Palabras de Portenos: Candid Catchings in Castellano

DC Through the Eyes of a Wannabe Tourist

2009-10-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

I think that a year as foreigners in Argentina taught us to keep our eyes opened anywhere we go, and so it is with a visitor's vision that we are trying to greet our home in Washington, DC. We both loved this city immensely before we left for Argentina, but approaching the city "as a tourist," so to speak, really gives us renewed excitement and wonder at our home. We have filled these two months with "the best of DC," from DC United soccer games to National Portrait Gallery exhibits to the literary musings of the National Book Festival. Sometimes I am totally over-whelmed at the sheer number of options, like how at the National Book Festival, two of my favorite authors--Sue Monk Kidd and Julia Alvarez--were speaking at the same time. How to choose between all of these wonderful opportunities? I suppose that conflict is a pretty ideal dilemma to have. :-)

Some really wonderful highlights about the past two months in DC are as follows:

1. Meeting one of my all-time heroines, Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran and Things I Have Been Silent About. After her fiery and inspiring speech at the Book Festival (where she shouted, "Who is going to bail out the poets??!! Who is going to bail out imagination??!!), I waited in line for an hour to have my copy of Things I Have Been Silent About signed by her truly. As I finally approached her, I became so shy, but as Ms. Nafisi signed by book, I mustered up the courage to tell her how her books have impacted my life. :-)

~Images from the author's official website~

2. President Obama's Health Care Rally at College Park. To be in the midst of thousands of cheering people advocating for reform and to see the President up close & personal speaking his heart out on behalf of the welfare of his paisanos...It was a rally to remember, that is for sure. Tea-baggers, take that!

~image from the Baltimore Sun~

3. The Equal Rights March and Rally on the Capitol. Walking with thousands of others in support of our generation's civil rights struggle was a moving honor (no pun intended). It was beautiful to see the number of families, the number of loving and devoted and monogamous couples out asking for their equal rights and recognitions. And, I'll never forget the chants, such as, "Obama, let Mama marry Mama!" and "I'm not queer, but I'm here!" Who could forget such sayings?!

4. Regina Spektor's concert at the Daughters of Revolution Constitution Hall. Accompanied by a cellist, a violinist, a drummer, and her ever-loyal piano keys, Regina filled up the hall with her emotion-filled voice and chilling lyrics. I think it's safe to say the audience was forever-swayed by the lovely Ms. Spektor, and all her Soviet-Kitsch :-)

~from the Regina Spektor website~

5. Living with the Cunninghams. When else are we going to get a chance to live with one of the fams?! And, who can beat the home-cooked meals, an always-filled cookie jar, Ctrain in the next room over, and Dr. Who references by the dozen?! :-)

6. FRIENDS! From Ro's happenin'-home-comin', to Thievery (Corporation)-filled Baltimore excursions with Mike, to cozy dinners at Jess & Matt's, to Labor Day sessions of "Loaded Questions" with the 3 M's, it's all been absolutely amazing.

And, of course, there's so much more, but I don't need to bore you with all the details. My point being, of course, is just that, when you open your eyes enough, home can be just as exciting as traveling. :-)

Two Months Later

2009-10-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

Nick and I have now been home for a little over two months. At times it feels like Argentina was years ago, and at times it feels like we are FOB (Fresh Off the Boat). Surprisingly, the transition back home was relatively seamless. In other words, no culture shock to speak of. After all, it's home.

It feels really good to be home. To feel comfortable in Washington, DC, the city we have both come to love so much and come to think of as our home together--to navigate its streets, metros, neighborhoods, and buses without thinking twice--feels like a luxury. And to be surrounded by loved ones...This is something that I am still reveling in daily, because in reality, life on the road and in a foreign country is often plagued with spells of loneliness. So, to suddenly be in the thick of friends and family is revitalizing and wonderful.

It's funny how a year in Argentina changed us, made us less worried about, well, everything. I feel in so many ways that we are a bit slower, calmer in our ways, as if we are not afraid of what we are missing. We are struggling to find full-time jobs (I am temping now and Nick is interviewing like a mad-man), and while this is a bit frightening and a tad stressful, after our employment debacles in Argentina, we are confident that the right thing will reveal itself at the right time. (Being unemployed in the cozy confines of one's parents' house is infinitely different than being unemployed in a house that's falling apart in a neighborhood that you're not quite sure about that sits a sweltering hour-long bus ride from any job opportunities--that's for sure!) So, we're calmer now, and more appreciative of time spent with those we love, soaking up as much of it as we can.

But, we think of Argentina everyday in so many ways. As irreplaceable and as constant as home is, traveling makes you forever cognizant of how much is out there, how much there is to learn (sort of like how I feel about books--so MANY and not enough time to read them ALL!). I suppose traveling instills in you the oxymoronic itch to learn lEaRn LEARN coupled with the peaceful calm in knowing that home is truly where the heart is...

So while we feel at peace and deeply grateful to be reunited with those we love so much, we miss so much of our Argentine lives. We still try and shop at farmers' markets and support local food initiatives, although financial realities and time constraints lead us to Giant and Safeway more often than not. (We dearly miss the corner fruit and vegetable markets dotting nearly every street!) And because wine is no longer $2 a bottle, we've had to put the cork on that habit, so to speak. And, of course, we miss paying 6 pesos for a kilo of delicious, free range, juicy carne.

We miss these little things, but we also miss the over-arching themes that enveloped us in Argentina. We miss the sense of adventure and the sense of the exotic that followed our every move. We miss being able to hop on a bus on a whim and go see Che Gueverra's birthplace, or world-famous waterfalls, or the snowy Andean caps. We miss the freedom and the constant wonder at the world that followed us like a shadow wherever we went.

So it's funny...We're back, and we couldn't be happier to be back. But we feel that Argentina changed us deeply, and irreversibly unleashed a deep hunger for adventure. As I type, Nick is looking at graduate schools with potential summer study abroad programs, and we still hover around the travel guide section at the library more often than not...

However, the best gift from Argentina is our ensuing decision to get married. We decided on our very last day in Argentina, as we sat in a Mendozan plaza, to leave the country recognizing the bond that had come from our South American year. So now I wear a hundred peso ring on my finger (that is invaluable sentimentally) and we are greeting this new chapter in our lives preparing to be husband & wife, prepared to be partners that commit ourselves and support one another through our individual and paired callings, calling upon the lessons we first learned in Argentina. So, here's to you, Argentina. Thanks for everything.

PS: The beautiful painting at the top of the post is done by the beautiful Laura Eppinger

Alas, A Complete Circle

2009-07-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

So as it turns out, we just couldn't hack it on the farm. Maybe we are wimps, and maybe it was just time to come on home. Or maybe a little of both. :-) All in all, we worked on the farm for 10 days, and it was honestly a really amazing learning experience. We learned how to build fences, construct gates, dig irrigation ditches, plant garden beds for aloe plants, dig holes for composted bathroom waste (yikes!! I know, but pretty cool if you think about your waste actually going to good use), heat our shower water over a fire, cook stew over a fire, and some other pretty cool lessons to store away.

But, we were pretty exhausted and I think that we just realized that we were also a little bit (maybe a lotta bit) homesick. At first we worried that it would be an emotionally taxing experience as we were met with a little bit of seemingly-hostile judgment, but as the days wore on, everyone warmed up. It was amazing to see how at first the Argentines on the farm seemed distrustful and hesitant toward us, and how by the end of a week and a half, we were all eating breakfast together around a fire and chatting way past dinner time! I guess that is really the beauty of close-quarter, intense situations, like volunteering. From our experience, we honestly learned to remember the importance of living simply, eating locally AND seasonally, and of knowing where and how to cultivate food, all lessons we are going to really REALLY strive to embrace in our new chapter back in the good ol´ USA.

The biggest blessing of our stay on the farm were the friends we met--Owen and Shoshana, two amazing newly-weds who made the stay at the farm absolutely incredible. They showed up on the Monday after we had arrived, and we bonded so much with them. I am honestly so thankful to have met them, and so thankful for the intense quarters that made us feel like we had known each other so much longer than a week (I guess that's what happens when you all sleep in the same room and you all go number 2 in the same plastic bucket). Owen and Shoshana left with us last Sunday, and together we went and explored the Mendoza province, to really go out of Argentina with a bang. We stayed with O & S for three days in an adorable little town called Tupungato. We drank wine, became carnivores again, biked our butts off, and even went on a horseback ride up into the Andes. It was so beautiful. Then we parted ways, O & S headed back to the States, and Nick and I headed further into the Andes to a small ski town called Los Penitentes. There, Nick re-taught me how to ski (best ski instructor ever--I hadn't been skiing in 8 years!) and he was so patient with me as together we cruised down the slopes. It was a blast, and I am sufficiently bruised up as a reminder of the good falls I had. :-) Finally, we hopped on a night bus to Mendoza city Friday evening, and it is here that we have spent the weekend, enjoying this lovely city with all its lovely plazas, restaurants, wines, and parks.

This evening we are boarding an over-night bus to Buenos Aires, from where we will fly to Mexico City and then onto Chicago tomorrow. A real circle, seeing as we came last summer from Chicago to Mexico City and finally to Buenos Aires. We can not believe our Argentine year has come to a close...In a way we are sad to leave behind this chapter that has been so free, so adventurous, and filled with so many great new friends and new life lessons. But most of all, we feel really really excited to go home. A year is a long time, and there hasn't been a day that has gone by where we didn't miss everyone we love so much at home. So, we are promising ourselves not to forget these life-lessons and not to loose touch with the amazing people who have made our stay here...

Chau chau, Argentina. Thank you endlessly for everything!!

PS: When we get home, we will post all of our pictures from our adventures these last 2.5 weeks!

Week One on the Farm!

2009-07-05T13:41:00.000-07:00

Oh man are we sore! Our fingers and arms are tic-tac-toed with scratches and we now understand where the term ¨farmer's tan¨ comes from. After an 11 hour bus ride Wednesday night and a 2 hour bus ride Thursday morning, we finally arrived at the Madre Tierra farm and promptly jumped right into work. We were handed shovels and taught how to uproot trees from the forest and replant them next to the man-made ditches lining the property. We breaked for lunch and then spent the afternoon building fences surrounding the land. At sundown we brought the horses into the stable after they had spent the day grazing, and then we prepared dinner. By 9:30 pm we were exhausted and fell into our sleeping bags. We are sleeping in a cubby above the other volunteer's bedroom that is cozy and perfect for us, but it gets COLD up there! During the night the temperature drops below freezing and Nick and I are sharing one twin-bed instead of a full-bed mattress to conserve warmth through body heat. Often we have a few guests crawl in during the night and share in the wealth of warmth--the farm cats! At times there are three of them cuddled up beside us inside our sleeping bag!

Our second and third days passed much the same as our first. We hear the roosters crow at 7 am and we get up more or less an hour later. We don't have to work until 10 am, but the morning hours are perfect for Nick to study for the GRE's and for me to read and write. And it really is something to look outside and see the morning clouds pass over the Andes that loom snow-caped in the distance...

However, although we like the work and love what we are learning, the truth is it has been a bit of a lonely experience so far. We have experienced a lot of anti-US sentiment and feel that we have been unfairly associated with everything bad our government has done. It is the first time I have felt really out-rightly judged for something I feel I am unfairly accused of. It is strange because we are automatically tagged with certain labels, and it seems that because of that, even small talk isn't something that some people want to engage in with us. It is strange and a bit lonely, and for sure something pretty new to us.

But, if anything, we are learning how fortunate we are to have each other. At the end of the day, we can turn to one another with these feelings and I think it allows us to each other in a truer, clearer light and become closer. So for that, it is only a positive, and I am thankful for that outcome. Also, we are learning the importance of living free of judgment. We are experiencing first-hand what it is like to be judged for something we have no control over, and we are learning the importance of open arms and an open heart.

And in the end, we are learning what we set out to learn--how to build and how to grow. And that knowledge is priceless, and something we will lovingly apply to our future!

I will post pictures later when we have more time on the Internet, but for now I will leave you with this list of the Top Five Craziest Things About This Farm Life:

1. We take 2 showers per week, and rapid lightening fire showers at that!
2. We go to the bathroom in a composting toilet!
3. Our alarm clock is a rooster...That in itself sounds pretty badass...Maybe it's all worth it for that story!
4. For dinner, we make soups right over a wood-burning fire, cooking pumpkin fresh from the patch and garlic hot off the vine.
5. We haven't looked at a clock for days, going completely in-tune with the sun and our bodies.

Last Minute Cordobesa Discoveries--Read with Caution if You are a Vegetarian!

2009-06-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

As Nick and I pack up the Cordoba chapter of our Argentina journey, we are enearthing the most delicious surprises of the city. Among these discoveries is the Mercado Norte, the warehouse of stalls and vendors offering Argentine goodies from spicy Colorado sausage to cheeses fresh from the campo. Today we went and wandered the halls, looking in the butchers' windows and seeing every kind of meat you could imagine--from the normal cuts to pieces you can't believe are edible, including cow brains! Check them out:

We saw whole (deceased) goats hanging from meat hooks, and the same goes for some poor little piggies (sorry to the vegetarians who are reading this!). We saw rabbit sausage, tripe, liver, and mountains of fish fresh from the river. Spice merchants sold packets of powder for everything from paella to goulasch. A coffee and tea shop sold dried fruits and vegetables...And fruit loops, randomly! We walked and snapped photos of every vendor, feeling shy when the butchers caught us stealing a photo when they were going about their business. But they didn't seem to mind--they just smiled before the flash came. We left the market with fresh cilantro, ginger, and cherry tomatoes...And (again, sorry to you peaceful vegetarians) a leg of lamb, because we are making a feast tonight for Ale & Maria, our amazing hosts for the past two months. Buen provecho !

Another amazing discovery we have come across is a small circle of wonderful friends. We didn't expect to meet many people in Cordoba; working from home doesn't afford many opportunities to meet people. But, we were happy & thankful because we were living with a sweet family that we ate dinner with every night, and we were also lucky enough to have a couple of visitors--some friends from Buenos Aires and my parents! But the unexpected blessing happened, and we did end up meeting some very nice people that we will really miss. It is such a small world, but one of the volunteers who went to the Enchanting Challenge-owned farm in Chile actually lives in Cordoba. When he returned from the farm, he contacted Nick, and we met up with him and his lovely girlfriend. They turned out to be so incredibly nice, and they introduced us to some of their other friends. For the past two weeks we have been spending time with these new-found friends, and really enjoying every second of it. They have introduced us to some lovely Cordobesa festivities, such as the Paseo de los Artes, a quaint arts and crafts fair in a quite bohemian-esque neighborhood that hosts artists selling their hand-made wares. It's so much fun to wander through and take in their work--and its especially fun when the vendors are selling edible goods, such as the delicious manzana torta and vanilla cake that I can't resist!

