Reality smacks you right in the face!

I often receive comments about how great it must be to live abroad. True. I have no complaints about my experience. I´m afraid that there is a slightly warped perception that the rivers are sweet like honey, though. I live with a family and there are trials and tribulations just as with any home. I don´t want to paint a horrid picture of some elements, but things aren´t always pretty. The largest headache for the family, mainly for my mom Marí, has been the deterioration of her father. He is almost 90 and is currently in a "test period" of an old-folks home of sorts. I often forget that some of the older members of my family are in some excellent settings, where emergency nurses are near at hand if need be. There isn´t extra help available there, so Marí has already spent several nights at his bedside. It has been painful to watch the family struggle to move the grandmother into an extra room in one of their houses so that the grandparents´ former house can be rented out to pay for the bills of moving their father to a different home. It´s complicated and hasn´t been going smoothly. On another note, my brother Nico accidently stabbed himself in the leg while playing around with a kitchen knife. I was luckily out of town for this one. The knife went very deep and Nico has been bed-ridden for several weeks while trying not to aggrevate the stitches that seem to begin bleeding every few days just when we all think things are getting better. He calls it his moment of "pure stupidity," which I won´t disagree with! My eldest brother Dino has been struggling with unemployment for months and the relationships with his wife and daughters have suffered due to it. I feel guilty having the flexibility to come and go as I please to our beach house, where Dino lives. And somehow Marí finds ways to pay for almost everything. With Dino out of work, Marí pays for 2 houses, and while I pay what is comparable to rent in the US, it´s not enough to supplement too much when I think about all of the things that are occuring. Outside of the house things are difficult, too. Beef prices are expected to rise dramatically because Chile will not buy Argentine products for at least 6 months because mad cow was discovered in some areas of our neighboring country. While that has little impact on us, the impact in Argentina could be absolutely devastating the an economy where cattle is the largest export. Imagine the consequences if many countries react the way that Chile has. Everyday I see kids as young as 3 to 5 begging. Chile, Latin America´s most stable country at the moment, has 5-year-olds juggling while standing on one another´s shoulders in the middle of busy streets. Although the spectacle is very impressive, it´s a horribly sad existence. Once while driving with Marí, a young boy begged at our window. She gave him a little money and then scolded him for being on the street and asked where his mother was -- He pointed about a block away to where she was begging at other cars.