Dácil walks

I just received this video an hour ago from Dácil’s school and I would like to share it immediately. Dácil walks without support through the corridors of her school in Madrid.

Dácil on the bus

We don´t use public transportation much with Dácil. We usually take our car and since I quit my regular job, I can drive Jorge and Dácil to the airport when they fly to Madrid and pick Jorge up when he gets back. Same the other way around: Jorge drives me and picks us both up when Dácil comes over for the weekend.

But our Amsterdam-Underworld-Madrid weekend was different and so we had no private ride back home from the airport with Dácil. However, TITSA was right there for us. The Puerto de la Cruz Airport express arrived just as we exited the airport and I even had a charged bus card in my wallet!

Dácil was sooooooo excited! She loved the sounds, the humming, the vibration of the seats…

I remember when Yone was small, whenever I had an afternoon off with him, I´d just hop on a bus in Amsterdam Noord and we´d drive in a full circle, enjoying the scenery. He used to love it too.

Yone´s many outfits

Yone´s gone from not caring at all what he´s wearing, which was pre-adolescence, 10/11/12/13-ish, unlike all of his classmates who were all very concerned about their looks, to his morning routine being choosing the right knot (windsor, half windsor) to go with the right tie.

Although his carelessness when it comes to fashion at an early age is not quite accurate: he did love to dress up “chique” as he called it, for special occasions.

And then there is an extra twist to fashion we have here in the Canaries: Carnival! THE dress up party of the year.

Here are some examples of Yone´s sense of couture (including carnival outfits):

This is his tie drawer

8 March

We are a family of feminists. Which means nothing more, and nothing less than celebrating equality between all genders. Just some random photos of Dácil as our feminine beacon. She is the most feminist of us all, as she is unaware and pure, and (hopefully) believes and trusts the world to be a place of peace, comfort and equality.

Dácil is 16!

We celebrated a day early as she was flying back to Madrid and will celebrate her birthday there. So double cake, double birthday song and double presents! What´s not to like about that?

Dácil is ready for 2024

Merry Christmas

It´s been a bit of an ordeal rounding up the family for our Christmas photo. Ideally and as planned, we were supposed to have our picture taken on the day we drew names for our 3 kings secret santa. Secret King? But I forgot. I did. It just slipped my mind, we were all together, there was family to take our picture, instead of having to rely on the self timer, Dácil was in town… It could have been great. But it didn´t happen. So next possibility was 2 days before Christmas, at Dácil´s return from Madrid for the holidays. First we had to wait for Yone to be home… Our first attempt was not bad, but not good enough. Dácil was great, which is rare for a first photo. Ama was looking pretty and happy too. And so was I. However, Yone was squinting and looked like he had just smoked 3 joints, Jorge had his eyes closed and Milka was hiding behind Dácil.

So we repeated next day. We had Virgilio take the picture, which was not ideal as we had no idea if he was actually pressing any buttons… Anyway, the family Christmas photo is never ideal. But ever year we manage, somehow.

Dácil on the beach

I’m trying to take Dácil to the beach at least once every time she’s over for the weekend. It’s a fifty minute drive, and as it’s located south of the mountain range, the weather is usually sunny. She enjoys the drive in the car, we put on some music, she loves the sand and she starts undressing herself and me the moment she hits the towel so we can go swim. Last weekend the water was really quite chilly, but we went in anyway. After some sunbathing she had ice cream and we drove back. Just in time for lunch…

Yone 19

Just the way he likes it: nothing too fancy, good food, some friends and family and some local wine. He was going to be sung to by the choir but guess what: the boy has a job. He has to go to work, choir rehearsals are on hold.

So that’s how one leaps into a new year. Full speed ahead.

Come on Barbie, let´s go party

The kids are off to watch Barbie in style

Summer Beach Vibes

Las Teresitas beach is just ideal for Dácil. No waves, no currents, no stones but sand and she can stand in the water. There are disadvantages too: it´s usually very windy. And sunny. And full. Windiness is measured in 2 stages of annoyance. There is an acceptable windiness, when it´s just too windy to put up a parasol, so you get scorched by the sun which you don´t immediately notice because of the lovely refreshing wind. And then there is unacceptable windiness which is the croquette type, when you get breaded by the fine loose sand.

This morning was acceptably windy. Not a chance of making some shade, so we just got into the water, stayed in for a good 40 minutes, and then got out, dried ourselves and left for home.