We are really thankful for our time here in Cordoba. It has given us such good moments, and we will really cherish these memories...

Lightning Fast Changes: Drafting a Plan B on the Open Road

2009-06-24T12:54:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago Nick and I were certain that we were headed to our employer's organic farm, Ulaa, for the month of July, to work on the farm and to help out in drafting long-term plans for recruiting volunteers. And after that, we were certain that in August we were headed west to Mendoza, to work with a foundation that was partnered with our employer, again to help out and to help draft some long-term plans.

But then we found out that our employers had to put a hold on their volunteer programs due to financial problems (damn Swine Flu!)! Which means, as coordinators of the volunteer programs, we're outta work, so to speak. So two weeks ago we learned that we had to really put the pedal to the metal and draft a plan B for the open road we're riding here in Argentina until December.

And you know what? We found a plan B: using WWOOF, we found a farm 80 km outside of Mendoza city that will take us in for the month of July for 30 pesos a week. The farm is called Madre Tierra and it is run by a family with two young children. It's a bit of a hippy commune you might say---no meat, and no alcohol allowed, so that we can all be in harmony and dedicated to our farm work! :-) The father teaches yoga daily at the farm, and the mother is a nutrionist. Farm work is done everyday Monday-Friday, Saturday is for chores, and Sunday is the day of rest. So it will be quite a challenge, but one we are really looking forward to! (This is my one chance to get flaca! Let's see if I can pull it off! :-) ) It's going to be cold and a bit snowy probably, so this will be quite an experience! But a good one, we really think...We fell in love with Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle earlier this year, and we're really excited for an opportunity to learn more about getting back to nature. And, hell, we may never have the chance again...

But all in all, I think this change was a good lesson to us. Though at first it seemed like an unlucky thing to be out of work, it actually turns out to be quite lucky--now we have an opportunity to do something kind of crazy and get some life skills (like farming) under our belt. PLUS, more importantly, it reminds us how lucky we are: we are so, so incredibly fortunate to be in a situation where we have earned decent money in the past couple of months and are living in a relatively inexpensive place. Therefore, we don't feel the pressure like so many people unfortunately are experiencing right now during the crisis...So it reminds us to keep things in perspective and be GRATEFUL!

So that's all. A week from today we'll head on out to Madre Tierra, and then in August, we'll head to another farm in Mendoza province, and we'll find our way like that, month-by-month, until we come home in December...

Iguazu Part II: Hiking Through the Jungle

2009-06-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

As the title hints at, the second part of our adventures in Iguazu involved a jungle hike. Okay, that sounds a little dramatic...But it was a dirt path through jungle-like terrain--wet, red-brown earth; creeks winding their way along the path; trees growing within trees; exotic birds and animals I couldn't identify peeping their heads out from the brush; and MONKEYS! I felt like I had stumbled upon the set of Gorillas in the Mist (a version with a happy ending) when we came upon a bundle of tall trees linked together with vines and branches, and nuts and berries began to hurtle down at us from the monkeys looming in the branches above. There were two young women studying the monkeys, taking notes and silently observing. Nick and I looked up and watched these funny little creatures move around in their natural setting. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't in Woodley Park at the zoo--I was seeing these little guys in their home! They were adorable, but we read in the Park brochures that their innocence is all a facade if there is food involved; thus we kept our packed sandwiches hidden in our backpacks and watched them, hoping they wouldn't catch on to the scent of ham and cheese goodies we had tucked away. Luckily, the monkeys never found out we had food on us and they let us watch them as they did their daily thing: hop from branch-to-branch, occasionally make a squeal, nibble away at the branches, and throw down unwanted nuts. They were so cute...When we were quiet and watching them, we heard twigs cracking and other noises coming from the forest. Our imaginations wandered and we wondered what was in there making those noises...We had read of the jaguars that prowl this jungle at night, and of the rare times when they did make day-time appearances. I tried to imagine how I would act if we did encounter a jaguar, tried to think if I could follow the guidebook's advice and NOT betray my fright...Somehow I didn't think I could pull it off... Luckily, we never had to find out if I would be tough enough to pull it off in front of a jaguar; they seemed to all be sleeping that day. Nick and I finished the hike unscathed--3 km into the jungle. At the end, we celebrated at the base of a miniature waterfall. This little guy shot down from about 30 feet into a small basin of water surrounded by large rocks/small boulders. It was like a scene from Now & Then, or Stand by Me, or any other feel-good movie where little kids are having the time of their lives in the outdoors. Nick and I ate our ham sandwiches sitting on top of one of the aforementioned rock-boulders. I took off my shoes and dipped my toes into the water. I briefly flirted with the idea of swimming in the pool before I whipped my freezing extremities from the water. But Nick had a different, doable, and adventureous idea--to climb atop the circle of rocks so that we stood next to the waterfall. We took turns and it was a blast. Over one rock and onto the next, being careful not to slip, getting our tennis shoes soaking wet, and hopping over little streams that wound their way through the stone. Finally, we stood underneath the falling water, getting sprayed with offshoots, freezing, and laughing so much. We were all alone in that magic little spot, and I think that also helped to make it feel like a movie; our own private little waterfall. It was too much fun... But alas, as Nelly Furtado says, all good things must come to an end...We packed ourselves up and hiked the 3 km back out of the forest...Bye-bye to the baby waterfall, and bye-bye to the squeaking monkeys. But all the better from it, that's for sure. :-)

The Devil's Throat: Humbled (Again) by Nature

2009-06-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

As Nick & I stood atop Cerro Uriturco in Capilla del Monte, I thought (of course not for the first time) how man-made wonders seem always to pale in comparison to the wonders made by nature. Well, that thought was magnified tenfold as I stood last week in front of The Devil's Throat waterfall at Iguazu Falls. Never in my life had I seen something that took my breath away quite as sharply...It's one of those things that I even feel funny writing about because no words could aptly express the feeling. But on the flip-side, I feel funny not writing about it because I think it deserves praise. Oh, the plight, the constant catch-22 of an aspiring writer! Poor me. :-) Well I guess I will have to settle for doing my best to appropriately attribute the right words to something so beautiful...

As you know from my last post, on our first day in Missiones, Argentina, we took an ever-unforgettable voyage into Paraguay...And on the second day, we hit the waterfall park. Awaking bright and early, at 7 am we could see our breath, but we dressed in shorts, knowing the sun would come and we would break lots of sweat as we hiked the paths in-between the waterfalls. So we shivered our way on the bus to the Parque Nacional Iguazu, paid our fare to enter, and set about our explorations.

First came La Garganta del Diablo, or The Devil's Throat, a giant waterfall that you reach via catwalk over some twists and turns of the Rio Igaucu. You can hear The Devil's Throat long before you can see it, its roars reaching your ears when all seems just peaceful and shallow river water streaming underneath. But then the mist comes, arising from the crashing of the water, and enwrapping the whole area in a mysterioius foggy shield. And then you know your close.

But neither the noise nor the mist can prepare you for the actuality of The Devil's Throat. As you reach the look-out point and stare out over, you can't believe that something so foreful, something so powerful, is constantly in this beautiful motion, naturally. A perfect ecosystem of unbelievable power and beauty formed seemlessly. Nothing made by us humans could compare.

Just before The Devil's Throat, the water from the Rio Igaucu moves slowly and surely like a normal river, seemingly making its way to the river's basin. But then the earth drops down without warning, and the water drops with it, gathering momentum as it travels to the valley below. So much water pouring forth, gathering momentum together, until it becomes a collective fall of water joined together in freefall motion. The falling droplets become gathered clouds of froth, spraying mist in every direction, hitting the rocks below with crashing force and crashing noise. The rocks break their fall, calm them, and they continue their journey onto the basin, recovered and rejuvenated from their fall. And again and again it happens with constantly renewed droplets.

To watch this process is to be mesmerized. It was truly hypnotizing. I could have stood there on that old over-pass on that old catwalk, watching new water fall for hours upon hours (if only there weren't so many tourists, wanting my fought-for look-out spot!). I imagined everything--the explorer (Senor Nunez) that discovered these mighty falls (and how did he manage to not fall himself?!), the tourists that at times have taken too many risks and fallen themselves, the fish that must somehow survive such a fall, the lush earth around this fall that is green, green, green, constantly watered from the tons of mist spit forth from this devil's throat...What a wonder...

Eventually, the new tourists got their way, and I gave up my perch. Nick snapped photo after photo, trying to capture this all-too-brief moment in a small way forever. We took one more gawk, and moved on. Afterall, there were many more falls to see! Their story comes next...

The sky pours out biblical rain
Then days so still the beauty gives you pain
The heatwave kills the green and she remains unseen
But colors up my dream with all things blooming

~Indigo Girls~

Citizen Journalism: Deeply Rooted Corruption

2009-06-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, Nick and I hopped aboard a 23 hour-long bus ride to Iguazu Falls, in the north of Argentina, snuggled up against the Brazilian and Paraguayan borders. The point of this journey was two-fold: first and foremost we went to experience the waterfalls, of course. But secondly, we had some business to take care of--we needed to renew our tourist visas and figured that with the easy access to Paraguay from Iguazu, a trip to the Falls was a perfect way to kill two birds with one stone.

SIDE NOTE: Nick and I arrived in Argentina on a tourist visa, good for three months. To renew it, when we were in Buenos Aires, we simply took a day-trip across the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay. We would be stamped out of Argentina, stamped into Uruguay, stamped out of Uruguay, and stamped back into Argentina, and alotted another three months, all in a day. Being in Cordoba makes our semi-legal racket a bit more difficult, since we're sandwiched inside the country. What happens if we overstay our tourist visa? Probably not much. At minimum, it's a $50 fine, but we don't want to get caught in a situation where we've broken the law in a foreign country, so we don't risk it. Thus, to Paraguay we went, and just in the nick of time. Our last tourist visa was set to expire June 7th, and it was already June 5th. So on we went across the border...

It turns out that getting to Paraguay from Iguazu was fairly straight forward. We just headed to the major depot in town, where we were told that a bus to Paraguay came every 45 minutes. Sure enough, a half-hour later, a yellow bus came crawling around the corner, a sign reading PARAGUAY standing upright in its windshield. We hopped on the bus and paid the fare--3 pesos each.

The bus soon filled and we took off. After a tiny stretch of highway, we arrived at Argentine immigration, where we hopped off and got our passports stamped to mark our timely exit from the country. Back on the bus, we cruised away from Argentina and onto a Brazilian strip of highway. Soon enough we came upon an arrow directing us left to Ciudad del Este, Paraguay and right to Igaucu, Brazil. The driver veered to the left. (We would have loved to go to Brazil, but the visa costs $100 a person...Someday we'll get there!)

The moment when the highway stopped belonging to Brazil and started belonging to Paraguay was shockingly obvious. As Nick said, you could literally see the line where the resources stopped. The Brazilian highway was well-paved and well-painted, with neat and trim vegetation on both sides. The Paraguayan side was not so. The road was bumpy, with cars and buses stopping and going according to their own whims, not according to traffic rules. Half-built ramshackle buildings crumbled on the side of the road and people were everywhere. The bus stopped at the immigration office and Nick and I hopped out.

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The immigration office looked more like a hang-out pad than an official port of entry. People were wandering around--there were no lines, no uniforms, no official-ness. One attendant waved us over.

He had greased hair, a white-collar shirt tucked into jeans. He didn't smile at us. He took our passports, saw the US emblem, seemed to pause in thought, and then opened the booklets up to stamp. Just before stamping them, he seemed to regain his thought. He motioned Nick in.

Nick cocked his head to listen to the attendant, but the man was speaking so quietly that Nick had to bend his head under the glass (which was quite awkward and quite low) to hear the man.

He was telling Nick that there was a visa. Which we knew very well that there wasn't. He tried to scare us by saying that we could only stay for 20 hours without a visa. We responded that we were just going to do some shopping and head back. He looked disgruntled but he stamped us anyways.

Just when we thought we were in the clear, he closed our passports and set them aside on his desk, looking as if he had no intention of giving them back. He motioned me forward.

It seems he just remembered that there was a "transportation visa" that we needed to pay. 100 pesos each. Again he was speaking so quietly, it was so hard to hear. I couldn't aruge; he has our passports and I don't speak enough Spanish to confidently and convincingly aruge. We handed over dearly-earned 200 pesos and in exchange got our passports. What a crapshoot, we thought!

We left the immigration office and stepped out into the bright bustle of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. It was overwhelming. Nick and I couldn't have sood out more, and in every direction someone was offering us something--a ride in a van, a taxi ride, a motorcycle ride, a tourist bus, street food, contraband...It was too much. We clung to the little money we had left, and ran to the bus stop across the street, back to Argentina.

Luckily, the bus came right away. When we hopped on, we saw that it was filled to the brim with people and their over-flowing shopping bags. Paraguay is the place to go for the cheapest of the cheap goods, so Argentines love to stock up across the border. But cheap goods mean sweat shops galore, and the sight of that injustice on top of having just witnessed such blatant corruption made us sad for Paraguay. How difficult it must be to simply make it, let alone get ahead, in a system where palms need to be greased every which way and a good-paying decent job is replaced by the unbeatable competitiveness of the sweat shop? We thought about the Paraguyan domestic workers we had known in Buenos Aires, and how they probably had thought that Buenos Aires would be a world class change...And now they are stuck working in the black for people who so often take advantage of them. And to think of the bribes they must surely be coerced into paying when they return to Paraguay and immigration officials see that they have been working in the much-more lucrative country of Argentina...

A government weighed down with corruption damns the society it represents. If the government takes advantage of its constituents, there is no protection and assurance anywhere, and thus so many of the people can not develop to become the creators, innovators, thinkers, and workers they all have the potential to be...

I want to leave this post with the most beautiful poem (sent to me from the most beautiful Laura Eppinger!) about the country of all our dreams, that we can all create over time if we all put our hearts and minds to it (the English translation is below)...

