into the Plaza. Well it looked large to me, maybe a few thousand people. They were all waving flags but seemed pretty relaxed from where I could see.

I walked around and into the big Cathedral that sits on the square. I could watch from there while having a ready avenue of retreat. It got uninteresting pretty quickly so I spent some time wandering around the Cathedral. Some beautiful art and a really great ‘Stations of the Cross’. Nice to be in a peaceful space like that. After that I wandered around some of the side streets before making my way to the other side of the Plaza. On the way I crossed the road behind the demonstration as it wended its way off into the distance. The place looked like it had snowed from all the paper on the ground – turned out, at least from my non-existent Spanish, that it was an election campaign. Makes our elections look rather tame!

I managed to find my way from there to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral and had a wander through that. Remarkable how similar to the Roman Catholic and yet how different. It would be good, with plenty of time to go through the two a few more times and ponder the similarities and differences. If only I had all the time in the world J. Just across the road was a restaurant where I could use my Visa card – useful because after last night’s escapade I was nearly out of pesos. Waved my finger at the menu without having any idea what it would bring to find I had ordered this amazing chicken and bacon and vegetable dish that was exquisitely cooked and came with a drink as well. All for 25 pesos – just under $10. NICE!

By then it had started to rain so I found my way up to a subway station, another one I hadn’t visited and came back to the hotel. Got here in time to ring Ruth and the kids before they went to work/school. Missed Tim – he needs to get out of bed earlier!!J!! Then went down to pay for the phone call and nearly had a heart attack at paying $75 for 16 minutes. Last time I’ll call anyone from a hotel! But I remember Dad telling me a long time ago that whatever it costs, you ring. So I did. And I think it was worth every penny – Tim you had better be up next time!!!

So I slept for a while, wrote for a while, read for a while, watched a movie on TV, went out to get some pizza, or something like it, not sure what you would really call it, booked my taxi and here I am. Much less stressed than last night, that’s for sure. In the end a pretty good day. Hmmm, that’s an improvement from what I wrote earlier. That’s good.

Travel Diary - Day Three

Day Three

Well…got up at 7:15 to catch the train at 8am. Found that breakfast wasn’t ready that early. Took the train – three different lines, and caught the wrong one for the third line. Fortunately the stop I got off at was only 10min walk and I got there with time to spare. Then wanted breakfast – I broke my unspoken rule to only eat Argentinian because Burger King was the only thing near enough to get there and back before the tour bus arrived. In the end it was OK because a BK breakfast amounted to $2.30 for two small, sweet croissants and a cup of coffee. Dumped the coffee and the croissants weren’t too bad, and it wasn’t BK as we know it so I’m still counting it as Argentinian.

The tour traipsed us around the city – I had seen large sections of it in my wanderings yesterday. I would have enjoyed it more but the tour guide’s voice grated somewhat. Oh well…anyway, for those who like statistics, the city proper has 3 million people living in it with 12 million in the greater BA region. They have 44 thousand taxi cabs, and sometimes it looks like it too! The world’s widest avenue is 144m wide – with the traffic you just about need a taxi to cross it. And one of the streets we went on has 14 lanes in places, and it is one way!!!! Give me Dunedin traffic any day!

The ‘All day tour’ finished at 12:30pm and we were given the choice of being dropped off back at the hotel or being left in town. We had just gone past the national Museum of Fine Arts so I elected to stay there and went for a wander. The Museum was pretty good, but I was rather hungry by then and probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I might have. I could have caught a bus into the middle of the city but I started walking and didn’t stop until I got there.

Having managed to get my time differences thoroughly mixed up yet again I called home to get a very dozy Ruth complaining about me calling at 5:15am. Duh! Again!! Still, at least I got someone this time. I carried on walking for a while until I found a shop that sold hotdogs – well not really as we know them, but near enough. All sorts of weird sauces and the bread was sweet. Seems to be a thing here – nearly all of the bread is sweet – not my thing really.

Caught the train (using the Subte) and managed to get confused by the directions – I must be suffering from jetlag – it’s been two days and I am still confused by the signs in the subway stations, and that’s NOT just because they’re in Spanish either! Finally found my way back to the hotel and had time for a nap before my Tango lesson (makes me sound old).

The lesson was fun, the basic Tango is quite simple, it gets harder from there, and from there we went into dinner. Our meal began about 8:45pm and the show started at 10pm. The steak was 3cm thick and tasted great and the show was fantastic. I thought it would just be a bunch of dancing but they had made a story of it (no idea what the story was because it was all in Spanish, but it looked like it was a good one, and all the Spanish speaking guests seemed to enjoy it). The dancing was superb and they had all of us in on it at one point or another, much to our surprise I might add.

The show finished at 11pm and I settled in to go to sleep before thinking I might just check my flight times. Just as well – I had in my head I had another day here – would have been nice, but turned out that I had a plane to catch in 4 hours. Whoops! That was a close call. Can’t leave me anywhere!!! So I rushed down to the office which seems to have someone around at all hours of the night and they booked me a taxi to the airport and then I ducked upstairs to pack. In the end I had plenty of time – at least enough to write this great essay and watch most of a movie as well. Still, I don’t think I want to make that kind of mistake too often, it could have been seriously embarrassing.