Dácil in summer mode

The full Dácil summer experience is a mixture of some driving in the car (which she loves), ice cream, music (either on headphones or with hearing aids and loud festival sound systems), beach and swimming (pool and ocean).

Lucky for her, all of this is available within reach.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are always topped with watermelon and chorizo.

Visits to Ama are a daily routine, after breakfast. Or we just take Ama along on a shopping trip and finish with ice cream and wine in La Laguna:

Tenerife beaches and “charcos” (natural lava pools):

Dácil absolutely loves to go the the local hardware store. We touch the different carpets, we drum on the buckets with paint, we rummage through chains and screws and wheels…

And then there are the musical summer festivals… We started taking Dácil to outdoor musical venues because she just loves a potent beat. The Canarias Jazz festival is an anual festival with a number of free concerts in Puerto de la Cruz. First time we took Dácil, basically because we all wanted to go and there was no one else to stay home with her, was when Maceo Parker played in Puerto de la Cruz. Dácil had a blast and so did we… Since then she´s a regular jazz festival goer!

CRE 2022-2023

A whole school year in pick-up selfies

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Sònar

Sònar is an anual music festival in Barcelona which celebrated its 30th edition this year in June 2023.

Ever since Jorge and I moved to Amsterdam, and ever since our first house party together in the Amsterdam Silo near the docks, in Februray 1996, with the people that would become our Amsterdam family, we started to become interested in techno, house music and all sorts of electronic music. Sònar quickly became a festival to visit, however, we never did…

Now, after all these years, Jorge suggested we´d make use of the fact Dácil was in Madrid the weekend of Sònar (dates are always fixed a year before and don´t usually vary much: mostly on or around my birthday) and he bought us tickets last year as a birthday present. We got the 3-day pass in September last year: for us and Yone.

There´s just no way to describe the feeling of going to a house festival with your son… It´s amazing. And I hope there will be many more parties to come; although our life lines are slowly growing apart. As he grows towards his prime, we are slowly decaying… Anyway, I´m guessing we still have some dancing in us.

We picked Yone up at the airport on Thursday afternoon. Jorge and I travelled by train from Madrid the previous day and checked in in a cute little apartment for 3 in Hospitalet de Llobregat. We spent the evening walking through town and picked up our Sònar passes: bracelet with personalized QR code for entrance and consumption on one of the check points at the Sònar by Day venue near Montjüic.

Sònar is divided into Day and Night and they both take place on different locations. Sònar by Day is downtown and lasts until about 10 pm. Sònar by Night is more remote, busses and public transportation take you there easily. The night sessions last until 7 am.

Us being elderly, we pretty much died after 1 Sònar by Day, home for change of clothes and shower, 1 Sònar by Night, home at 5 am, Barcelona sightseeing next day and another Sònar by Day… Yone´d have gone to the next Night but as we had to check out the next day by 11, we thought it sensible to skip the last night. Surprisingly we weren´t the oldest nor the only ones above 50… Lots of Old Skool generation around. We even spotted other parents with their young adults.

Best compliment on my birthday: During the Aphex Twin show I was dancing next to a girl, around 20 something-ish, dressed in black, pretty, white complexion, tattoo´s… I was wearing my Doc Martens, mini homemade denim skirt and 30 year old favourite house party G-Sus Sindustries t-shirt with open back (it´s a miracle it hasn´t fallen apart). The show was nearly 2 hours. When it finished the girl and I said goodbye and she said in English: when I´m your age, I want to be like you…

Sònar 2024 tickets are on sale…

Mueca 2023

Mueca is an annual street art festival in Puerto de la Cruz, attracting lots of people to the city during one weekend in May.

Dácil was at home during this weekend so we decided to take her out on a stroll and look for some musical venues.

She fell asleep in the car during the drive down town and carried on sleeping in her wheelchair. She didn’t wake up at the folk song guitar and voice manu chao-ish duo, so we moved onto the dance+sign language show. Beautiful performance but not enough beat to the music according to Dácil…

On our way back we visited some friends at the arts&crafts market and that was where we found a big wooden panel with pots and pans stuck to it and a big speaker with loud South American music. Children could rhythmically bang the pots with spoons and sticks.

Once Dácil had a go she refused to leave. After a while we took her away from it as to go home, but when she noticed the volume getting fainter she turned around and started walking back in the direction of the sound. We spent a good 40 minutes at the thing… Best performance at Mueca 2023!!!

Dácil home for a long weekend

We´ve been overwhelmed by sadness and mourning last month. It doesn´t look like it´s going to go away soon, but it can´t keep numbing us forever.