En el país un mejor conocimiento
-- Alberto Blanco

una piedra que canta la alabanza de su peso
una rosa que llora al alba su propio rocío
un gallo iluminado por el sol desde adentro
y un ser humano reconciliado consigo mismo

en el país de un mejor conocimiento
hay un estanque lleno de sirenas transparentes
hay un barco resplandeciendo a la medianoche
hay un cerro que piensa cosas marvillosas
hay una ventana abierta al fondo del mar
hay una balanza de innumerables brazos
hay un circo y su carpa en el cielo
hay un perro que es su propio amo
hay un ajedrez sin adversarios
hay una torre sobre la brisa
hay un mantel junto al río
hay un sombrero con alas

una barranca que se abre y se cierra
según el vértigo de quien la mira
una fruta tropical que a veces crece
dentro de las piedras preciosas

una planta con bellas cartas de amor
escritas en cada una de sus hojas
y coronado por las nubes de colores
un árbol inmenso en medio del mar

un alcatraz que se aparece
cuando se cruzan dos miradas
y un pino sobre el acantilado
haciéndole cosquillas a la luna
un yunque donde se forjan
redondos minutos de cristal
y un amanecer que sobrevive
a un atardecer interminable

en el país un mejor conocimiento
existe Dios más allá de todo numbro y todo forma
y viven viejos que son sabios somo los niños
existe un camino que va a donde quiere
y cuatro poemas dentro del corazón
existe un amor correspondido
hay una idea perfecta
hay un silencio

-----

In the country of higher knowledge

a stone that sings the praises of its weight
a rose that at dawn weeps its own dew
a cock illuminated by an inner sun
and a human being reconciled with himself

in the country of a higher knowledged
there’s a lake full of transparent mermaids
there’s a boat glittering at midnight
there’s a hill thinking marvelous things
there’s a window opening onto the bottom of the sea
there’s a scale with countless arms
there’s a circus with its tent in the sky
there’s a dog that’s its own master
there’s a chess game without adversaries
there’s a tower above the breeze
there’s a tablecloth alongside the river
there’s a hat with wings

a ravine that spreads out and closes up
depending on the onlooker’s vertigo
a tropical fruit that sometimes grows
with precious stones

a plant with beautiful love letters
inscribed on each one of its leaves
and crowned with multi-colored clouds
an enormous tree in the middle of the ocean

a calla lily that appears
when two glances intersect
and a pine atop the cliff
tickling the moon
a forge that shapes
rounded crystal minutes
and a dawn that outlives
an interminable dark

in the country of a higher knowledge
God exists farther off from every name and every form
and old people live as wise as children
a road exists that goes wherever it likes
and four poems inside the heart
a requited love exists
there’s a perfect idea
there’s a silence

Citizen Journalism

2009-06-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

Through Idealist.org (the website of my heart) I recently discovered the organization, SalaamGarage. SalaamGarage promotes service projects in parts of the world that are normally not trekked by tourists. The organization has intimate in's with locals in their destinations, and they connect participants with these locals and help them to work together to create a service project that the community would benefit from.

I was really taken with SalaamGarage, with their initiatives and endeavors. But the thing that caught my attention most was what the organization calls, "citizen journalism." Citizen journalism is the name SalaamGarage gives to the way that their volunteers project their messages learned from their service projects. They urge all their volunteers to either write blogs, take videos, use Twitter or Facebook, or use any other chosen method of social media to get their unique & creative message out to the world about their project. They stress that everyone can be a journalist in their own unique way and every traveler and volunteer has their own unique message that the world can benefit from.

I really loved this message and I really want to try and use this blog at times as a platform for citizen journalism, as a place where I can talk about some things that strike us in Argentina. My ultimate goal is that readers will comment on these posts (i.e., tell me how much I don't know! lol!) and shed their light on the situation. I want to together create a dialogue that can analyze and interpret some of the complicated things happening in Argentina (and elsewhere when we get there!).

One thing that I would like to bring up is the topic of Argentina's upcoming elections. Like any country, Argentina's politics are a web of interwoven complications. In a country with very little history of democracy, their freely elected government seems somewhat fragile. Please, if anyone reading this knows more than I do, please correct me if I am wrong because I am certainly no expert. But, if I have done my homework right, I think that in the 20th century, Argentina had only 4 democratically elected leaders--Hippolito Yrigoyen in the early 1900's (who served close to 2 terms, before being overthrown); Juan Peron in the late 1940's (who again served close to 2 terms before being overthrown) and again after his exile in the 1970's (where he served part of 1 term before passing away, and was succeeded by his wife Isabel who was then overthrown); Raul Alfonsin in the 1980's who came after the infamous Dirty War; and Carlos Menem after Alfonsin. The rest of the years were characterized by military regimes.

What's more is that the democratic regimes that seem to show up as candle light through the darkness of dictatorships haven't always seemed to be very "for the people and by the people," so to speak. Pro-Peronists give Peron credit for accomplishing much for his country, but his opponents criticize him of being a Fascist and of using scare tactics to get what he wanted. However, Alfonsin does truly seem to be Argentina's honest Father of Democracy, and for that we can draw gratitude and aspirations for the future. But his successor, Menem, appears to have had some very un-democratic tendencies, with Mafia-like tendencies and connections coming out the ears.

No half-witted summary of mine can give can give due credit to the tragedies the Argentine people have suffered at the hands of their government. But I think even these few measly sentences can help to show that if Argentines appear cyncial of their government, they certainly have reason to feel so jaded.

The current administration under Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is wildly unpopular. The wife of the former president, Nestor Kirchner, came to office with high approval ratings on the heels of her husband's popular administration that was given credit for Argentina's rapid economic growth during the years of 2004-2007. However, it didn't take long for Cristina's popularity to plummet. By the time Nick and I arrived in late August, the President was coasting along on 23% approval ratings, and based on the buzz on the street, I don't think they've risen much in the past 9 months.

As I said before, I'm certainly no expert, but the tid-bits that I do catch about Cristina Kirchner seem infuriating. The poverty rate has been scarily creeping up-and-up in Argentina, as has the inflation rate. Despite this type of suffering plaguing her country, Cristina is often in the news for such expenditures as buying a pair of $15,000 earrings while visiting France. She pretends to be a champion of the poor, rallying behind political fights such as arguing in favor of allowing the slum in the center of Buenos Aires to exist, although she has done very little if anything at all to help its residents. Her tactics seem all talk, no walk, and the irresponsibility and irreverence shown to the actual people that suffer due to her negligence seems tragic.

But the good news is that Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner does not seem untouchable. Her seemingly frivolous behavior is not going unnoticed, as is reflected in opinion polls and in the splintering of her own party. Last summer, her own vice president cast the deciding vote against her attempts to further tax farmers' exports. Rising oppositionist voices, such as Mauricio Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires, are increasingly gaining attention and support. News circulates of slandering headlines, such as Spanish journalists calling her the "Botox Queen."

Of course, Cristina notices this shake-up in her hold over the country. As an attempt to salvage her power, she rescheduled congressional elections for June, moving them up three months from the previously planned October date. This finagling is an obvious attempt to cling to a last chance of retaining her party's power in the Congress. Her reasoning: economic projections don't look too good for the end of 2009; therefore, the sooner the elections are held in 2009, the better, as Cristina still has a chance to curry favor before the going gets too tough (which she fears it would be in October). So, rescheduling elections is an obvious ploy to gather votes when things are still good (enough).

Not only is this an obvious ploy to pull the bag over people's heads, but it's also quite ironic: the election date was officially set in October by her husband when he was president. Why? To keep politicians from doing exactly what his own wife is now doing: to finagle election dates to cash in on timely favor.

But the irony doesn't stop there--Nestor Kirchner himself appears on the ballot, as a senatorial candidate for Buenos Aires province. So not only has his wife dismantled an anti-corruption law he put in place, but he himself has waggled his way onto a powerful ticket. It seems to me as if the Kirchners are trying to establish themselves more firmly at the seat of power. And this may be their only chance, before inflation runs away and so do jobs as affects of the crisis trickle through the country (not to mention their massive loan payments due at the end of the year).

It makes me so sad to think of Argentina's leadership dooping the country. I can't bear to think about politicians going to slums and bribing residents with a coke and a hot-dog in exchange for a vote. It seems unbearably manipulative that leaders are deceiving, and intentionally hurting their constituents, under the guise of protecting them.

But here's where the hope comes in: Nestor Kirchner isn't doing as well as expected in the polls. He definitely has a shot at losing, which would prove to the leadership that the people are refusing to be swindled. What a wonderful message that would send: that despite the corruption, despite the military dictatorships, despite being cheated out of a democratic government again and again, the people are not giving up hope, are demading an honest system, honest representation. Until the end of the month with the moment of truth, let's all hope for that power to come from the people...

For a good and way more professional summary of the logic behind the elections read this Economist article.

Trekking with UFO's

2009-06-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned in my previous posts, the little towns dotting the Cordoba hills have stolen my heart. Nick and I spent the better part of last week tooling around more of these little gems with my parents, who came all the way from Madison, Wisconsin (bearing 4 flights!) to visit us! And they of course were captured by Cordoba's charm, just like us...

In a shiny Fiat rental car, my dad and Nick navigated through the winding, hilly, provincial roads and led us to towns with names like La Cumbre, Capilla del Monte, and Villa General Belgrano (maybe it's because I'm infatuated already, but even the names seem to ring with loveliness...). Each town had its own flavor (like Villa General Belgrano's deliciously orange-flavored micro-brewskis), but perhaps the most intriguing flavor of all was the slight hint of a UFO presence in Capilla del Monte. Let me explain.

Here is what Lonely Planet writes about Capilla del Monte:

It's not just the freaks and hippies. Even normal-looking people in Capilla del Monte have stories about strange lights appearing in formation in the night skies over nearby Cerro Uritorco [a near-by large hill/small mountain]...[One time] 300 people witnessed a ship, which left a burn mark 42 meters in diameter. And in 1991, another burn mark was found. This one measured 12 meters in diameter, with a temperature of 340 degrees Celcius. Geologists were called in and they claimed that nearby rocks had recently been heated to a temperature of 3000 degree Celcius.

Now, however you explain it, I think we can all agree that is some freakish activity. As I'm sure you can imagine, there are some prettty interesting explanations for these occurrences. One theory is that Cerro Uritorco holds the Holy Grail. Another explanation is that a hidden city called "Erks" rests underneath the mountain. And this isn't just any city. No, Erks is rumored to be the very place where "the future regeneration of the human species will take place," according to Lonely Planet. This is all pretty heady stuff, wouldn't you agree? Well, Nick and I certainly thought so, and there was only one way to confront such heady stuff: hike up Cerro Uritorco.

So that we did, with glee, on a gorgeous day last week. We rolled up our jeans, Nick bared his pecks, we armed ourselves with bottles of water, and finally we began our ascent. The sun was shining beautifully that day, and as we climbed higher and higher, we had the most magnificent views of the towns and valleys laying below. The path was narrow and we felt pretty hard-core as we manouvered over rocks and over steep inclines. I have to admit, I got pretty darn winded at times, but Nick keeping just a few steps ahead of me was great motivation to keep up. And, finally, 2 and 1/2 hours later, we made it to the peak of Cerro Uritorco.

I feel like I am letting down a great legend when I say I didn't feel any special energy, despite a guide stopping us on the way up to warn us into paying attention to the vibes emanating from the earth there on those slopes. But, alas, the only energy I felt was the excitement from having ascended a really big hill/a pretty small mountain. My legs were toast, but my heart was beating with the enthusiasm that comes after doing something a bit out of character and a bit challenging. But, hey, that energy was enough for me! I was pumped up to be on this great peak looking out from so far up over such beautiful countryside. (And let's face it, I'm just probably not in-tune enough to pick up on those other-wordly vibes!)

So, the lack of UFO vibes didn't get me down. Rather, at the top of Uritorco, I was happy as a clam. Nick and I were smiling away, eating our pack-lunches atop a rock on the peak when all the sudden we heard, "Sarah Maxwell!" Now, what the heck--we were on top of a hill/mountain in the middle of Cordoba. Who the heck was calling my name? Well, it was none other than Laura C., our friend from Buenos Aires! What are the chances? Okay, I have to admit, it's not THE most outrageous thing--I knew that Laura was in the Cordoba province that week, but I did not know she was in Capilla del Monte on that particular day, on the top of Cerro Uritorco at that particular hour. So perhaps the UFO rumors are true... :-)

Minutes after seeing Laura and finishing our much-needed lunches, we rose again and stretched out our semi-shaking legs. After some mental prep, we started down on our weakened legs, slow and steady, paying attention to each step and taking care not to twist our ankles on the moving rocks. Almost 3 hours later, we made it, back to the base, back to where we had started, a little enlightened by the Cordobesa UFO's...

Mother Nature Takin' Over

2009-05-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

'Cause it's the new Mother Nature takin' over
It's the new splendid lady come to call
It's the new Mother Nature takin' over
She's gettin' us all
She's gettin' us all

Oh yeah, that's right, I'm shamelessly quoting The Guess Who. But you know, it just really fits my mood right now. Why? Because Cordoba is filled with nature. Buenos Aires may be majestic in its man-made concrete wilderness (FLASHBACK: standing on top of the Palacio Barolo and looking out over the MAZE that is Buenos Aires, realizing that everyday millions of people some how make their way through all of that). But Cordoba is majestic in its divinely natural splendor.

Cordoba city sits like the hub of a wheel, the epicenter of a dozen spokes leading to country towns scattered throughout the hills. These country towns are indeed tiny. Their city centers can be tracked in 20 minutes tops. Their paths around the surrounding hills can be easily found, and the must-see tourist sites uniquely boasted by each town can be seen and enjoyed within an afternoon. These little towns make for short-and-sweet day trips, mini-vacations that give you respite from the urban hustle-bustle. They are truly lovely. So far, we have visited three of these hidden gems: Jesus Maria, Alto Gracia, and Villa Carlos Paz. I've already regaled you with the tales of Jesus Maria, so I'll bypass that verbal tour and skip straight ahead to Alto Gracia and Villa Carlos Paz.

First, Alto Gracia. This is where you go for a walk down Revolutionary Road. Che Guevara's childhood home is all the rage in this tiny town, and it is a definite must-see. Converted into a museum, it houses the famed motorcyle, as well as the lesser-known bicycle that Che pedalled through 14 Argentine provinces before he embarked on his pan-South American motorbike tour. The house is decorated with framed photographs of the Guevara family and preserved relics from their past. You leave the museum with a sense that the revolution lives on. I can't quite pinpoint exactly what leaves you with this feeling, but perhaps it's the room devoted to documenting Fidel and Hugo's joint visit to the house/museum in 2006. Their photographs, quotes, and signatures cover the walls in that final room, leaving you with a definite sense of...Wonder? I'm not quite sure what to call it, but it was definitely an interesting peek into a revolutionary and a revolutionary culture!

