A Few Detours Before Supper

Vern promised Caleb that he could catch a big trout in one of ponds here, and then we’d get Mario to cook it for our family for supper at his restaurant.  For a boy who loves fishing and eating fish, that sounded like a great plan! But even a good plan can have some detours, especially around here.

Yesterday after lunch the kids and I headed down the road on foot to meet up with a playmate (Nathan).  That turned out to be fun for both Claire and Caleb, until other neighbourhood boys showed up, “stealing” Nathan’s attention (at least in Claire’s opinion).  It was pretty hard for her to compete with other kids that can converse fluently in spanish.  Caleb wasn’t bothered in the least, since he could always resort to some form of boyish wrestling when communication broke down.  Eventually, a game of soccer began, and the boys all hit it off.  I enjoyed a visit and coffee with Nathan’s mom and several of her friends (who spoke zero English).

Shortly before 5pm, we decided to start walking home for supper, since we’d arranged with Mario to have Caleb catch one of his fish and then eat it at his restaurant, or so we thought.  As we were leaving, there was some discussion about Nathan joining us for the walk.  We soon found ourselves with our kids, plus Nathan and two other kids!  This was the first bump in our plan – how did we end up with so many kids?  Were they joining us for supper?  This was a good example of the language barrier leading to a few adventures and some confusion.

By the time we’d reached our cabin, and Claire and Caleb had proudly showed their new friends our home (including our trout pond – see photo below), one of the boys had peed his pants.  Argh. This was the 2^nd detour – repair the damaged ego of a 7 year old boy and give him a pair of Caleb’s pants and underwear.  (Claire’s very concerned about how we will get them back).  We filed all the kids through our tiny bathroom, to prevent further accidents. 

Thankfully, I remembered Nathan’s mom saying that his friend (who we thought was named Julio) lived nearby, and he could be dropped off there.  Nathan seemed to know where Julio lived, so Vern dropped off the kids there.  Phew, down to just our two!

We’d actually extended an invitation to another family (ex-Texans!) to join us for supper, and I was now wondering if they might be waiting for us at the restaurant. Who knew supper plans could get so complicated?!

By now it was getting dark, and Caleb still hadn’t caught our supper. We headed straight for Mario’s restaurant, Caleb and Vern with fishing rods in hand.  When we arrived, Mario proudly held up 2 big trout that he was going to cook for us.  Our 3rd detour  – Caleb wanted nothing to do with fish that someone else had caught!  HE wanted to catch the fish!  (I often admire Caleb’s determination, but not this time…). Mario has an obvious soft spot for Caleb, and graciously accommodated our determined boy; he piled Claire and Caleb onto his quad and headed off in the dark, with a very tired Vern following on foot, to some pond with big fish.  They returned happy, with two big trout!

After all that, supper was especially delicious!  As we were getting ready to walk back to our cabin, Caleb spontaneously jumped up and gave Mario a big hug!   

We are frequently reminded to go with the flow out here.        

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P.S. Caleb’s hunter-gatherer mentality also has positive spin-offs....we had fresh blackberry juice for lunch today.  He’s been very diligent in checking the ripeness of our blackberries every day, and was determined to turn today’s little crop of berries into juice!  Delicious!