So here´s an uplifting post of Dácil´s long weekend at home. Monday May 1st was a bank holiday and Dácil went back on Tuesday evening, so we really had time to enjoy her presence. On top of that the weather was spectacular and I had the weekend off, so we really took the most of the weekend.

We went on a “hike” with tía Luna and Yayo and Milka, near Garachico, along a biking path, all beautifully paved and straight. Then off to lunch and after that a siesta on the beach and a swim in the (cold) Atlantic.

Leo

A kind, pure, beautiful soul.

We never knew the depths of your torments.

I hope you are right Leo, you deserve that better place.

I just wish you´d seen it was right here.

Thank you for saving us all.

2005 – 2023

San José

Famous for being Jesus’ father… Or rather stepfather.

In Spain we celebrate fathers day on St. Josef’s nameday. Quite appropriate I suppose.

Last year we were fortunate enough to get all the Sosas together for Abuelo Pepe’s birthday (and nameday and fathers day). Little did we know it would be his last.

Jorge received his traditional hand painted t-shirt, a tradition which dates back to when Yone painted sharks and boats: Blogpost June 2009

This year we are lucky to have Dácil with us. Yone is in bed with the flu so he didn’t partake in the festive lunch, but Ama did and behaved extremely well.

Dácil goes shopping

She loves a stroll and a shopping cart…

Her tutor sent us this video from the weekend; they took the kids to the mall. She told me: all she needs is the shopping list and some money and you can leave her to it… Lots of fun!!!

Dácil hears, once more…

Dácil has new hearing aids

Our history with hearing aids has been a long and bumpy road. Maybe even a rollercoaster with ups and downs…

The first time she wore her BAHA (bone anchored hearing aid) was in november 2008. She was 10 months old. https://sosacorduwener.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/dacil-tiene-baha/

She was quite consistent in wearing it and hearing with it, and we didn´t have any big issues with it

https://sosacorduwener.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/dacil-hoort-weer/

(asides from taking it with us – illegally – to Tenerife when we moved, having to send it back, and get a new one fitted here), until she was in her previous school, with little professional assistance, loud classes and probably a lot of unpleasant noise… She ended up taking it off and drowning it in her soup, more than once…

Needless to say we were a wee bit reluctant when we got a call from the audiologist about a new appointment… It was due. Yes it was. But all went well, and the audiologist suggested a normal hearing aid, not a bone anchored one, as those hadn´t really given the results we expected. So Dácil got measured up, and injected with silicone, and all went well. And when she was home on the previous weekend we decided to give them a try:

during breakfast, eating pancakes, when she´d be entertained and less eager to fiddle with them or take them off, and god forbid throw them through the living room…

We tried them several times, all with success. Jorge and I left instructions for speech therapists and teachers at the CRE and off she went with her new hearing aids.

Situations have gotten louder and louder! Singing, screaming, morning walks with traffic and drills and heavy machinery outside the school have all been accepted. So we´re advancing and going forward!!

Yone

We spent the afternoon in Playa San Juan with Yone´s friend Leo and his parents and I took my new camera with me. Just felt like sharing this photo of Yone:

Dácil is 15!

An unusual celebration this year, as her birthday was on a Sunday, and precisely the Sunday she was in Madrid, and not home.

So we decided she could have two birthdays. Why not!! In Madrid they sang to her and she had cake, so there was definitely lots of birthday spirit!

And there is just 1 thing better than a birthday celebration: 2 birthday celebrations!

So I baked a spongy cheese cake this morning, and we sang and had cake and gave her a doll which emits very weird sounds at completely random moments. The box states that the sounds should resemble kisses… anyway, the doll must definitely suffer from some kind of gastric anomaly…

Dácil was home for Christmas

17 Days of holiday joy at home! She spent a lot of time with Ama, as both Jorge and I worked, but we thoroughly enjoyed our time together with the whole family.

We took walks. To the beach, to town, to the supermarket…

We finally updated the Sibling Pic, had it framed and gave it to Ama for Reyes:

We went to the beach several times, and we swam in the ocean

We visited Bea, her sister from another mother

We went to see the Three Kings parade

And we did a lot of relaxing

One big relief: she loved being home, and she loved going back to school.

What we watched in 2022

Lots of films. A few documentaries. A number of series.

Big surprises and recommendations:

“Get Back”, Peter Jackson docu with precious Beatles material.

Anything by Damián Szifron, especially “Los Simuladores”.

