Spain Dad, a baby blog

I startled awake in the darkness, wrenched out a deep sleep. April bust into our bedroom shrieking my name. “There was a man in our apartment. Go after him,” April screamed as she pushed me towards the door. He’s got Alleke, I thought, as I flung open the front door and took the stairs. He [...]

Taking Alleke to the market is like imagining a world without money, where the only real currency is friendship. The market is a two-story brick building with probably fifty stalls inside where individual vendors sell fresh fruits and vegetables and meats, or in the case of our friend Antonio, cheeses. Antonio is an old bachelor [...]

this photo taken of Alleke at a friend’s house last year at this time At the one end of our living room that looks out over the street, we have two tall windows that stretch from the floor almost to the ceiling. We always leave them open, and when I say always, I mean even [...]

Shani wrenched the steering wheel and bumbled off the highway towards a gas station. She brought the car to a screeching halt, the doors sprung open, and all six of us scrambled out—as if the car were swarming with bees. In fact, Alleke had vomited in the car. She was too young to know to [...]

Yesterday I was talking to this French guy named Franck at the playground. He asked me how long I had lived in the neighborhood. “Three years,” I told him. “You must know most of these people then,” he said. I look around. “I don’t know any of them,” I said. We talked some more, and [...]

We put in a swimming pool. It’s been so hot we’ve been lying around the apartment like lizards, and even the thought of crossing the city to go to the swimming pool sounds as savage as walking on hot coals. April was hanging laundry on the roof the other day and realized we were thinking [...]

A Young Entrepreneur on a Hot Day at Portland State by rachaelvoorhees. All you need to know to understand my neighborhood is that today when I took Alleke down to the playground, there were two little girls who had set up a little stand—not a lemonade stand, as perhaps I would have expected, but a [...]

I collapsed on the couch. I had been unpacking boxes all morning. The stack of cardboard by the front door was my witness, and Alleke, who had stood by my side watching. To her, I was the magician, pulling things from our old house out of a box. From the couch, I could see the [...]

I was in an Ecuadorian restaurant decorated like the inside of a boat, eating a fried banana and talking with friends, when I happened to glance over and notice that Alleke had squatted down next to the table and was pulling money and credit cards out of an open wallet. I looked around the room. [...]

Thursday afternoon April and I sat down with our calendar. It wasn’t until after we circled dates that we realized we were booked solid for three weeks. We had close friends visiting from Sevilla and the US, a weekend in the mountains, a work trip, and we were moving to a new apartment. Each event [...]