adventures in the south

Here I am in 1977 with my younger brother (mind you younger by only 14 months, my mama and papa did have a hand full with us).
I am protecting him, we are both looking somewhere. Where? My brother says to the future.
Little did we know that soon after we would board a jet plane, leaving the insecurities and uncertainties of a military dictatorship in Argentina. Leaving behind grandparents, and cousins and a strong culture.
We would catch a plane first to Canada and then to Australia, with our parents who were only 28 and 29 years of age and with just two suitcases and US$500 we would land in Sydney, in Botany Bay.
Botany Bay, a place where 190 years earlier The Sirus part of the First Fleet had arrived, a big sail boat full of weary men, women, children and northen hemisphere animals to an unknown land.
An unknown land. A great southern land. That is what Australia is to me.

Now so many years later, my partner and I are venturing back. I am venturing back to my homeland, to uncertainties but a more peaceful Argentina. Where now the president is a woman and one who was so attacked and persecuted way back during the military dictatorship. Life is a cycle.

The cycle is now part of my life and my children's life.
We are leaving on the 6th of September on a jet plane, How scary and nerve wracking for me.
I am taking my family on an adventure, to Patagonia, to a place that is isolated and at the end of the world. So I can study marsupials, and fossils and try to live with the wind and the snow during a good chunk of the year. I hope I am doing the right thing! I know my children will leave in a relative peaceful place, where there is a lot of natural beauty, with a culture that is part of me, learn spanish and spend time with their abuelos (grandparents).

My children this morning waiting for breakfast by the tv and first morning in a while that the fire is not on. Spring is here!