The Kominsky Method.

Looking forward to a new cinematic year!!

2023

We’re all still here! Standing strong! Healthy. Happy. Together.

Geez, it sounds like lyrics to a really bad 90’s pop song by a long forgotten scandinavian band…

Jump into the new year folks! Like you mean it!

Merry Christmas!

The power of music

I´ve been meaning to write about music and what it means to me and my family for some time, but just couldn´t find the time and peace to sit down and collect my thoughts. Besides, I must remind myself to keep this blog about Yone and Dácil, and not make it about me. But there is just no way around me, or Jorge, or my parents for that matter… because all just flows naturally and the tides of life sweep back and forth through all of us.

I grew up around music. Not at all professionally, but my father was an avid jazz listener and there was an expensive Dual sound system in our living room. My mother was brought up playing the piano, and when we were still in Amsterdam she sang in the local church choir. And so did I, as a child. We used to drive from Amsterdam to Slovakia every Christmas and my father would make cassettes for the road, with a mix of his favourite lp´s. Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, Ella Fitzgerald…

When I was 17, I joined the Puerto de la Cruz choir with my mother and I´ve been singing ever since. When we were living in Amsterdam, Jorge and I´d go dancing and clubbing with a group of friends with whom we are still very close, probably partly through music and dancing, and we´ve seen many of the great house and techno acts of the 90´s live, Orbital, Lamb, L.T.J. Bukem, the Chemical Brothers… Jorge has forged himself quite an impressive vinyl collection and got into dj-ing when he bought his Stanton decks. I love singing renaissance music, and Bach, and Handel, and Ravel, as well as listening to jazz, funk, house, techno and Canarian folclore… good music is good music. Any genre. If it gives you goosebumps, it´s good, even if you don´t particularly like it.

When Yone was born, we decided he should at least learn to read music at an early age. Yes, we too are guilty of the child-project syndrome: parents who have projects for their children, or even treat their children as their project; moulding them into all they themselves would have wanted to be but never had the chance. I don´t think we were very extreme but the project thing is inevitable. However I feel that with music I have a good excuse. It´s really difficult to learn notes, theory, solfege as an adult. We never expected Yone to become a professional musician, but what we´d really wished for him is to find comfort, solace, joy, pleasure, peace in music. So once in Tenerife, we signed him up at the local music school, and when we moved to Puerto he joined the band playing saxophone. Then came the timple and then the guitar, plugged and unplugged.

This is yesterday evening:

This is 2011:

And this is one month ago. Note how he can now reach the bottom keys of his saxophone…

After the summer holidays Yone decided to take a break from his regular band rehearsals. He´s been playing in the band since 2017.

It was time for something different. He likes to sing. He reads music. He has a great baritone voice. Time for the choir! He did an audition and joined the same choir I have sung in since 1989 for the Christmas project. Not the least Christmas project: a week long workshop with Spanish choral eminence Jordi Casas singing Bach´s Jesu Meine Freude, a Monteverdi mass and Vivaldi´s Credo. It was sublime!

As for his sister… There are only few photos where Dácil isn´t wearing her headphones. Come to think of it, it´s ironic that a couple with a fine arts degree, amateur dj and fanatic choir singer should have a deaf blind child. Or maybe it´s the way it should be… Dácil has a very distinctive taste in music, which is clearly forced upon her by us, as she hasn´t been able to choose what she gets to listen to. Nor has Yone, for that matter, so that´s just tough luck for both of them.

Ama received a spotify acount for her 80th birthday. Complete with personalized playlist featuring all of her favourite 40´s, 50´s, 60´s and 70´s music. From the Andrew Sisters to Abba and Boney M, basically… This she will offer Dácil when they´re together, and Dácil just can´t get enough of Timi Yuro and Charles Aznavour.

However, if Jorge or I give her Timi Yuro she will decidedly throw the headphones to the far corner of the living room and demand something completely different. This can range from Everything but the Girl to Squarepusher or Ibiza´s greatest summer hits… One never knows.

This is 2013, in Slovakia, with a portable mp3 player.

We´ve been investigating the mp3 market ever since. Microphones are annoying as they are noisy and we all have to listen to her music. So we switched to headphones. We tried bluetooth, we tried cables… We tried iPods, we tried iPhones…

The main thing here is that she just loves her music. It relaxes her. It gives her joy.

Music feeds us, comforts us. We all thrive on music. It makes me proud to be able to share it with the people I love. I hope it heals and soothes others as much as it does me.

