Entries by JavaJ

I apologize for not posting anything in a while, but we've been working on our new web page for the business, Baby Siena Wines. In addition to building the new site, it was a real PITA porting the blog over from Serendipity to Wordpress. Originally I chose Serendipity because it had a lot of things out of the box that Wordpress didn't. But WP has largely caught up, and Serendipity has stagnated. Just goes to show you, in tech as anything else, shortcuts upfront will cost you in the long run.

So from here on out we are forking the blogs. The new blog, which will focus on the business and on wine, is at http://babysienawines.com/. This blog will be more family and travel orientated, and will probably get more random. Thanks for all your warm wishes, and we look forward to keeping you more updated now that the new blog is up and running.

-J.

Well it was a long week here in Mendoza. It started out on Saturday, when Siena had a slight temperature. After a nap where Mom went to check the Internet (we have no internet at our apartment), Siena woke up with a high fever. Luckily, we had just signed up for health insurance. Like most countries, Argentina has "free" medical care. However, though the doctors are quite good, like many things here in Argentina, the hospitals and infrastructure are severely underfunded. I will try not to turn this into a free market rant, but basically the private market has stepped in with additional options. The obvious drawback of which is that most Argentines can't afford it. However, from our perspective, with baby in tow, it was important for us to have the best possible medical care and coverage we could afford. This piece of mind is not only for us, but also for our friends and family who worry about Baby Siena.

So we signed up for the 210 plan from OSDE. In exchange for our monthly premium, we pretty much get full coverage, emergency care in neighboring countries, and 40% off already cheap drugs. It also includes basic dental and vision, and did I mention there is absolutely no deductible? So what does this kind of medical coverage run us here in Argentina? About $260 USD a month for the whole family!

Naturally Siena, who is a master of timing anyways, decided it would be a good time to get sick. So after her fever passed 100, we called the number in the book for “urgencies.” They asked us a few short questions, then asked to verify our address was correct. Apparently they pulled our account up immediately from the caller ID. They said they would send a doctor out to our apartment in about 2 hours. Yes, house calls are included too.

When the doctor arrived, she made a diagnosis and basically prescribed us the local equivalent of children’s Tylenol. We were worried that she didn’t prescribe antibiotics, but Siena seemed to be in overall good spirits, and the doctor was adamant there was no infection, (Siena had been tugging on her ears) but prescribed a home solution of sterile water and alcohol to clean her ears.

She told us to call her if Siena was still sick in 2 days, but just as we were starting to really get scared, Siena’s fever broke and she recovered quickly. All in all, it was a little scary as this was the first time she had been sick (and she is almost one year), but we had great peace of mind that with our insurance she would have the best care available.

After Siena was well, we headed out to explore Mendoza a little more. We walked by a meat market that was full of locals. I have learned to keep my mouth shut when I walk into a store in Argentina, as the price usually goes up the more I talk. I simple said “hola” and asked how much for a bottle of water in pretty good accented Spanish. Due to my dark complexion, I can sometimes pass for someone of a vague Latino background as long as I don’t say too much. The man quoted me the locals price, about half of what the American price usually is. However, when he rang me up (on his Windows based POS system I might add) he apologized for not having the .40 pesos change (about 10 cents) and instead handed me a receipt and a small silver wrapped candy. There is a shortage of change here in Argentina, as often happens historically when the value of a currency falls precipitously passed the value of the metal that makes up the coins. So with an amused smile we thanked him and went outside.

When I opened the candy to eat it, I discovered that it was in fact a bullion cube. Well, that makes sense, as it was a butcher shop. At about a dime, I think I came out ahead on this particular transaction. But that is very Argentina. That night I made a delicious bean soup.

So Jen and I wrapped up our trip to Santiago, knowing we had decided on moving to Mendoza, but also that we would likely be back. On that note, we met with Derek Mossman of MOVI, a group of independent winemakers. We met at his house where he poured for us some of his wines from Garage Wine Co and we talked about the Chilean vs. Argentine wine industry. The trippy thing was, that at some point we talked about earthquakes, and I made the ominous comment that I thought Chile was about due for one.

Well sure enough, a very large earthquake did in fact strike Chile. It was so large, that despite being on the other side of the Andes, we felt it pretty good over here in Mendoza, Argentina. Luckily, we had flown from Santiago to Mendoza a mere 12 hours before it struck, but we had very nearly stayed another day in Santiago.

Having grown up in California and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for ten years, I was no stranger to earthquakes. I woke up to the slight tapping of our hanging closet doors. I must have sensed something was wrong, because I looked over at the window, where sometimes the wind blew in and made the same noise. The curtain wasn't moving, there was no wind. I bounced up and then I heard a car alarm, confirming my suspicion it was an earthquake. I grabbed baby, woke up mom and we went to the closest doorway, where we sat through an agonizingly long 2-3 minutes of the floors waving and the walls shearing. I tried to make light of it, and downplayed how bad I thought it was for Jen. Siena, born and raised (until now) in San Francisco, slept through the whole thing, and even a diaper change in between aftershocks.

Being from California, we didn't bother going back to bed until after the first aftershock. It wasn't too bad, so we went back bed. We woke up for the second aftershock, looked up at the light fixture gently rocking, and went back to sleep again.

The next day we went to the Internet cafe, and tried sending emails, Facebook updates, and so on, so our family would know we were okay. Internet was spotty, as the quake seemed to have knocked out some lines.

We also reached out to our friends in Chile, all of whom thankfully are okay. Matias, of Espresso Bar Cafe reports that there was no damage where he was. Derek was not so lucky, as he writes about here, but the most important thing is that his family is safe.

We are filled with a sense of wanting to help. We haven't figured out how exactly yet, but I'm sure Derek from MOVI can point us in the right direction.

In the meantime, we urge you to please buy that Chilean wine or organic Chilean strawberries the next time you are in the store. In this small way, you can contribute to rebuilding Chile.