Outside the museum the town is very sleepy. There are delicious pastries to be eaten in the city center, a beautiful Jesuit mission that gives you a wonderful sense of pervading calm, and a stream and hills waiting for your playing feet. Our day in Alto Gracia was indeed a day well-spent!

Alright, now it's time to move on to Villa Carlos Paz. Though this town has decidedly less to offer than a Che museum, it certainly does have its own brand of charm. It truly is nestled into the sierras, and as you walk along you see those dusty, rustic hills on all sides of you. The lake of Villa Carlos Paz is the central point, and there are paddle boats just waiting for you to jump in and whirl around the lake! A little ways away from the lake is a ski lift that will take you up and into the sierras, giving you an amazing view (I am sure of that, although it was closed when we were there and we couldn't try it!).

But, really nothing in Villa Carlos Paz beats the Reloj Cu Cu, or the Cuckoo Clock. The Reloj Cu Cu was built in 1958 to promote tourism in the town. Located in the city center, it is a wooden structure, literally, an over-sized wooden cuckoo clock. It is very charming in a kitschy way, but unfortunately, we couldn't see the cuckoo bird chirp the time--the cuckoo bird was apparently stolen about a year ago, believe it or not. Oh, Dear Lord, I would LOVE to see the footage of that--a conman on the run with a wooden cuckoo tucked under his arm, slipping through the unsuspecting streets of Villa Carlos Paz. Well! It all just goes to show that there is always an adventure waiting for you in the Cordoba province.

Adventures in Cordoba

2009-05-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

We have now reached the 2-week mark in Cordoba, and we are honestly loving every moment of our stay here. The city has enchanted us, with its deserty backdrop and its history-infused city-center--the colonial churches and centuries-old Jesuit missions looming aglow on either side of you as you wander the streets of downtown.

We love taking jogs in the Parque Sarmiento, losing ourselves in the hills and wooded pathways of the park. We love eating newly-discovered Cordoba-style empanadas at our favorite empanaderia, El Alamo. We love uncovering historical gems such as the Museo Superior de Bellas Artes, an art museum housed in a beautiful palace, with collections from conquistador times to recent dictatorial times.

We love continuing our Buenos Aires habit of stumbling upon cathedrals, such as the gothic-style Capuchin monk church, all shrouded in symbolism. Its one steeple stands alone, adjacent to a naked roof where another steeple should stand. The steeple's absence is there on purpose, to portray humanity's imperfection. The outside of the temple is decorated with sculptures of other-worldly beings, and a handful of statues of Atlas, meant to symbolize the crushing weight of man's sins and guilt.

We love all of these things unique to Cordoba, and we also love all the normal things of Cordoba. We love the produce vendor at the Supermercado Estrella, the Star Supermarket, who is always in a good mood. We love the little corner-market owner who makes sure to be extra nice to us because our wonderful landlord Maria gave him special orders to do so. Every time we walk in he praises our linda pais, our beautiful country, and the wonders there (such as Miami, apparently!). We love how the park is packed on Sunday nights with families and with joy-riding cruisers trying to pick up some cute Cordobesa ladies. We love the pizzaria Alfonsina, with its dark and cozy interior and folk music ringing out its walls. We love it all.

But mostly we love living with Ale & Maria. I think there is something to be said about living with a family while you are abroad. Of course, this can be an unlucky experience, such as was experienced by our sweet, sweet friend, when he was asked to find a new host family because he "didn't fit in." That of course is a very scary risk of living with a family in a different country. But if you are lucky, and end up with the right people, it can be the most wonderful, profound, intimate experience. It can give you a home in a place that can otherwise feel very far from home.

While I was in high school, I went on a study abroad exchange program to Australia, where I spent two months with a family on a sheep farm in the outback. When I was in college, I spent nearly five months studying at the National University of Ireland in Galway. Though I had an amazing experience in Ireland and made life-long friends, it is Australia that I think about daily, and I know it is because I lived with a family, I had a home there in the outback in a way I never did in Ireland. We have only been in Cordoba for two weeks, but already, our memories here have a depth of the familial that we didn't experience in Buenos Aires until Caitlin came to stay with us, nearly eight months into our stay there. We are very thankful for this new chapter in our Argentine experience...

The Grapes of Grappa

2009-05-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

Our arrival into Cordoba was marked by not only a changing landscape but also by a changing landscape. As we left behind the humid, people-packed palms of Buenos Aires for the desert-swept, cracked-earth interior arms of Cordoba, we also left behind the English words that swirled around us in the Capital for the Cordobesa sing-song Spanish that we have now collided with. Although we were lucky enough to make many friends from either Argentina or from other parts of South America while staying in Buenos Aires, all of our friends spoke far better English than we spoke Spanish. That being said, whenever we reached a communication bump, we all resorted to the formerly stated language. This fact of our BA life was a blessing in that we could clearly express ourselves and build deep relationships with little miscommunication. But it was a major curse in that it allowed us to be lazy and not bend-over-backwards in our pursuit of la idioma espanola.

But, our hour of allotted laziness has expired--because we have arrived at the Casa Roca, where Spanish is the dominant tongue. And we are learning to swim so as not to sink.

Casa Roca is headed by Alejandro and Maria, and their adorable two-and-a-half-year-old hija, Abigail. They are incredibly patient with us, repeating-repeating-repeating and taking it slow-slow-slowly. (And they always give me a second chance and help me correct myself and take my foot out of my mouth when I fake an understanding by saying "si" when the correct answer is apparently anything BUT si.) As we eat dinner together nearly every night, Nick and I are learning a lot, and fast, thanks in huge part to Ale and Maria's patience. We're not always completely sure of what is going on, but it always works out for the best.

A good example of not always knowing what is going on is the situation last weekend. On Saturday evening, Nick and I were making dinner when Maria walked in and invited us to go and visit the town where her mom was from, Jesus Maria, with her and Ale and Abi on Sunday. The town was apparently very lovely, with a UNESCO Jesuit mission and beautiful countryside. It sounded great--we were totally game.

Nick and I wondered what was in store for us the next day, and figured it must be a little day-trip of sorts. I began to nurse images of a countryside dream, picnicking (perhaps frolicking) in the fields with Ale, Maria, and Abi. While I fed those little daydreams, Nick and I ate dinner, watched a movie (The Big Lebowski), and went to bed. When we woke up, the house was filled with little voices shouting, "Tio!" We went downstairs to see what all the commotion was about, and that's where we were met with Maria's entire extended family, apparently all set to take the trip to Jesus Maria as well. Okay, I began to realize that my picnic fantasies were a silly pipe-dream (really, where had they come from?! how ridiculous!). Using the evidence on hand, Nick and I pieced together that Maria's mother must still live in Jesus Maria, and that this was a family visit. Alright, we got ready to be a part of the fam for a day! Language barrier or not, we were ready!

I'm not quite sure why, and I know this is completely ridiculous, maybe it was fostered by the name of the town (Jesus Maria), but on the bus ride to the country, Maria's mother took shape in my mind as a tiny, ancient woman shrouded in black veils and weighed down by rosaries. I pictured us staying the day in her quiet and holy house, having a very special experience. Which is why I was (ridiculously) surprised when we pulled up and were greeted by Maria's very normal and very cute mother, wearing a salmon short-sleeved shirt, khaki pants, and woven clogs. An adorable abuela! Cooking a delicious-smelling stew over the stove, next to her equally normal and adorable (and very jolly and welcoming!) husband, Maria's father. I really am no good at predicting outcomes, am I??

I took in my new surroundings, laughed at my daydreams of yesteryore, and settled in. True to form, everyone was so patient with us and spoke slowly, simply, and carefully. We ate ate ate the amazing stew, snacked on bread with home-made jam (made from a cactus fruit!), sipped on mate and wine, and played with the kids in the backyard. It was lovely, and far better than any ludicrous day-dream I could have conjured up.

Around 3 pm, Alejandro said loudly, above the extended family din, "Nick y Sarah, listo? Vamos!" Nick and Sarah, ready? Let's go! Okay, we guessed it was time to go. Short and sweet, we concluded, and hopped into Maria's brother's van, to the bus station we guessed.

Once again, we guessed wrong, a conclusion we realized as the van parked right outside beckoning iron gates guarding a stone mission. Ah, UNESCO! Another surprise, this time an 18th (I think!) century estancia, or farm, that was built to provide the Jesuits income with which they could use to pursue their educational endeavors (and conversion endeavors, too, perhaps?) in South America.

It was architecturally an amazing site, with winding stairways and hallways letting in mysterious and limited shafts of light. Walls preserved artwork from the beginning of Jesuit history in Argentina, and rooms preserved religious relics from days of yore, as well as mementos left behind by all the pilgrims and tourists that have passed the mission by (from almost every country I can think of!). As always, my imagination was running wild, and it was eerie (in a fun way) to think of the Jesuits swishing around the ancient property with their robes swaying, lighting their way with torches, writing letters back to the Vatican from their drafty, candle-lit quarters.

But alas, as with any "preserved" site, the mission was a teensy tiny bit on the stuffy side. There were too many guards lurking in the corners, ready to snatch your camera at a moment's notice. There were too many old lady regular visitors sitting on benches watching you, making sure you were appreciating everything as you very well should. There were too many rules and a bit too much cleanliness. Don't get me wrong--it was amazing, of course, just a tad-bit on the stuffy side (as all protected historical sites very well need to be!). I'm not arguing against it, I'm just saying it gives me a bitty case of the nervous giggles. Which is why I enjoyed our next stop so so very much...

The next stop: the winery! After the estancia, we cruised on over to the Bodega, or the local winery, where an adorable young lady showed us the up's and down's of that house of vino. We saw the wooden barrels, the steel barrels, the catacombs where the wine was stored back in the day (its walls stained a deep, dark red), the grape thrashers, the grappa-processing room, the whole shebang. And, at the end, the wonderful guia gave us a taste of it all--a bit of the Chardonnay, a bit of the Merlot, a bit of the Malbec, and a bit of the grappa. I had never had grappa before, but it certainly was potent! Made from the third go-round of the grapes (the first mashing produces bottled wine, the second produces boxed wine, and the third produces the grappa), it's extremely alcoholic, and tastes a bit medicinal. But, with a little honey thrown into the mix, it is actually quite good (I think!). And what's more is it cleared my sinus problems right up! Voila! Who needs antibiotics when you've got grappa?!

We left that Bodega goodness with bottles for all, for us, for Maria and Ale, and for Maria's adorable parents. It was so delicious! With our wine and the sting of the grappa still zinging our tongues, we headed back to the ranch and joined the rest of the party. Once back with the rest of the fam, we drank some more mate and ate some more bread and jam.

Well, last weekend we really had no idea what we were getting into, but was it ever worth the risk of the unknown!

Argentine Cooking Classes!!

2009-05-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know I said that we were ready to leave Buenos Aires, but that was said before I found out about Cooking with Teresita--a cooking class run by a spunky portena who teaches you the nitty-gritty of Argentine cookery right in her cozy home, and of course all the while serving you Argentine wine as well. I was emailing back and forth with her daughter about the course, and this is what she wrote to me about the classes:

My mother's cooking classes are for people who are interested in more than just learning a recipe; they are designed for those who would like to learn and shaer a day at an Argentine's home while learning how to prepare one of the most traditional dishes of Argentina.

Sounds pretty great, huh?! I took a peak at the website, and I saw that the next upcoming class is really the cream of the crop--it is the Empanadas class! The class will cover empanadas de carne (beef empanadas) and empanadas de humita (corn empanadas), and the scrumptious empanadas will be pared with the most appropriate wine (in this case, apparently, a Malbec). This class is held on Mondays, costs US $45 per person, which includes the wine and all the ingredients for the empanadas (which you get to devour once they are ready to come out of the oven). So I think that is a really fair price!! Think about the lessons you are getting--learning to cook empanadas like a portena! That is pretty priceless.

If you are interested, you should check out Teresita's website-- http://try2cook.com/cooking-lessons-in-Buenos-Aires.html. It's chock full of the cooking classes offered, pictures of the cook in her element, and raving testimonials, including this one:

Teresita's passion and knowledge for food makes this class a "Must Take" in Buenos Aires.

Well, that pretty much sells me. If I was still in Buenos Aires, I would be signing up for this class like it was my job!

And, as if you needed any more conviction, check out these pics of Teresita doing her thing:

Waving Goodbye To Buenos Aires

2009-05-05T14:29:00.001-07:00

Our Buenos Aires chapter closed in two parts. The first part came last Monday when we packed Caitlin off into a taxi and asked the driver to take her to Izeiza Airport. The second part came last Thursday when Nick and I boarded the double-decker bus at Retiro Station and headed west. Destination: Cordoba.

First for the first part. The last week of Caitlin's stay, we became sponges--soaking up the city with every pore. We ate Brazilian, savoring every bite of our feijaoda and revelling in every sip of our caiparinas. We rocked out a jazz bar where an Australian tourist told the wicked keyboardist to "let loose and cut-it-up!" We saw the best view of Buenos Aires on a crystal clear day from the top of the Palacio Barolo. We had friends over for La Fachada emapanadas washed down with Fernet, and we curled up almost every night to watch a comedy (from Stranger than Fiction to The Royal Tennenbaums). We ate one last meal from Pura Vida and did one more round at the Sunday San Telmo Antique Fair. We read in the Palermo parks and we walked the walk of the La Boca El Caminito. We swayed to Argentine folk at a porteno pena and we shared a Quilmes (the cheapest thing on the menu!) at the ever-so-posh Cafe Tortoni). We did it all, and we did it in style.

We went out with a bang. In our last week in Buenos Aires, we celebrated Buenos Aires. And what better way to say good-bye to such a multi-colored city than to rejoice in its splendors? Our 8 months in Buenos Aires were complicated--so many up's and down's, and so many lessons in the good, the bad, and the ugly. We are so thankful for the depth and the intimacy of our stay in Buenos Aires, as it is its very profundity that will keep the city in our hearts forever. But a farewell should really be joyful, a rejoice and celebration for all that is good enough to miss.

So that is how the three of us said our goodbyes to Buenos Aires, and to each other. And it was perfect.

Nick and I passed the two days that lapsed between Caitlin's departure and our departure working, packing, and saying good-bye to friends (and renting more movies). It all felt very anti-climatic, but in a nice, calm, meant-to-be way. It felt truly that it was the time to move on to a new place. So with little fanfare and many hopeful promises to see our friends in the upcoming months, we dragged our rolling suitcases and hikers' backpacks to Retiro one last time and jumped aboard the Sierras de la Cordoba omnibus and headed toward more deserty lands.