One week home

It´s a weird bank holiday week in Spain. The 6th of December is Constitution Day and the 8th is Mary´s Immaculate Conception, also a bank holiday. And they happen to be mid-week, so not a lot of working/studying going on (for some).

Dácil´s school was closed for the whole week. When I went to pick her up it was 3 degrees Celsius in Madrid (beautiful dry weather, blue skies and cold), and we landed back in a wet and rainy Tenerife North. During the week the rains have subsided and made way for calm and mild weather. We haven´t been able to give Dácil the attention we would have wanted as we´re reforming our kitchen and using every spare moment to sand, cut, clean and paint kitchen cabinets and doors. So she´s spent a lot of time at Amas and that is just wonderful for both of them. I did take her to the audiologists yesterday in Santa Cruz. She´ll be getting new hearing aids, lets see if these don´t end up in her soup…

And today was my day off so I decided to drive to Santa Cruz and go to Las Teresitas beach. Now, I´m not a huge fan of Las Teresitas… it´s an artificial beach with imported white Sahara sand… it´s usually very windy and very busy and we have had encounters with identified floating faeces (IFF) in the water… This being said, for Dácil it´s just perfect. Not only because she doesn´t see the IFF´s, but especially because there are virtually no waves, and she can walk quite far in the water. At any of the natural beaches in the North we have to carry her over patches of stones and rocks, fight the surf and the waves, before we start floating.

Today was perfect. No wind. No IFF´s. Not many people. The water was wonderful. Perfect morning!

October 24th

You have a kid. Then you fall in love with him. Then life happens, and shit happens, and then you move on, and the love just keeps growing inside. You make me one proud mum, Yone.

Dácil moving around

Just two short videos of Dácil finding her way through the corridors of her new school to her classroom and desk.

Dácil´s weekend

Dácil is home for the weekend. I flew to Madrid to pick her up yesterday morning, first flight, departing from a rainy Tenerife at 7 am. And landed around 11 am local time in a sunny and warm Madrid.

The view here is from the opposite side of Dácil´s school, where there is a park. The building behind the trees is the CRE.

After my meeting with her tutor and Dácil´s lunch, she was off and really happy to see me, big smile on her face and waving goodbye to everyone going home for the weekend.

We took a cab to the airport, I bought McDonalds fries for the plane and we landed back in foggy Tenerife at 6.15 pm.

My quality time with Dácil during the weekend, when I don´t have any more days off, is during the flight. She asks for music, doesn´t like the shit I´m offering and we can be at it for an hour and a half until I find the right song… As there is nothing better to do on the plane, this is a great game.

Saturday, today, I worked in the morning and had choir rehearsal in the afternoon, so I took care of lunch but had to leave as soon as she was finished. Tomorrow, Sunday, I work in the morning, which means I get to see her just an hour or so when I get home until she leaves with Jorge to the airport. All of this is just fine, next time she´s at home for the weekend I have the whole weekend off and we´ll go to the beach and swim and cuddle and eat ice cream and kiss and hug. Before she went to bed I told her tomorrow she´s going back to school, and she signed “airplane”. Such a smart girl!

Yone´s birthday present

He´s 18 now. We can officially kick him out of the house. The running gag in the family has been for years: when you´re 18 we´ll kick you out and you´ll have to find yourself a place to live and be independent. Funny how now, at present, I wish nothing more than to keep him with us as long as possible and share as many moments as we can together.

So when it comes to birthday gifts, we are more inclined to give experiences or moments than stuff. Like his scuba diving course. Or the sailing camp…

We are well aware of the fact that we live in paradise. We live on a beautiful island, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and enjoy one of the mildest climates in the world. Our landscape is volcanic, our views are stunning, our forests are ancient and lush and our beaches are black and hot. The highest peak belonging to Spanish territory is on Tenerife, 3718 metres. There is a cable car that takes visitors (tourists and locals alike) in 8 minutes from 2600 to 3600 metres. The last stretch, 700 metres ascend, needs to be done walking. And since tourism has exponentially grown beyond the imaginable, one needs to get a permit to ascend to the peak of the Teide, as only 200 persons can apply for a permit per day.

So here was the birthday present: most important was to get the permit which I obtained 3 months ago. I just picked a day near Yone´s birthday, preferably not a weekend, when Jorge would also be free. Tuesday 11th between 15h and 17h. Then I made reservations to stay at the parador (https://www.parador.es/es/paradores/parador-de-las-canadas-del-teide), which is a hotel located inside the National Park and near the cable car. And then I reserved the cable car at a time we would be able to hike up and back down, and get the cable car back down again.