But it wasn’t and it isn’t, at least not as long as I don’t think about it too much. And it’s all good and in a few minutes I have a taxi to catch. Just enough time to send this and get underway. Doubt I’ll write much before I get to Guyana so it might be a day or so till then.

Travel Diary - Day Two

Day Two

What a day! Decided to walk to town, had walked around 2km in the rain before I realised I was going the wrong way. Walked most of that back, following an abortive attempt to hire a cab – the driver couldn’t speak English and couldn’t explain why he wouldn’t take me where I wanted to go. It did highlight something I have noticed though. I explain to people that I don’t understand Spanish and then spend the next couple of minutes listening to a stream of Spanish explaining everything I wanted to know, at least I think that’s what they’re saying, they could just be abusing me, but I guess, what I don’t know mostly won’t hurt me J

I finally came across a railway station and after some help from a student who spoke as much English as I speak Spanish managed to find my way into one of the major shopping plazas. I had a lovely time finding my way around, had a great meal for about $6.80 (half of that was for the 500ml bottle of water – I think I’ll take my own from now on). Bought some clothes for the Tango lesson, dinner and show that I’m going to tomorrow. Got back mid-afternoon and chilled out for a couple of hours. Then I headed back to the railway station to find my long-promised steak dinner. On the way I thought I would try and ring Ruth and the kids. Duh! Had my times completely wrong and couldn’t understand why no-one would answer the phone. Found an amazing steak dinner – a huge piece of meat with a mustard sauce that was quite exceptional. It came with potatoes in creamed spinach which were rather delightful all on their own. And all this for less than $NZ20. I love this place!!

Having said that, I have to admit that if I was staying for much longer I would be heading to a language school – it is so frustrating not understanding what people are saying. I am picking things up as I go, but there are an awful lot of words that zoom past without a hint of me understanding what is being said.

After dinner I continued to wander and came across a market that went for well over a kilometre and I didn’t even walk the full length. It was amazing what was laid out for display, although it was also amazing just how many stalls had the exact same stuff on them. I picked up a couple of knick-knacks but mostly it was just fascinating wandering along, looking at the wares and watching the people in the act of selling them. I must have a dose of my father in me…

Found my way back to the train station – the place is all well marked and as I have gradually got my bearings I can see that it is pretty easy to get around, although the bus system is quite out of my ken at this point of things. It probably will still be out there when I leave – the trains are good for what I want and the station is only 150m down the road from where I am staying.

My biggest disappointment, though not surprise, is that while the leather goods here, especially the leather jackets are much cheaper than in NZ they are still well out of my price range. Oh well. I wasn’t really expecting much else.

So a big day tomorrow – I have an all day tour followed by Tango lesson, posh dinner and Tango show. Should be good!!!

Travel Diary - Day One

Day One

As trips go, not particularly eventful. The plane from Dunedin was delayed 30 minutes on the tarmac to take on extra fuel. Then the plane in Auckland was delayed 2 hours for who knows what reason. I did get to see a whole lot of old friends for the short time I was in Papakura. It was the local Boys Brigade 60^th Anniversary and there were lots of people I hadn’t seen in a long time. That was good.

Back to the plane, we finally boarded a little after 8pm. The plane was packed full. I had been given a window seat and when I got there a lady had already made herself at home. I couldn’t be bothered making anything of it and in the end that was a good thing because it was much easier to get up and wander around from there. Her name was Vanessa and it turned out she had done a theology degree, had taught English in Japan and was heading to BA with the thought of doing the same thing there. We covered some pretty deep theology as we went and easily filled three hours of conversation. Most of the rest of the flight was spent sleeping or reading.

Arriving in BA and processing through customs was a piece of cake – they didn’t even look at my luggage. I found a bus/taxi combo to get me to my hotel – just under $20 for a 75min bus ride and then a shared taxi. The most interesting sight from the bus, apart from all the motorcyclists in shorts and t-shirts and no helmet, was hundreds of people picnicking on the green belts beside the motorway – and that includes the green bits in the cloverleaf areas. The taxi ride was something else – why pay for a roller coaster ride when you can travel by taxi in BA! Whew! But it was definitely fun.

My hotel room is rather nice and even has a couple of TV channels in English with Spanish subtitles. I don’t think it would take all that long to learn the language if I was going to be here any length of time. There are enough similarities to English and sufficient translations all over the place that I would pick it up fairly quickly. The great thing about my room is that it has an airconditioner. I enjoy the heat (it was 33° when we arrived) but having it a little cooler to sleep is definitely a good point.

Dinner, at 9pm, was pizza from a pizzeria just around the corner from the hotel. Good pizza, if a little much – a very similar setup to what Ruth and I experienced in Rome – you could order a piece of ready cooked pizza that was then heated up for you, or you could order a full pizza. The pizza was good and the chef was a rugby fanatic who wanted to talk about the Pumas and the All Blacks and how the All Blacks were the greatest team on the planet – he obviously hasn’t been following the Tri-nations recently!