As we passed through Buenos Aires, it was strange to see the city fade away, knowing we will not see those now-so-familiar signs for a long time. But sadness is a happy part of a goodbye, as the wonderful Sallycat says, as to be sad in your goodbye means that you were so happy in your hello.

Wine Tasting in Palermo

2009-05-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Nick, Caitlin, and I were invited to a wine-tasting by our favorite English Institute, In English. Thinking that it was a party for all the English teachers employed by In English, I was quite shocked, and thinking that the Institute made a mistake by inviting me, when I realized it was a party for potential clients. Here's the story of that evening glory...

The first thought I had when I stepped into the chic wine bar was a panicked, I don't belong here!! Classiness oozed from the walls, the choicest bottles of wine lay sparkling in their wooden cradles. The lighting was dim and made all the sleek, slim, and well-dressed attendees glow. I felt nerdy behind my glasses and a bit on the rough side in my well-worn jeans and frayed heels.

Breathe, I told myself. I smiled at all the other party-comers and pretended to consider buying a $200 bottle of wine...And that's when I spotted the platters of appetizers dotting the corners of the room. Salami lay glistening in delicate little rolls, slices of bread beckoned, begging to be smothered in the creamy dip that lay resplendant in a porcelain bowl. Cheese called out my name; olives shone in the light. I put down the Malbec I was pretending to examine and waltzed (perhaps skipped is a more appropriate verb) over to the comida.

As I gleefully popped a tower of salami, cheese, olives and bread into my watering mouth, I realized at the last moment that no one else was following my lead. I was the only person in the joint who had flocked to the food!!! I was THAT American...That stereotypical American fatty. Oy vey, I was about to hang my head in shame...When...Out of nowhere stepped a laid-back and filled-with-class chabon who looked like he was in charge--in a very relaxed way. This guy tapped his wine glass, and suddenly all eyes were on him.

Hi everyone! Welcome welcome, we will begin the wine tasting in just a few minutes. But in the mean-time, please welcome yourself to the food that is laid out for you!

I was liberated! Suddenly everyone was prancing to the platters...Nothing like some finger food to lighten the mood (I was just ahead of the curve, that's all). Soon everyone was talking, and everyone was talking so nicely!! There were people there from all walks, from employees of major coorperations like General Mills, to do-it-yourselfer-type small business owners, to intriguing journalists. And they were all just so down-to-earth--excited to be at a wine tasting, and excited to meet new people. Suddenly, the wear-and-tear of my jeans didn't seem to matter, and my heels started to feel classy enough to be clipping along at a wine tasting. I was chatting away when the man in the suit mysteriously re-appeared, tapping away at his wine glass to catch our attention.

Hi again, everyone. My name is Alex, and I am your co-host for tonight, along with Emily and Valeria from In English. Welcome, welcome. Why don't you all get situated and we will taste some wines. Now we are going to try three different wines tonight, two reds and a white...

And so it began. I took my place in the circle of wine tasters waiting to wet their palates with some vino. First came a white, and the lessons that went along with that beautiful chardonnay...Crystal clear and crisp, it slid down my throat and warmed my toes with the first sip. I watched as people around me swallowed in satisfaction, and I listened as Alex explained the origins of that divine glass. Then came the first red, and the same thing happened, only this time it was through rose-colored glasses. And then came the third, and by that time I knew I never wanted to leave that cozy, classy little wine shop. But alas, I had to set my glass down like everyone else, and take my place outside the door...I said goodbye to all the chic bottles of wine that looked so tasty on the rack, and waved goodbye to all the new acquaintances I had made in that wine-soaked night. And walked home in a rose-tinted glow.

5 Amazing Meals in BA...

2009-04-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the best part of having guests is of course the eating part--to explore the culinary corners of your destination, to look forward to each meal with great glee...I have to say, these past 6 weeks, as Nick and I have been spoiled by family visiting, my palate has been delightfully happy...Let me share with you some of the best meals I have bitten into.

Meal: Tofu a la mostaza
Restaurant: Bio
Description: Bio is the little organic haven snuggled right off of Guatemala in Palermo Viejo. If Anthropologie was reincarnated as a restaurant, it would come back as Bio. It is a small eatery with antiquey wooden tables and wooden benches, with natural light a-plenty comin' through the many windows (that are all framed with the most adorable sheer,sea-foam green curtains). The shelves are lined with home-made organic breads and jams, and the spicy cooking wafts through the kitchen's paneless window. The ambience is peaceful bliss, and the cuisine is A-MAZING. My favorite dish was the tofu a la mostaza--tofu grilled to perfection in a mustard sauce and served over basmatti rice and marinated and grilled red peppers, carrots, and mushrooms. Bon appetit! Also mouth-watering was the ginger ice cream, ever-so-slightly spicy; the whole-wheat veggie empanadas; and the Thai mushrooms soaked in coconut milk and spiced with chilies. Really, you just can't go wrong at Bio.

Meal: Braised pork over sweet potatoes
Restaurant: Bobo
Description: "Bobo" is the semi-acronym for "Bourgeouis Bohemian" (which is also the title of David Brook's hilarious social commentary book!), and one could say it's a bit elitist...But the flavors are so good that you should allow yourself to be elitist for this meal! Nestled in the heart of Palermo Hollywood, it is classier than class, with perfect flower arrangements sparsley decorating the corners (less is more here) and simple candle light illuminating each table. And let me tell you, the food here was worthy of any elite, the world over! My dish was so mouth-wateringly scrumptious that I am still lusting after it more than 3 weeks later...The pork was done perfectly, crispy and crusted with herbs on the outside, and tender and soft in the inside. The sweet potatoes were whipped to perfection and baked so that the outside had the slightest crunch. Oh, how magnifique!!

Meal: Plum & Mozzerella Empanadas
Restaurant: La Fachada
Description: I've always been a sucker for the lounging moments of vacation, which is perhaps why I enjoyed La Fachada's empanadas so much, as they were eaten as take-out while watching Evita on Caitlin's laptop. The cozy factor was out-the-roof! (It doesn't hurt that Evita is one of my all-time favorite movies, either.) But even those the setting might have biased my decision, these empanadas are some of the best I have had! They are very unique in that many of them are open-faced, like miniature empanada pot-pies, oozing with cheese and empie goodness. My personal favorite of these pot-pie style empanadas was the plum and mozzerella. I know it sounds strange, and at first I was a bit leary, until I took a bite...The plum tasted more like a softly sweet jam, spread in-between layers of warm, melted mozzerella, all resting inside flaky pastry dough. There was the slightest sprinkling of pancetta lacing the top, giving the whole thing a smoked and unforgettable taste. Each bit was more amazing than the last, I swear...

Meal: Italian Veggie Salad Wrap
Restaurant: Pura Vida
Description: Pura Vida is a health-nut's Paradise located in Recoleta. It is a cubby of a restaurant, with a smoothie bar and bar stools for diners who wish to eat in-house, and constantly moving delivery men on motor-bikes for diners who wish to take-out. Its white-washed walls are decorated with giant photographs of fruit that looks like it was plucked straight from the Garden of Eden. Its blenders are always chugging away, concoting wheat-grass shots and fresh fruit smoothies. But their salad wraps are where it's at. Caitlin and I split two--a smoked salmon wrap and an Italian veggie wrap. Both were great, but the Italian choice was particularly enjoyable (isn't that always the case?). The delicious and nutritious tortilla encapsulated fresh greens, marinated peppers and eggplant, and crispy tofu, done perfectly. The honey-mustard and avocado-celery sauces that accompany the wrap gave it the loveliest finishing touch. Mmm, to bite into that wrap right now would complete my morning...

Meal: Portobella mushroom sandwich
Restaurant: Natural Deli
Description: Natural Deli sits peacefully and unassumingly right off of Luis Maria Campos in Las Canitas, just a block away from the magnificent and mysterious San Benito Cathedral. With a yoga studio above the cafe and the a cafe shop stocked with fair trade and natural coffees, sweets, chocolates, wines, and spices, you feel very om-like from the moment you set foot in the door. In fact, we ate outside, and felt the om-like vibes wafting even outside the restaurant! I swear! And was the food ever om-like in-and-of-itself...I ordered a roasted portobella mushroom sandwhich, that came perfectly marinated, perfectly grilled, topped with lovely parmesan cheese, and squished between the most amazing slices of whole-grain bread. Accompanying the sandwich came some house rolls, again filled with natural organic wheat goodness, and topped with olive oil bathed in a whole clove of garlic. For a garlic lover like me, this was Heaven! (Poor Nick!) I cut right into that stinky clove and spread its soft, delicious meat all over my olive-oil soaked (once-upon-a-time-healthy) whole wheat roll. And I washed it all down with a cup of delicious organic red wine. The meal really couldn't be beat.

Food. My raison d'etre.

Material Possessions & The Open Road

2009-04-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

When your material life can be packed into two rolling suitcases and a backpack, your possessions acquire a different kind of meaning. For the first time in my life I am aware of every single item of clothing I own, and the stories behind each of them--the sundress with red flowers handed down from my mom's college closet; the flowered skirt Maira sent down with Caitlin; the wool poncho Elsa brought back from Bolivia; the dress Mrs. Cunningham surprised me with...Each item of clothing seems to hold its own story, and take on new memories as it gets carried from one Buenos Aires barrio to the next, and now from one South American city to the next.

I have a tendency to be an over-sentimental pack-rat as it is, so this new lack of space for acquiring material objects is GOOD in that I simply CAN'T gather much, but BAD in that I attach too much meaning to each little object. Take for example, Nick's jeans (uh-oh, now I am venturing over to attaching sentimentality to all of Nick's belongings, too...). He has been switching off between two pairs of jeans here, and needless to say, they are becomin' a little worn down. The other day, push-came-to-shove when Nick was putting on his jeans, and he...put his foot right THROUGH the knee...because the material was too thin. Yep...

So, alas, we decided to whip out the credit card and spring for a new pair of denim leg-warmers (so-to-speak), quite excitedly, I might add--an excuse to go shopping! But, we couldn't bare to throw out the old jeans. So, instead, I (lovingly) sewed a patch over the gaping hole and called it a day. Nick has been wearing them every other day, still, as if no hole ever occurred. Maybe we are both growing too sentimental...

I think part of this growing sentimentality has to do with the fact that we (lovingly) hand-wash our clothes...in the bathtub. (Hey, it saves 15 pesos a week!) Each week, as I (lovingly) scrub my tender belongings, I realize how much these clothes go through--getting dirty, then wet, then clean, then dry, then back to dirty again...They go through so much for me! And through these washing/bonding/reflective sessions, I come to appreciate all of my things. I think about where they came from, and I daydream about where they will go. Dear Lord, I have come to personify my damn garments, haven't I??

As silly as it may seem, I can't deny it. Maybe I am taking it all a little too far...Maybe perhaps I should stop sewing the remaining fabric from a massively-ripped skirt into a purse...(But, come on, that skirt was bought by Lauren C in Israel when she was studying abroad and having God-knows-what life-altering adventures...And then it was passed to her sister Ally, who passed it to my sister Colleen, who passed it onto me! How can I throw out all of those memories?? No, I can't. I am quite confident now after that stream-of-consciousness that the skirt must become a purse, after all. Okay, I have resolved to keep on stitching!) Oh my goodness, I can see myself in ten years, going to interviews, with colorful peace-sign patterned patches on the elbows of my suit jackets...Perhaps I will become the cat-lady my family so feared I would...

But, nonetheless, cat-lady or not, I love each one of my (& Nick's!) possessions dearly...Strangely, they have become quite unexpected little companions on the road, reminding us of the people and situations back home that gave us such treasures. Like, the red blazer with very large heart-shaped buttons that I am wearing right now (along with the amazing Billabong sweatpants left-over from 8th grade) that my mom gave me for my birthday last year...The so-called "Gidget Jacket"...Oh, I love it so...

Stumbling Through Cathedrals

2009-04-21T20:06:00.001-07:00

These past 5 weeks have been sort of a personal quest for Nick and me, as we want to show off Buenos Aires's treasures one-by-one to Caitlin. It makes us exciting, and is a visual and physical re-cap to our past eight months here. Revisiting the city's cemeteries, museums (okay, 1 cemetery, and 2 museums...), parks, cafes, monuments, (bars), plazas, buddy bears (yes, buddy bears--Buenos Aires's famous world peace tribute!), and, well, you get the point. We've tried to take Caitlin on a "Best of BA" treasure hunt.

And it has honestly been a blast...To re-discover the sites we first uncovered with newbie eyes way back in August...And to discover for the first time sites we never took the time to see before...It's a pretty fun circle we're making here.

BUT, today we were reminded of the unexpected wonders of unplanned goodies. Today's spontaneous discovery: the Cathedral San Benito in Las Canitas. Peaceful bliss, mysterious architecture, rising up above palm trees and hidden from the road's view by a large cement wall. How we discovered it? Well, here's the story.

***

Caitlin (for those who don't know, Little Miss Green Thang) was surfing the web for biodegradable plastic bags in BA, which led her to the Natural Deli, an organic (and heavenly) cafe in Las Canitas. She mosied on over there last week to buy some organic mate and wine, and to pick up some bio bags as well. She did what she needed to do and went on her way, but not without checking out the menu...Which is what made her come home and insist that we return together to have a meal. So that we did, and boy was it deee-vine. A glass of organic red wine to accompany my roasted red pepper and portobella mushroom sandwich...(Oh man, I'm salivating right now in rememberance, I better move on!) Well, let's just leave it at that (if you are reading this and you live in BA, go there...now.)

Moving on, after we left the cafe with stomachs full of organic goodness and arms full with more organic goodness (wine, bread, brownies, and trail mix), we headed back towards the subte along Luis Maria Campos...Which is where we saw a strange and beautiful building looming above towering palms--a light red brick dome atop a building made of old-old-old brick, long-ago washed of any color. It was so curious, we had to sneak a look.

We crossed the street and walked along the building's cement wall until we reached a break in the stone that gave way to a stair-well and a path into a...cathedral! A beautiful (BEAUTIFUL), ancient, camouflaged castle of a cathedral! Talk about a treasure!

The walkway's walls had the church's name, San Benito, carved into its stone. We had entered the Sanctuary of San Benito. Ivy covered the church walls that were guarded from view int he road by the fortress-like cement wall. Inside, the cathedral walls towered high above us, woven with beams and windows. The alter was vast, simple and lovely. A deacon stood by, waiting to light your Easter candle with a prayer if you so wanted (and I just so happened to be needing to light a candle for a very special about-to-be-wed duo, so I was in luck!).