It all worked wonderfully. Yone skipped school. Jorge was free. I asked to have Tuesday 11th off.

We checked in yesterday evening after driving up through the rain and the mist, and did a small sunset hike in the area before dinner.

We had a wonderful dinner topped with a beautiful Irish Coffee for Yone. The waitresses came along with a small cheesecake with a candle and sang Cumpleaños Feliz!

After breakfast this morning we checked out, left our stuff in the car, and as our cable car tickets were for 15:30 in the afternoon, we enjoyed the sauna and the swimming pool. Sauna was also a first for Yone, and will definitely not be a last!

We had a light lunch and then we drove to the cable car. From the top cable car station to the peak of mount Teide, the hike took us about 40-45 minutes. The air is thin, and oxygen is scarce. Sulphur is everywhere and here and there hot clouds of gasses escape the earth. Every now and then, one needs to stop and catch their breath to be able to continue. But it was well worth the climb! What a view! What a feeling being up there! The hike down took us under 25 minutes, and then we took the cable car back down again.

First time up there for all 3 of us!

Yone is 18

He could choose where we’d have lunch for his birthday. He chose Casa Pedro Crusantero, for its excellent escaldón.

He’s a big boy now…

Giant steps

Yone is ready for new challenges. And so are we! Starting a 2 year degree in photography.

Dácil is back to school

We took Dácil to Madrid on September 11th. School started on Monday 12th. She was happy to go back and recognised everyone. She has a “new” teacher this year, one who she knows from last year but wasn´t her tutor then, as they have reconfigured the 2 classes with 5 deafblind children. Dácil and her classmate Hugo are in the advanced class. Hugo also has CHARGE.

Jorge and I spent the week in Madrid, being tourists. And right the next weekend Dácil was off, so we had her in Madrid and spent the warm days sleeping, playing, eating chocolate croissants and laying in parks. On Sunday evening we brought her back. And that was frustrating for her. As we hadn´t gone home over the weekend, she wasn´t at all happy to be left alone at school on Sunday. On Monday we flew back to Tenerife. Her teacher assured us that she was fine and happy to be back at her desk. But it left us feeling anxious. Next Friday I´m going to Madrid to get her for the weekend. Hoping to get some quality cuddles on the plane!

Yone’s summer job

Yone has a summer job, a brief one but an intense one… 3 days during the anual Bavarian beer festival, right here in Puerto de la Cruz. He got home at 2 in the morning after last night and started this morning at 11 o’clock. Today is a long day and tomorrow is the last day until 8:30 pm.

He sells tickets at the entrance

Time

Ten months between these two photos:

the summer of 2022

This summer is all about reunions. Meeting friends and family. Spending quality time with our loved ones. There are birthdays to be celebrated, parties to be held, food to be prepared and we must dance! We swim, we bathe, we go to the beach and we eat lots of watermelon and ice cream! Oh what joy!!!

Back and forth

Dácil has been in her new school for 2 weeks, was home for the weekend, and is back in Madrid again.

Her tutor, Ángel, has kept us informed almost every day of how she was doing, and she didn´t appear to have great difficulty adapting. As long as she´s kept active and entertained, she´s a happy sport. There were some issues adapting to the new feeding policies (no, you can´t only eat chocolate or sweets), but these were overcome. At some point she was offered a pear (which she usually likes), she refused hoping to get the sweets she asked for but they took her plate away as in “no pear, then we´re done”, and this was when she asked for the pear back and ate it.

And besides the new menu, she needs to adapt to the new rhythm of spending weekends at “school”, instead of being at home with Ama on Saturday. During the first weekend she signed that she wanted to go home. She was explained that that was not going to happen, and she seemed to be quite content with that. At some point she´ll understand that there are Saturdays which are spent at school instead of home.

Best to illustrate with images how she´s doing.

This was during the weekend there. It has been really warm, so everyone kept to the shade. They have outdoor activities, strolls to the park, etc… Music and food is pretty much all she needs to be happy.

They work a lot with food and household items, exploring them and learning what they look like before they are cooked and can be eaten. This was the fish. And there were peas too, in the garden, which were picked, opened and eaten. (the green overalls are still part of the COVID protocol…)

Most of the hassle for us is figuring out how to travel back and forth, public transport, cabify, taxi´s, the time it takes to get from A to B and how to manage the schedule and get to the airport on time. So I traveled to Madrid on Friday morning, got to the CRE by metro, picked up Dácil way too early, and took a Cabify with Dácil back to the airport. We were back in Tenerife by 7 pm.