The bed is decent – I’ll have no problem sleeping on it while I’m here. The only real hassle so far is that a button on my watch has died and I can’t change the time – just means I have to constantly covert – not a major, I may even just go without for a few days, but a pain nonetheless.

Phew! It's been a while. Been a lot on and a lot to think about. Here's some notes I made for my PhD last week...

Bringing all this to a practical level raises the very real problem of dealing with change how the church in its broader sense deals with changing cultural expectations, differing interpretations of what is ‘normal’, increasingly powerful advocacy on the part of minority groups, rapidly moving patterns of socialisation, radical economic and political swings, and much more. When tied in with the challenges that are brought with new theological approaches to old problems, changing expectations of how the church should look and feel, constant change in how professional ministers are trained, demand for greater participation in leadership, to mention just a few current topics of conversation it becomes clear that a point of liminality has been reached that cannot be ignored.[1] The impact of this upon the church in terms of church planting is to cast doubt on how things have been done in the past and to raise questions about what the church might have to offer to society both institutionally and socially.

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[1] Alan J. Roxburgh, The Missionary Congregation, Leadership and Liminality (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 38-9. Roxburgh develops the idea of liminality in relation to society as a whole, that there is no longer any fixed point of reference, of a central point that can be used to gain meaning.

Disassembling vs. Definition

The most obvious question to ask at this point is whether it is really necessary to have a ‘Kiwi approach’ to mission, to church, to being Christian? A number of authors would suggest a definite yes to this question. Stetzer uses a very ‘Star Trek’ kind of image when he talks about the missional church, “disassembling itself and seeping into the cracks and crevices of a society.”[1] The implication here is that the role of the church is less that of attempting to maintain a defence against the cultural enemy without and more of carrying the Gospel into society, finding every way possible to deliver the message of hope to as many as possible.

The other side of the coin here is that the church is called to be different to the society into which it moves.[2] A church that becomes indefinable from its surroundings is no longer able to offer a message of hope different to any other message because it has ceased to set itself apart to follow Christ. As a result it becomes merely another club or sports team, practicing on a Sunday morning for a game that will never eventuate.

Wright suggests a balance that may be found in the ability to hear new meanings of the Lordship of Christ arise when the Gospel message is brought into a new context.[3] The insights brought by people reading the biblical texts from within their own context both enable those people to find their own voice within the church and help the church to hear God speaking fresh insight into their understanding of God’s word.[4] This becomes possible when the church is sure of who it is in Christ and learns to listen to the surrounding community. The ability to differentiate as the people of God while retaining a two way relationship of trust will enable the church to develop a learning attitude toward its community.[5]

[1] Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville, Tenn.: B&H Pub. Group, 2006), 162. The Replicators were foes of the Star Trek crew and able to assemble and disassemble to suit the situation. Fearsome adversaries partly due to the speed with which they could respond to changes in their environment. Not an entirely unsuitable image for the strength of a flexible church.
[2] Lois Y. Barrett, ed. Treasures in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,2004), 165. The church understands that it is in part defined by its conformity to Christ and that this necessarily requires difference, even challenge to the culture of the society in which it exists.
[3] Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Nottingham: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 46.
[4] Ibid., 39. The challenge Wright brings here is to be continually growing and moving on in our understanding of the Biblical texts and in how we allow those texts to shape our action.
[5] Virginian Todd Holeman and Stephen L. Martyn, Inside the Leader's Head: Unraveling Personal Obstacles to Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008), 108. Holeman and Martyn are speaking at an individual level here but it seems that the basic principle of maintaining a clear sense of self while engaging in a trust relationship is equally applicable to a church. The challenges remain similar in both cases and the benefits are equally similar.

Inside my head

I've been reading an interesting book this week. It's called, 'Inside the Leader's head.' (1) I guess for a lot of people it probably doesn't do much but I found it helpful to be reminded about a few aspects of how we work together as people, and in particular as leaders.

The book looks at aspects of leadership that cause stress and anxiety. The main culprit is something called triangulation. Simply put that's where when two people have an issue with each other one or both of them involve a third person as a buffer or to take the pressure off or go into bat for them. It's a way of avoiding responsibility and transferring attention away from the person at the centre of the problem.

The book suggests there are two main approaches to dealing with triangulation. Differentiation is the ability to be self-aware, to understand when we are under stress and feeling anxious and to be able to take a step back from the situation and deal with it in a non-anxious, deliberate way. It is not being absorbed by the other, nor is it cutting the other off but it is finding the balance that hangs somewhere in between.

The second approach could be seen as the opposite to differentiation - attachment. It is the ability to trust and be trusted by the other. The book makes the point that attachment and differentiation are not polar opposites and that real health requires a balance of both. There's obviously much more to it all and I found it a helpful reminder that I have a responsibility to be aware of who I am, and what is going on in my head in stressful situations. It's a challenge, but not a bad one...

(1) Holeman, V.G., Martyn, S.L., Inside the Leader's Head: Unraveling Person Obstacles to Ministry, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2008.