Nick, Caitlin, and I wandered around the cathedral's pews, and secret chambers that seemed un-ending. We watched the hundreds of prayer candles flicker when a wind whistled past, and we watched as dozens of worshippers kissed the foot of San Benito's statue, his toes golden, worn of all the copper that covered the rest of his body, washed from all the loving and hopeful touches he has received. Flowers laid all around him. Candles, too. It was all so beautiful.

In the words of John Lennon, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."

In the words of Hira, *sigh*

La Hoja de Rosario

2009-04-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I travel, I am confused and over-whelmed when deciding how to translate the place--the experience--into words. When everything around you is new, and you want to convey all of that newness verbally, you will lose the meaning, the feeling, the heart of a place. As Nicole Krauss wrote in A History of Love, "to capture the whole tree, you should focus on drawing only one leaf" (actually the real quote is something much more poetic, but the gist is something to that effect). But, how does one choose the leaf??

This weekend we traveled to Rosario, Argentina's 3rd largest city, 4 hours northwest of Buenos Aires. And here is where I struggle with the leaf metaphor--what can I say about Rosario, or rather, what part of it can I describe that touches on the feeling of the whole? That it is the birthplace of Che Gueverra, as well as Lionel Messi? That it is not the capital of its province--Santa Fe--despite it being the province's biggest city? That it is the "birthplace" of the Argentine flag? Yes, I could say all of these things and expand on them to create a picture of Rosario. But I think that picture would be empty of heart, because truthfully, that is a textbook version of Rosario. As interesting as it may be, it does not connect with people, and that connection is the very heart we are after, the heart of the journey.

So, what is the heart of Rosario to me? I suppose part of it is the river beach where we laid in rolled-up jeans and got tan lines that perfectly outlined our t-shirt sleeves. And part of it is the crazy, unexpected, and over-bearingly patriotic flag monument that rises up out of nowhere and glows blue and white at night, kept aglow by the eternal flame honoring the flag's creator, Manuel Belgrano. And part of it would have to be the beautiful Sunday evening Mass we stumbled upon in the dark, the folksy guitar sounds strumming forth from its choir, parishioners taking Communion, the doors flung open in welcome, and the young couple catching the last moments of service from outside the side door, their antsy toddler at their feet, unable to sit still in a pew.

Part of Rosario to me is also the cab driver who laughed and shouted "City of Al Capone!" when Nick told him I was from Chicago. (Okay, I'm not really from Chicago, but who is going to know Milwaukee?!) And part of the city is the couple on the moped flying down the street with a dog cuddled between their velocity-filled bodies. Part of it has to be, too, the slightly-creepy but character-filled Hotel La Paz and part of it is still the pigeon-filled plaza that our hotel room over-looked. Part of it is the flaky empanadas that are sold a dime-a-dozen, and part of it is the sophisticatedly-scrumptious Don Ferro, where we feasted on pork in mustard sauce, steak in peppercorn sauce, and chicken in mushroom sauce.

But to me, the biggest part of Rosario is the Pena la Amistad, and here is where the story begins...

***

On Saturday night after arriving, we went to a small cafe/bar on the main Rosario strip, Pellegrini, to drink some Quilmes and catch the last moments of the soccer game (Rosario versus Jujuy). An entertainment show in-and-of-itself, the cafe was silent until a play was made, after which the patrons either jumped up in a chorus of hurray's, or slammed the table in a chorus of boo's. Every cafe on the street was the same as our's, with all the chairs pointed towards the television, with grandfathers, teenage girls, young boys, middle-aged dads, and old senoras all equally entranced by the match. People who left the cafe for a smoke break would hover by the window and watch the TV while nervously puffing down their cigarette, smoking it as fast as they possibly could.

After much anxiety, the game ended in a tie, and we watched with awe as every patron jumped to their feet and filed out of the cafe, joining the massive hordes of football fanatics out on Pellegrini, all spilling out of their respective cafes, free to pursue the rest of their lives now that the soccer game was over. It was a serious lesson in Argentine culture.

Amazed, and with hearts still pounding from the crowd's excitement, we paid our bill and headed to Maipu Avenue to the Pena la Amistad which our Lonely Planet guidebook recommended for some asado and folk music. After a brisk walk, we found Maipu, and walked 6 blocks in, where we came to a block that was dark save for the one place we were headed for, 1111 Maipu, the fated Pena la Amistad.

We walked in and were immediately met with curious (but very welcoming) stares from the cook and the adorable curly-haired waitress. An older gentleman, presumably the cook's husband, came out to greet us and tell us the menu. Our entrance at 9 o'clock marked us immediately as Americans--who else would eat so early?! But we felt welcomed and the waitress came and brought over some house wine immediately, reassuring us that we weren't too early, and informing us that the music would begin in about an hour.

While waiting for the music, we feasted on amazing asado, grilled to perfection, and three lovely rosarino empanadas. The sounds of corks-popping definitely surrounded our table, as we drank down generous glasses of red wine.

Little-by-little, other diners trickled in and sure enough, a man with a guitar in-hand took the stage. Surprisingly, the cook emerged from the kitchen and took the microphone, and then her husband sat himself down with a drum.

The rest is history. We literally lost ourselves in the singing and clapping and foot-stomping that accompanied the musicians as they belted out their soul-filled chacarera tunes. As the night wore on, we opened more bottles of wine and were eventually handed a make-shift marocco (made from salt inside of a plastic Mayonnaise bottle!) and then, gem-of-all-gems, a rain-shaker!!! (Which Nick took great joy in!) It was, really and truly, the time of our lives. We left at 2:30 in the morning, after being there for nearly 6 hours. And we were the first to leave! We left exhausted and desperately needing bed, but feeling like wimps as we left the Pena when it was still a-rockin'! I know I will always remember Rosario mostly for that little hidden folk music treasure, the Pena la Amistad. That, I know now, is my leaf of Rosario.

Little Miss Green Thang

2009-04-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Green Queen Ms. Cunningham is leaving quite a green footprint on Buenos Aires, let me tell you! Everyday she is looking high and low, searching under every stone, for more green pieces of the city. From her guidance, we have dined at two AMAZING green restaurants: BIO, and the restaurant of the amazing eco-friendly boutique hotel, Casa Calma. Both were AMAZING. Please humor me while I indulge in my memories...

At Bio, we dined on tofu grilled in a mustard sauce, mushrooms marinated in coconut milk and Thai chilies, salads full of pecans and avocado and pineapple and pumpkin goodness, and ginger ice cream over an apple crisp. AH, the organic, fresh goodness of it all!!

At Casa Calma we feasted on smoked salmon sandwhiches on nutty whole-wheat bread, grilled organic chicken heaven, and organic happy-cow steak, all while we sipped on natural ginger maté that left our tongues zinging! The hotel's name is very accurate, for in that beautiful white, softly-lit café, bellies full with healthy cuisine, we were indeed c-a-l-m, despite the hectic, noisy traffic that was just out the door but seemed miles away.

So, the green temptress has tempted our tastebuds and left us yearning for more, more, MORE organic goodies!! In order to not break the bank, we have been trying to incorporate new and green recipes at home. Caitlin has dazzled us with her amazingly fresh bruschetta, I have tried to contribute by making baked apples sprinkled with cinnamon for dessert, and we are steeping away the organic teas Caitlin has purchased. Some other green finds Caitlin has dug up are the following:

The Natural Deli, a little café and shop in classy chic Las Cañitas, where Caitlin bought two bottles of organic wine, two boxes of organic teas, one giant bag of organic maté, AND a lovely little jar of organic jam (no corn syrup in that baby! Hurray!). Not to mention the biodegradable plastic bags the store gives away that we are now using for trash!!!

The Casa Calma TOUR. Little Miss Green Thang scored us an in-depth tour of the Casa Calma, Buenos Aires' FIRST eco-friendly hotel. The lovely hotel manager, Agustina, showed us all of the rooms and all of their amazingly natural spa products and services...(Couldn't Caitlin have tried a little harder and gotten us an actual spa service??!) If anyone reading this is planning a trip to Buenos Aires, I really recommend staying at the Casa Calma!!

Re-usable grocery bags. She brought them from home, and yes, now Nick sports a ¨Green and Gorgeous¨ cloth bag as he grocery shops. It's pretty amazing!!!

The Omnivore's Dilemma. This famous little paperback packed with scary facts on where our food comes from, and hopeful facts about where it should come from, is dominating our Green Queen's days. She is reading out loud to us every other page, so I feel I don't really have to do my own research anymore, as I've got my in-house, live, organic news feed!

YOGA (pronounced shoga in Argentina!). Yesterday marked the first day of Caitlin's now-daily yoga sessions, which involve 30 minutes of yoga in our apartment's one bedroom, Nick standing on one side of the bed, me on the other, and Caitlin leading in front of the bed, smoke from the apple incense we bought in Tigre swirling all around us and making us feel very om-like. I have to admit, I must look like a stiff gringo, but I feel GREAT. I feel all loosened up and hope to look like Guru Cunningham someday if I keep it up, which I am determined to do!!!

Keep tuned in for more of Little Miss Green Thang's adventures! I'll keep you posted!

a Window Into A City's Soul

2009-04-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

Opening up Buenos Aires to Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham was like pulling open a curtain to view a new city; we saw it with fresh eyes, rediscovering the pieces of its puzzle over and over again.

Caitlin has started a collection of photographs documenting her time in Buenos Aires. She calls this photo essay "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly." I think it is the most apt title, as every part of Buenos Aires has a bit of the good, the bad, and the ugly in it. They are three sides of the same coin, all inescapable without the other. You can't walk through beautiful Puerto Madero without thinking of the unscrupulous wealth disparities in the city, or of the corruption that so enriched some of these residents. And, on the flip-side, you can't see the villas without thinking that at one time, to some of its residents, these slums offered the dazzling hope of a shot at life in Argentina's Big Apple.

But, this week, 4 Cunninghams and 1 Maxwell tried our very best to conquer and soak up the good of BA. We strolled through the rose garden; ate one amazing meal after another; became intrigued while watching Evita the musical and then explored our way through the Evita Museum; shopped til we dropped; took in the paintings of the MALBA and the petals of the unfolding Flora Generalis rose; wound our way through Recoleta tombs; stopped at nearly every vendor at the San Telmo Antique Fair; and danced salsa through our Tuesday night. In so many ways it was exotic, unforgettable, and an honest-to-goodness blast.
Nick and I got to see so many sights we had yet to check off the list, like the Flora Generalis and her metallic solar-powerd leaves, stretching out in the sunshine and reflecting the sparkles of the water that rocks underneath her flower. And we got to show off and play tour guide to some of the most spectacular city jewels, from the haunting mausaleums of the Recoleta Cemetery to the quaint sea-side atmosphere of the Tigre Delta. To look at Buenos Aires through those fresh-again eyes, right as we are about to close our BA chapter, was indeed the perfect way to begin to say goodbye to this temporary home.

But of course, we couldn't altogether avoid the sharp edges. As we hopped over piles of dog poop on the cracked sidewalks and dodged traffic that never stops, despite a blinking and beckoning walking signal, snippets of the bleaker side of BA came through. Only hours after Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham landed, the 5 of us were walking down Avenida Santa Fe, taking in the Botanical Gardens on our right and the layout of the city on our left. Mrs. Cunningham was snapping a few pictures here and there, until she realized her camera was no longer on her wrist. There is no way that it had fallen off; it was wound tighly around her arm and she would have felt its sudden fall. It had to have been clipped off by a very savvy pick-pocketer. Mrs. Cunningham didn't let it get in her way; she was such a trooper and hardly skipped a beat. But it was a scary reminder that we weren't in the US (though of course that could happen anywhere) and that we have to take extra precautions.

But in the end, that is the real BA: the good, the bad, and the ugly, as Caitlin so appropriately says. And in the end, that is what travel is for, to show us the reality of other places so that our understanding and our empathy deepens. As my mom so often says, "it is important to be uncomfortable," to realize other perspectives and other ways. There are so many ways to challenge yourself in that medium and to put yourself in uncomfortable, soul-searching situations--some people find it through sports, others through intensive careers or studies, and some find it through travel. When you travel, you are completely vulnerable to an unknown place, with its own system, rules, and regulations. It was exciting and interesting to see the Cunninghams open up to the good, the bad, and the ugly here and accept it all without question or judgement, to see them experience BA.

And with that experience, with that loss of comfort, comes the abandonment of routine. While traveling, a schedule goes out the window, and the day unfolds exactly as it is supposed to. In a short time while traveling, you can learn so much about those around you, and connect in ways that take longer in everyday life and all of its hubub. And that happened so much this week. Without a schedule, without too many obligations from work and other factors, the 5 of us were free to stay at lunch for another hour because we were having a good conversation, or to keep dinner going for another 2 hours because we were laughing so much. That is the most rewarding, when travel becomes not so much about the destination, but rather about atmosphere within that destination that permits such unusual openness and memory-making moments. I am so thankful for this week and all of the memories it has given me.

Llegamos a...PALERMO!

2009-04-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

...It's true...We feel like VIP's! From the barrio de los barrios to the hippest Baires hood! How can this be?

7 months, 4 apartments, 4 neighborhoods, over 30 different bus lines, 500+ bus rides, and who-knows-how-many-teaching-institutes later, here we are...Cozily curled up in the home-iest apartment---Nick, Caitlin, and I...And altogether working on a project as our full-time jobs. Oh, thank goodness!!! These past 7 months have been crazy...At times the most wonderful, at times the most stressful, but altogether, as we stand still in this moment, we realize that each moment here has been invaluable. And we are so thankful to now work together for something we believe in, to live in a new neighborhood where we feel a bit more in the heart of the city, and to look forward to the adventures ahead...

Caitlin has now been here for officially 2 weeks, and she has had some big tastes of Argentina! Here are the Argentine things she has already experienced:

1) PARILLA

We ate mouth-watering matambre (my personal favorite...matar means to kill, and hambre means hunger, so matambre literally means kill the hunger), ojo de bife, and PROVOLETA (or cheese-block, as Caitlin calls it...It's just a big hunk of provolone cheese baked until melty and crusted in herbs...It is my favorite Argentine goody.).

2) THE BEACH
The three of us spent the weekend in lovely San Bernardo, a five hour bus ride south of the city. It was beachy and perfect. We body-surfed the waves, sun-tanned on the sand, drank pineapple daquiris and ate, ate, ate.
3) SALSA (okay, that's more Cuban...but it's Latin, so we're going to throw it in there!)

