Living in a foreign country necessitates making adjustments to fit into the culture. As I said in last week’s post, some adjustments are harder than others. Today’s post is about an adjustment that has become a part of our lives in the past month. This is not a hard adjustment, in fact it has been something we love! Long lines are a part of life here in Argentina. I guess they are a part of life most anywhere. We have become spoiled with conveniences that keep us from having to stand in long lines in order to accomplish something, like automatic drafting for paying bills (here we stand in long lines at general payment centers where we can pay almost any bill. Although no one wants to spend excessive time in long lines, they are a part of life here. With that being said, we have learned of something that has benefitted us in these last several months. Women who are expecting a child or who have infants are ushered to the front of lines! Leslie just had our fourth daughter. She would go into stores with very long lines of people trying to buy groceries and be asked to come to the front of the line. It is a wonderful thing! We were registering our newborn to receive her birth certificate, and the line was very long to pay, the attendee told me to take the baby with me, I was then ushered to the front of the line and payed the fee before everyone else. We love the way Argentina shows respect, concern, and love to mothers with infants and expecting mothers. This is not something we are accustomed to but it is spoiling us.

The people around like to see the baby and comment about how big she is and how beautiful she is. They don’t know her, but it doesn’t matter, the people here love to see a young baby.