And Jorge took Dácil to Madrid on Monday evening (Monday was a local holiday so school started on Tuesday) and slept at the CRE with her. He met a few people and talked to her tutor and left for the city, where he took the train to the airport. He was back around 5 pm.

Dácil was completely content and relaxed on both trips. She has no problems with flying or being wheeled from one place to another. As long as she´s in a good mood, has eaten enough and has some music ready, she´s the perfect travel companion.

Dácil is in Madrid

No rest for the wicked… Best I recount the events in chronological order.

We flew to Madrid on Tuesday afternoon and took a taxi to the CRE, where we arrived around 7:30 pm.

We were welcomed by staff members who were expecting us and everybody approached Dácil immediately by taking her hands and signing, something she visibly appreciated. We were shown to the 3rd floor where there are a number of rooms ready for visitors and parents staying overnight. Dácil slept with us that night and was moved to her own room, which she shares with another deafblind girl, the next day. We had about an hour to freshen up and relax and were expected for dinner at 8:15 pm.

Dácil was fussy with her dinner; she didn´t like the salad, she didn´t like the meat… she wanted the things we have spoiled her with over the past year or so (she wasn´t always that spoiled…) and she wasn´t getting them. So I´m sure that she must have been already getting a good sense of what was lurking around the corner… We got to get a peak at what dinner must be like on a normal Tuesday at the CRE. We were separated from the other kids by a see through room divider, lots of noise and fun and voices and adults telling youngsters to eat their veggies and jokes and laughter. It looked like everybody was having a good time. We were introduced to Dácil´s roommate, who came in with one of the caretakers. A girl about Dácil´s age who also needs to be assisted with meals. We asked at what time we needed to be down for breakfast and went up to our room.

Dácil slept wonderfully.

On Wednesday we had breakfast and after that a number of perfectly coordinated meetings with staff and caretakers. We took Dácil to the meetings, with her tutor, and the medical staff, and after 3 meetings, while we were talking to the speech therapist and psychologist, Dácil got really upset. She was fed up with being dragged along to meetings and having to sit still in her chair and wait. So the psychologist called her tutor, which we had met previously and asked him to take Dácil away and keep her entertained. Dácil didn´t want to let go of me, so I had to step back, get out of reach, get in the classroom and close the door. Just like that.

Everybody at the CRE is ever so nice and understanding and willing to take Dácil´s skills to a next level. We were urged to brush up on our Spanish Sign Language (LSE), as Dácil is likely to get ahead of us soon. There were a few more practical things to attend to, and meanwhile Dácil went to lunch. After lunch, a staff member brought her to us in the lobby where we left her suitcase with her things to be taken to her new room, and we said goodbye.

It must have been around 3 pm when we left.

Despite all the mixed feelings and the hole in our stomachs and the vertigo we feel, we are happy and lucky that Dácil is offered this opportunity to advance and learn new skills. We just need to adjust to a new kind of family routine with Dácil coming home every fortnight, flying to Madrid to pick her up and take her back, and looking in her room and not finding her there…

step by step

Dácil is going to Madrid

One can never prepare enough for their children´s step towards independence. You know it´s coming, since the day they´re born, it´s what you prepare them and yourself for during many years. And it´s what everybody wishes for. The fact that there is a place in Spain, in the capital, that offers education for children like Dácil was known to us and we anticipated and wished and dreamed that one day she could go to this special school and learn to be more autonomous and independent.

And now it´s upon us. Just like that. We were on a relaxing holiday on El Hierro (small island, 10.000 inhabitants, virtually no traffic) when we got a call: she is expected next week Wednesday, May 4th. Indeed, may the force be with us!

To say that there is an electrifying nervous vibe in our home since that call is an understatement. So much so that I booked flights for Jorge and me – return ticket – and for Dácil – one way – and accidentally made a mistake with Dácil´s second last name. I hit the confirm button, payed, received the tickets in the mailbox, checked and saw the error to my horror. I called Iberia but they were unwilling (I can´t imagine they were unable) to change her last name and issue another ticket: so I had to cancel her ticket, ask for a refund, got a fine which is the same amount as the refund, and had to buy a new ticket.

So yes, things are hectic here.