That's the three of us before we got on the dance-floor. :-)
4) THE COLECTIVO/THE BUS

And boy has she gotten a taste of public transportation's good-bad-and ugly. Yesterday after work, Caitlin and I hopped on-board the 109, at the dreaded rush-hour of 6:45...It was packed to the brim, triple-layered. The poor bus driver--ten of us were clumped right next to him, as he tried to navigate through stop-and-go traffic. The only saving grace to the whole ride was that the driver was blasting, "Turn around, bright eyes!" over his speakers. Caitlin and I looked at each other right at the height of the song's passion, right at the height of the bus's over-crowdedness, and we summed up the situation: "Well, at least we won't forget this moment."
5) THE TBA TRAIN
After biking around the eco-reserve a week and a half ago, we all took the TBA train back to our friend Laura's house. We stood in the train car reserved for bikes, next to a little girl with a butterfly catcher attached to her bicycle, and across from the TBA drifters. The TBA drifters are two young men, obviously companions who meet up daily without needing to discuss meeting plans. I think they wander with little forethought, and that particular day found them drifting through barrios aboard the Linea San Martin. They were tattooed, froed, and a throw-back in general to the days when mischief was wholesome, and involved train hopping and annoying the other commuters by using the floor as their own personal bongo. I really loved them...I wonder where they are now?

6) FERNET
Ah, Fernet. The death of me! Fernet is Argentina's national liquor, a somewhat minty, very herbal-esque and strong liquor that is drank mixed with Coca Cola...On Sunday night as we sat outside in San Bernardo, full from El Inmortal's amazing pasta, we finished off two bottles of wine (I think it might have been three in all seriousness) with a Fernet and Coke. Oh my goodness was it fun at the time. And in the morning, it's been so long since I have really been drunk, I thought I had the flu...Until I remembered the Fernet. Oh, the 5 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires was not so fun!!! But the fun of the evening before made it all worth it. :-)
7) EVITA!
On Caitlin's first weekend, we took her to the Recoleta cemetery, where we walked around the mazes of mausaleums and peered into the broken glass doorways that guard the entrance to Argentina's most elite resting sanctuaries. And of course we stopped by Evita's tomb, where there was a line of tourists with flashing bulbs, all scrambling to get a glimpse of Eva Duarte's final grave-spot (she made some brief detours to Spain, Italy, and the headquarters of the CGT union...with some interesting grave robber, hostage holding, and mummifying stories all thrown into the mix!).

I'm sure there is so much more, but my brain is a little fried from the scramble of today's move...But all I can say is that Caitlin is becoming quite the little Argentine!! :-)

Sizzlin' Salsa

2009-03-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

Azucar, on Avenida Corrientes in Abasto--it feels like a mix between a gym and a tropical bar. Wall-sized mirrors and waxed wooden floors sidelined by a counter covered with sweating bottles of Izenbeck. Salsa music is all around and dancers are shimmying their shoulders, moving their feet back-middle-front-middle-back--TURN! Some couples are klutzy and some are as sexy as Havana nights. Some, like the three of us, are watching from afar, nursing our beers like safety blankets, too shy to test our feet.

Vera and Eva have staked out their stardom on the floor and are switching between a dozen happy partners. Elsa comes and tries to refuse a beer, but her resolve doesn't last long. Pretty soon her bottle of Izenbeck is gone and she is teaching us how to step-and-shimmy, step-and-shimmy.

Nick and I give it a go. We are all left feet. But we laugh and keep trying. Pretty soon the music stops, indicating that it is time to switch partners; we panic--we don't mind embarassing each other, but it's too much to embarass a stranger. We escape and head back to Elsa and Caitlin. Nick teaches Caitlin a few salsa moves (or perhaps she teaches him!). Vera and Eva come running off the dance floor, flushed and excited from so much shimmying. It's time for all of us to head to a Peruvian restaurant and share some liters of Quilmes.

Which we do, quite happily.

Caitlin Cunningham Has Arrived!!!

2009-03-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday morning, Caitlin Alice Marie Cunningham arrived safely in Buenos Aires...Thank goodness!! One day late, but all in one piece. She had taken off on Monday evening, only to turn back around AFTER her plane passed MIAMI because of a storm in South America. (Why the plane then went back to Washington, we have no idea...) But she got up and did it all again on Tuesday evening, and twelve hours later, she was in our apartment, safe and sound.

And now our apartment feels like home :-) Wednesday we spent the day making lunch and relaxing on the terrace (I don't know how Caitlin did it--she had only slept one hour on the plane!), then napping, and then making a gigantic dinner and watching the love of all our lives: Jack Bauer. (AHH, what's going to happen next???!!!) Oh, I can't forget--Wednesday was also colored by the taste of the most AMAZING cookies from Sugar and Spice, my new favorite place in Buenos Aires! Sugar and Spice is a cookie shop located in Palermo and run by a VERY sweet ex-pat couple. The cookies are beyond delicious, the store is beyond adorable, and the owners are beyond nice...I think I am going to go back very soon and STOCK up!!! But, needless to say, Nick, Caitlin, and I spent the better part of Wednesday afternoon dunking our delicious cookies into coffee. Then we took a nap--full and happy. :-)

Thursday brought its own adventures, too!! Caitlin and I went to the Japanese Gardens in Palermo, where we walked across the bridges and around the pond, looking at the colorful fish and posing for a few pictures for each other. I think the highlight of that trip was witnessing Argentine un-political correctness at its very best--a family, consisting of a mother, father, and toddler son, stood posing next to the wooden geisha cut-out next to the pond. First, the toddler son pulled his eyes back to imitate a Japanese person, then the mother did it, then the father. All the while they were cracking up and taking photos. Oh my goodness...It was Caitlin's first introducting to the lack of PC here. Lol! :-)

After touring the gardens, we met Nick at a cute bar/cafe in Palermo, where we toasted to Caitlin's first Quilmes! Afterwards we went home and made dinner, for which we were joined by our Austrian lovelies Vera and Eva, and of course the love of our Argentine lives, Jenny. All of us ate and drank wine and sat talking on the roof til the wee hours of the morning. It was perfect...

And yesterday was Caitlin's first day at the office. (!!!) And she was pretty much a...um, I think ROCKSTAR would be the best way to put it. Yesterday we had a brainstorming session for the Enchanting Group site http://www.ecotrotters.com, and Caitlin pretty much led the way with her eco-expertise, while Nick and I sat back with our mouths agape. Lol! It was wonderful. And it was very exciting to begin our projects together!!! And now it's the weekend...

We began the weekend eating Peruvian food and drinking more Quilmes with Leonor and Elsa at a Peruvian gem we had never tried--it was painted in the brightest yellows, bedecked with paintings of dancing Peruvian beauties, and borderd with blinking Christmas lights. When I mentioned to Caitlin how I would love if my house looked like that, she asked me to please never mention that to her mom. Lol! What can I say...I love kitsch. And I LOVE Peruvian food!!! We got so full on ceviche, baked chicken and rice, and potatoes smothered in a creamy cheese sauce. And the whole night was made all the better by the Peruvian guitarists going table to table playing traditional Peruvian ballads (which made Leonor tear up and miss her country...). It was really lovely...

And now it's Saturday. And we are cozy. And about to start some adventures for the weekend. I'll be sure to keep you posted!

We Left our Hearts in Chile...

2009-03-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, now Nick has shown his true colors, and the pressure is ON to write good blog posts!! Lol, no no, I am just kidding...I am so excited that Nick has begun to write his own blogposts, because now this can really be the story of our journey, and not just my views on everything. :-)

As you know from Nick's blog, we spent last week in some Chilean wilderness...And it was such a beautiful week...

Upon arrival, we were greeted by the Ulaa caretaker, Martin. Ulaa is an organic farm, and Martin is its everything-man. He runs the farm, the log cabins that hold tourists and service workers, the kitchen, and all the other services for tourists and volunteers. He is truly a renaissance man! Check him out with his hardcore bow-and-arrow here (he was trying to hunt a wild pig for dinner...I'm not kidding!!):

Martin got us settled, and it didn't take long for us to feel at home...We stayed in the main lodge, which pretty much includes Martin's living quarters, two guest bedrooms, the dining room for tourists, and the communal kitchen. It was so, so cozy--wooden, warmed by a fire, and with a gigantic view of the lake. Oh my goodness, we felt like we had arrived in Heaven. (Immediately we began dreading leaving and plotting ways to innocently rip up our return tickets!!)

The first night we ate dinner and went to sleep, and woke up bright and early to begin a day on the farm. The day started on a bumpy ATV ride through the hills of Ulaa to the police station, where we got our passports stamped. On the way back, we grabbed berries from bushes along the dirt roads and ate them quickly while we zipped on the ATV. Martin asked Nick if he knew how to drive an ATV, and when Nick responded that he didn't, Martin said, "It is not hard, but there are secrets in the mountains." Oh my goodness...Apparently there were, because Martin steered us through some twists and turns I did not think would have been possible...

The rest of the day was spent learning the in's and out's of the farm--taking a hike, learning what grows in the garden, and picking produce for some of our meals! It was beautiful...The farm grows apples, pumpkins, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil, lettuce, plums, blackberries, raspberries, potatoes, walnuts, and so much more...It was so exciting to pick fresh food and eat it in our meals, especially after reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. We kept saying to each other, "Barbara would be proud!"

We went to bed so tired that night, but feeling like every moment of the day was really used. It was quite a change for us from our usual bus run-around on the busy streets of Buenos Aires!

The next days brought more of the same...We picked more fruit, fed the chickens, and brushed the horse. We helped Martin make bread, and we made homemade jam from the blackberries we picked. We even took another ATV ride, this time both of us riding on the back of the same ATV, stealing holy-cow looks at each other as we sailed down hills and ducked under branches. (That really might have been my favorite part...The ATV's! Joder!!) For two of the nights there was a group of adventure fishing tourists from Spain staying at Ulaa, so we helped Martin cook and clean for the guests. It was a lot of fun!!!

But, alas, Saturday arrived, and it was time for us to depart...I have to admit, I was surprised to find our return bus tickets in one piece (I thought maybe Nick would rip them up when I wasn't looking!). So we sadly said goodbye to Ulaa and hopped into Claudio's motorboat to take us back to the Argentine border...Que lastima!!!

However, all is not lost...Ulaa is owned by the company we work for, the Enchanting Group, and it is part of our job now to recruit volunteers to go and stay and eat at Ulaa for free in exchange for help on the farm. Martin-the-renaissance-man can do a lot, but he can't do everything. He really needs help tending Ulaa's fields, so we are doing what we can to send out smoke signals and attract people to the farm. And we are going to return ourselves to Ulaa for the month of July to help Martin out in his farmwork!!!! The days will be short in July, as it will be the southern hemisphere's winter, so there will be about 6 hours of sunlight a day, which we will take advantage of (aprovechar!) by working outside. When it gets dark, we will have English classes for Martin, since he wants to learn English in order to better communicate with the anglophone tourists who come to Ulaa...It's the very least we could do in exchange for his patience with our Spanish (okay really, it's just my Spanish that requires patience!! :-) ) So we are really looking forward to July...Anyone who wants to join us, YOU ARE WANTED DESPERATELY!!!

So now we are back in BA, but we left a little bit of our hearts in Chile...Ah, alas! I have been doing some snooping of blogs in Chile to get the lowdown on this magical place, and I found one I really like. It is called La Gringuita Diaries, and it is a really great read about living in Santiago...Check it out if Chile piques your interest!!!

BUT, even though we really miss Ulaa, it is really nice to be back here in Buenos Aires because we only have a month and a half left here in the city, and we want to soak it up as much as we can...Plus, we have a very special visitor coming on Tuesday...CAITLIN CUNNINGHAM!! So aprovechar Buenos Aires we will...

Ulaa, Chile

2009-03-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

Sarah is taking a little break from the blog because she is muy muy ocupada, so I (Nick) will take charge for a bit. Don't expect to be brought to tears with my writing. I'll try my best.

Last week Sarah and I went to Ulaa, a resort/organic farm on the border of Chile and Argentina. If you can conjure up an image of the exact opposite of Buenos Aires, Ulaa is it. Clean, pristine, remote, chilly, and quiet - it was a perfect vacation from BA.

But, we felt like Lewis and Clark trying to get to this place. Allow me to give you a run down of our journey to Chile. I think this will probably take up this entire blog post.

We had to take a 20 hour bus ride (double decker) from Buenos Aires to Bariloche. Then after a brief layover, we took a slightly smaller bus, 3 hours south to Lago Puelo (near Bolson). Then we had to take a taxi from the bus station to the port of Lago Puelo. We arrived at the shore of a lake where we were instructed to seek out a Senor Claudio, a boatman. He was to take us, by boat, to the edge of Argentina, right on the border with Chile. Now, to me, this seemed hilariously ridiculous, that we had to find a specific man to take us to Chile, not a boat service, or a ferry, or anything resembling legitimacy.

But we did just that, asking dock workers for a Claudio. They assured us he existed, but was out on the boat and would return within an hour (mas o menos). So we took the time to relax near the lake, it had already been over a full day of traveling. It was cold, and there was a slight drizzle, but the blue lake surrounded by mountains on all sides was beautiful. We got some coffee to re-energize and went down to the water again to wait for Claudio. I'd be lying if I said that we weren't nervous - our hopes depended on this boatman, if he didn't appear we would be short out of luck. We had no backup plan, and it was getting dark.

But sure enough, a boat came after about an hour and a half, and Claudio was the driver. We asked if he could take us to Chile, to which he replied "today?" "Um, por favor," I think was our desperate response. Though, this didn't seem to be a problem for him. He asked if our papers were in order. We scratched our heads for a minute, but realized that the little trailer on the shore with the half-sleeping policeman was the customs "office." We scurried over to the RV, and we were quickly processed and returned to the boat. Hopping on the speed boat, we heard Claudio on the radio to Martin, who was our man at Ulaa. He was to pick us up in Chile (via another speed boat). The radio crackled and Claudio couldn't quite get through to Martin. He gave up, put the receiver down, smiled, and despite the lack of confirmation, we departed.

We zipped across the lack, bouncing on the wake. Sarah and I smiled at each other, laughing at the situation. We looked around in amazement. "Can you believe where we are?" We asked each other. Traveling on a speed boat, across a virgin blue lake in Patagonia, about to cross the border of Argentina into Chile. It was frigid, but beautiful and very awe-inspiring.