We received a list with things she must bring, clothes, shampoo, practical stuff, all clothes must be marked, so we need to get that sorted (embroidered). And we received the school calendar. She will be in Madrid until the 24th of June, which is the beginning of summer holidays. And she gets to go home every other weekend until then. So we need to fly to Madrid on a Friday, pick her up, fly back and take her back on Sunday afternoon. All of this strikes us as extremely confusing and nerve wrecking, but I´m confident that once we get the hang of this, of the travelling, of the distances, of the metro line from the airport to her school, things will ease out.

In the mean time Dácil is learning new signs like ´new school´, ´Madrid´, ´airplane´, and trying on her new sneakers and bathing suits. She knows something is coming…

in Tamaduste, el Hierro

with Boris

el Pozo de las Calcosas, el Hierro

Quesillo!

Abuelo Pepe is 89!

The blog has been neglected. Well, no: I´ve neglected the blog. And I have some good reasons for it too, but those I will not share here. All I can say to my 2 or 3 faithful readers is I´m sorry, and I´ll try to get back on track.

One beautiful occasion to share here was abuelo Pepe´s 89th birthday. He was born on March 19th, also his name-day and also father´s day in Spain. And since COVID struck we haven´t been able to gather, not all his children and grandchildren together at once. So last Saturday, 19th, all of us had lunch together, outside, on a restaurant´s terrace, in the pouring rain and with 11 degrees celsius. His best gift!

Dácil is 14!

2022

To write anything more as a title would be redundant.

We jumped into the new year head first. Screw it all! Let´s do this! Let´s face every new day with courage, hope, confidence and love. We´re glad to just be all here. So that being said: let´s just do this together!

Yone. Just Yone

Dácil in Piestany

Piestany is our second (or third) home. Lots of family, lots of childhood memories, lots of nostalgia. I don´t imagine this applies to Dácil. Although she displays great memory, remembering signs and people, I don´t think she remembers people she´s met on short trips years ago. She does, however, thoroughly enjoy traveling, as long as she has periods of rest in between the moments where she´s just being transported to unknown places.

There was a fair amount of “Dácil-pilgrimage”, where she would be visited by others and shown off by Ama, who couldn´t be more proud of her granddaughter.

Reuniting with Ama after nearly 2 months was a happy moment!

Dácil´s first day back in school

I had a talk with her teacher the day before. To explain a bit what we´d been up to during the summer months. Not much really… Leisure. Relaxation. That type of stuff.

Dácil slipped into holiday mode comfortably, falling asleep late, waking up late. Demanding ice cream, chocolate, cakes, and getting away with most of it. Table manners were forgotten, forks and spoons left untouched. There is nothing more leisurely than eating with your hands, I suppose. So I confessed all of this to her teacher yesterday afternoon. That she had slowly turned into a savage. A lovely and charming one, but a savage nonetheless. Like Nell in that terrible Jodie Foster film. I felt it my duty to warn the teacher.

This is what she sent me today:

Little Miss Sunshine eating with knife and fork. We´ve been had.

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Yone´s firts day of his last year

This was the photo I took on Yone´s first school day, September 6th 2010, 11 years ago:

And today marks the start of his last year at the British School of Tenerife. It´s the über-cliché: time flies and I´m getting old, the worst about clichés is that they form a conspiracy of absolute truths.

This morning was Yone´s first schoolday in Year 13, his last year at the BST, and possibly his last academic year here in Tenerife. He has big plans. And they all include 4 hour flights. He wants to study history at the University of Amsterdam. We´ll need to find him a room, a place to stay, sort out scholarships, passports, insurance… stuff… (to our Dutch friends: anyone want to exploit this cute little guy -he can paint, clean, sing, play multiple instruments- and rent him a room?)

Anyway. This was this morning. I was making coffee because I started working in the hotel last Friday after a 17 month COVID break. And I could drive him to school before going to work. “Mum, can I have some coffee too?” “Sure.”

Fuck. I´m really getting old…

Summer holidays 2021

Here we go again: two months ahead without school and regular activities. It takes getting used to. Dácil usually starts off fine, enjoying sleeping longer, not having to rush with breakfast, lying in the garden listening to music and swimming in the pool every day. However, at some point, the lack of discipline and activities takes its toll and she´ll have fits and short periods of discomfort. So we try to get into some sort of summer habit: wake up/music in bed/breakfast/Ama/back home/lunch/pool&music/dinner/bedtime. This rhythm is complemented with visits to the supermarket, walks with the supermarket trolley down the aisles, visits to logopedia in La Laguna with her best friend Bea and subsequent beach visit and ocean swim.