A series of rapids ahead of us assured that we could go no further. Claudio turned the boat towards the shore and we got off. "We walk from here." Puzzled, we picked up our bags and followed him. We headed up the hill and started walking. Crossing rocks and creeks along the way, Claudio lent us a helping hand, making sure we didn't fall into the creeks. We jumped from rock to rock, and teetered across logs that bridged the rushing water. We laughed at the absurdity of this. At one point we had to really leap from one rock, across a wide creek, to another rock. Claudio first, I followed. Sarah froze, "I can't!" "Yes, you can." "No, I can't!" "You can do it," Claudio encouraged her. Probably more out of pressure than confidence, Sarah jumped, and Claudio caught her hands and safely balanced her on the other side. She exhaled a huge sigh of relief. Sarah is pretty tough.

We walked for about 15 minutes and Claudio instructed us to sit. "OK, wait here. In about 10 minutes, a boat will arrive from down river to pick you up." Thinking we didn't translate his Spanish correctly, we stared blankly back at him. "Just wave your hands when you see the boat. OK?" Still a bit confused, but not wanting to sound like wimps, we said, "OK, perfect." Claudio smiled and said, "OK, see you next week." Before we could question what was about to happen, he turned to walk away. What kind of system was this? What if the boat didn't come, were we supposed to send out smoke signals? Remember how Claudio struggled to get through to Martin on the radio, to tell him to pick us up? Yeah, well, if Martin didn't hear on the other end, we would be stranded in Patagonian oblivion. "This boat better show up," I said.

Amazing. Like clockwork a boat whipped around the bend, from Chile, and pulled ashore. We hiked over across the rocks to meet it. A rugged mountain man set out to meet us halfway. We approached and he pointed to me, "Nick?" "Si!" And we shook hands. "Y Sarah?" "Hola Martin!" "Vamos!" We headed for the boat. We threw our bags on the little speed boat and climbed in. We were introduced to the boat driver, Claudio (No, seriously, his name was also Claudio. An Argentine Claudio took us by speedboat to meet a Chilean Claudio who picked us up, also by speedboat. I'm not making it up).

Our second boat journey began. It was getting dark by this point and in broken English Martin explained, "Yesterday, very nice day, but it rains, and today is frozened." We nodded and admired the utterly unbelievable scenery.

After about 15 minutes we approached the end of the lake, and an impressive cabin perched on the hill. Chilean Claudio switched off the motor and glided in towards the dock. Martin hopped onto the dock and turned around to help us. "Welcome to Ulaa."

Caught In-Between Two Worlds

2009-02-26T06:17:00.000-08:00

He hardly seemed to realize he was on a crowded, hot, and stinky bus. He was too consumed with listening to the hand-held transistor radio pushed up against his ear and sticking his head out the window to whistle at pretty girls passing by.

He was clean-shaven, clean-cut, wearing soccer shorts and a soccer jersey. He looked about 16 years old, with boyish eyes.

It was a few minutes before he realized I had sat down next to him, too busy was he with the beautiful portenas walking the streets. But he took a breather from the cat-calls and noticed me scribbling away in my notebook next to him.

"What are you writing?" he asked in Spanish.

"Oh, just some notes for work," I said.

One simple question turned into a harmless and kind conversation between two strangers.

"I live in the provincia with my parents," he told me. "For now," he quickly added, as if to imply that provincial domestic life was not at all the be-all and end-all to his future. We both laughed. It was a cute attempt to sound like he had the 19 years he claimed.

I know to keep boundaries firm and walls high in Buenos Aires. I don't carry anything with me on the streets, besides a few coins for the bus and a notebook, unless I absolutely have to. That day on the bus I had the bare minimum--my coins, my crappy cell phone, one barely-working pen, and a notebook. I was not in danger of losing anything valuable. Moreover, as for personal safety, we were on a crowded bus in the middle of broad daylight. I felt secure knowing I was surrounded with onlookers and bystanders. I felt safe enough to continue with a simple conversation. And I felt happy to continue this simple conversation. I thought that an exchange of words could only bring a tiny ray of sunshine to both our lives, as kind interactions with strangers so often have the power to do. So we chatted on.

And then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to face an Argentine woman, with long dyed blonde hair and eyes hidden behind large sunglasses. She was beautiful, but not in a Palermo-boutique way. More in a tough, don't-mess-with-me kind of way, if that makes sense at all.

"Where are you from?" she asked in heavily-accented English.

"Estados Unidos," I responsed, not wanting to use English and exclude the young man from our conversation.

She did. "Be careful with who you talk to," she said as she pulled her sunglasses to the top of her head. She didn't take her eyes from mine. In the heavy moments between her words, I was acutely aware of the young man next to me, and how me must have known what was being said. No language barriers can disguise such warning tones.

I nodded and said thank you, about to turn back around.

"I'm serious," she said. Still not taking her eyes from mine. I met her stare and for a few seconds, felt suspended in a panicked frozen moment. I was aware that the woman was absolutely correct in her warning (though as a general rule to be careful, not in regards to this young man, as we were not sharing personal information and it was a simple, harmless conversation). Buenos Aires has seen its share of tragedy, and a lot of people have learned the hard way not to trust, including, I am sure, this woman. There were probably many people observing the young man and myself who were thinking the very same words, but no one cared enough to warn me. Though I sincerely do not think there was any need of a warning, I also sincerely think this woman was trying to the right thing in the way she knew how.

Only her doing the right thing perpetuated a stereotype; it was a small push to continue a cycle of have's and have-not's, and the bitterness and resentment between the two. I did not want to add to this young man's shame.

I turned back around. The woman kept looking at us, watching out for me, I know, and the young man and I continued our conversation. However, he knew and I knew that we had a guest in our conversation, and it was stilted. Perhaps out of desperation to make a connection, he forwardly asked if I wanted to do a language exchange. "No, no," I said, and we both laughed, knowing I would say that. Then it was my stop, and I rose to leave.

"Chau," I said hurriedly with a nervous half-smile (what is wrong with me that I couldn't forget about the woman's watchful eyes??!!) and hustled off the bus.

"Chau, Sarah!" he called from the bus window. I froze. I couldn't respond; I hadn't even asked his name when he asked for mine. I thought I hadn't wanted to add to his shame, but how is such an attempt possible, or even sincere, when you don't even ask someone's name? I was--am--just as guilty and I knew it loud and clear in that suspended moment.

The Week in Vignettes

2009-02-24T04:04:00.000-08:00

Bowling in Belgrano
Our intercambio adventures continue with the adorable father-daughter duo, Eduardo & Paula. This week's intercambio journey landed us in the bowling lanes of Belgrano. Amazing! I don't think I have been bowling in years, and it felt great! With a cold beer in my hands, clunky bowling shoes on my feet, and bad 80's music blasting over the loud-speakers, I felt like I was on summer vacation in northern Wisconsin. And, what is most exciting is that I didn't bowl too badly! True, I came in dead-last...Eduardo reigned, Nick took the silver, and Paula the bronze, but I ended with a respectable 87. For someone who once bowled a game with a grand tally of 17, 93 ain't half-bad.

Pizzeria Paradise
With our oven 3 weeks out of commission, Nick and I have been treating ourselves to a once-a-week noche de pizza y empanadas. And we have discovered the perfect place that does the trick: a hole-in-the-wall joint two blocks away, family-run, cheap, and delicious. The tiny and tough matriarch handles all the biz, negotiating the orders, check, and change, her purple eye-shadow somehow reminding you not to mess with her. All the while, Pops is in the kitchen, shoveling pizzas and empanadas in and out of the ovens, and the sons shuttle back and forth on motorbikes delivering the goods. One thing is for certain: the pizzeria on Avenida Jonte can't be beat.

Pirate Port
For Leonor's birthday, we went to Puerto Pirata, a pirate-themed bar downtown. Nick and I decided that we really love over-the-top gimmicks. What can I say, the kitch just charms us! (No, readers I am not being sarcastic...For all you Sanibel veterans, think The Bubble Room. That's our preferred way to roll.) Needless to say, we loved this bar, with its giant treasure chest hanging from the ceiling, its fishing nets and ship masts protruding from the walls. The waiter's gold hoop earrings may or may not have been a stylistic choice OR a uniform requirement (I could really see it going both ways), but regardless, they were also a nice touch.

The setting was great, and so was the company. 5 months after meeting Leonor, 5 months after she began to help fill our Buenos Aires lives so much, it was rewarding to celebrate her birthday as a marker of our friendship. Her friends and their Spanish conversation floated around us, and we did our best to keep up. Leonor and her friend Paula joked about the first time we hung out and all Nick and I could say was "Donde vives?" Now we can't say much more than that, but sometimes we trick them into thinking we can (mostly through convincing head-nods thrown into the right conversational moments). And even though we can't understand everything happening around us, you realize really how much can be said through hand gestures. Really, whole friendships can be made!!! What a realization. :-)

Nos Encanta La Gasista!!

2009-02-24T03:55:00.000-08:00

"Teacher!" my tiny and adorable student Andrea shouted in her 9-year-old voice.
"Si?" I asked in-between desperate mouth-fulls of cold water.
"Hace mucho calor--41 grados hoy!"
Not knowing exactly what this translates into in Fahrenheit, but knowing--and feeling--that it was well-above 90 degrees, I nodded my acknowledgement to Andrea as I chugged more water and tried to control my pores.

When I got home I asked Nick what 41 degrees Celcius is, and he did the conversion: 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Later that night I woke up glowing with sweat, my throat parchment. I distincly had the thought, I am not going to make it. (I'm not sure what I thought the alternative was to making it...) I tried to suppress my heat-induced panic by running a towel under cold water and falling asleep with it plastered across my forehead.

And when I woke up, glorious, glorious rain greeted me. Nick went to his soccer game--already the highlight of his week--walking on clouds, and I practically danced my way to a coffee date with a friend in Las Canitas. I am afraid I might be jinxing a wonderful thing, but I THINK (fingers, toes, arms, legs, torso crossed) that fall is here!!! And boy is it beautiful.

And that is not the only miracle that befell us last Friday, for something as miraculous as autumn winds also came along: OUR GAS! After 23 days without gas, without cooking and without hot/warm/tepid water, the gasista finished his inspection and the pipes were turned on. Miracle of all miracles!! Nick and Sarah got their groove back: COOKING! To celebrate we made an entire chicken, baked until crispy and drenched in an orange-ginger-garlic-basil soy sauce. I don't know if we uttered one word during dinner, so taken were we with the taste of something warm, flavorful, and homemade...

Life is good. We love the gasista.

12 Hours in Gualeguaychu

2009-02-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

We made it!! And after our experience in Gualeguaychu, I think the Argentine Carnaval can be summed up in one word: BUTTS. Yes, the curso, or the parade of floats symbolizing Carnaval, is colored by thousands of perfectly shaped buns, both male and female. The owners of these heavenly shaped orbs were bedecked in feathery headresses, boa-fied wings, glittery thongs (yes, male and female), and golden go-go boots. That's right, golden go-go boots. Imagine a parade with thousands of frankly, perfect asses, wiggling on top of strangely Asian-themed floats, the dancers raising their arms to a cheering crowd and shaking their booties with everything they've got. That is Carnaval.

And boy was it an experience!! Our bus took off from the terminal in Buenos Aires at 4 o'clock, and we arrived at the Gualeguyachu depot at 7 o'clock, only to find out that all the hostels, hotels, and campgrounds were booked to capacity. Oy vey, it looked like it would be a sleepless night! But no matter, we figured the curso lasted until the wee hours of the morning, and we could catch the first bus back to Buenos Aires as the sun rose (quite the adventure for us abuelos!!). So we set out--Nick, Leonor, Elsa, Fernanda, and myself, to the city centro to buy our Carnaval tickets and find some parilla for dinner. Both tasks were completed with little stress, and our parilla was delicious!! 20 pesos a person for heaps and heaps of amazing barbecue, french fries, salad, and ice-cold Quilmes. Unbeatable! After feasting, we were ready to hit the show. Off we went, down the streets of the normally sleepy Gualeguaychu city center, to the arena where the curso was about to begin its parade. However, before we entered those pre-Lent-party-it-out-of-your-system gates, we decided to join the fray and get our faces painted. A bejeweled woman was our chosen artist, and she painted all five of us in Carnaval style.

Now we looked like we fit in and it was time to enter the gates. That we did! But we didn't sit in our seats before first posing for some pictures with random Carnaval props, such as the French fry man:

Finally, we sat down and enjoyed the show. And you know what happenned there. :-) It was four hours of ostentatious, unbelievable, holy-cow-I-did-not-expect-this-from-a-Catholic-country scenery. Quite the memories!! What a strange and unforgettable time we had... After the curso was done and all the beautiful bodies had finished their march, the five of us doggedly trudged to the bus depot, where we had two and a half hours to wait for our bus. We ordered bad coffees in the station cafe and tried to keep each other awake through chatting. Finally, 6:30 rolled around, and it was time to hop on that bus. That we did, and our eyes closed within seconds of sitting down. Three hours and a much-needed nap later, we were back in Capital Federal, slightly enriched (scandalized?) by our 12 hours in Gualeguaychu.

A Homemade Valentine's Day

2009-02-13T13:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I know it's a Hallmark holiday, and I'm totally with Barbara Kingsolver and her boycott of any holiday that calls for buying uneccessary stuff...However, how about using Valentine's Day as an excuse to act on those sweet thoughts that float through our minds on occasional whims throughout most normal days? And use that as a reminder how we should act on all days!

On most days lately, working from home has included extensive gchats with Hira, my amazing friend from college who works in the nonprofit world of Chicago and just generally brightens up all paths that she crosses. We were chatting about Valentine's Day, and she said she and her boyfriend aren't doing anything extravagant, but she bought him a Dilbert comic book (she is a self-proclaimed Calvin and Hobbes girl, but her bf is a Dilbert fan through-and-through), and wrote on the inside cover, "I love to hear you laugh." If that is not the sweetest reason to give someone a gift...

Nick and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. However, because everyday I think how grateful I am for him but I'm not sure on most days that I do enough gestures to display that gratitude, I took advantage of the occasion to surprise him in a mini-homemade way. When he was at his evening class, I took the opportunity to construct a collage--I chopped my way through many a magazine, cutting out pictures that reminded me of him--pictures of wine and tomatoes, mountains and ski hills, words that characterized him, you know the thing we all did for our lockers in 7th grade. I covered an empty wine bottle with all the cut-outs and stuck a lonely flower inside, and there we had it, a new vase!!! Then I painted a very elementary-school-style card and that was the extent of it...So simple, but he was genuinely surprised when he came home, and it was such a nice feeling for me to know that I surprised him with something meant for just him. It was a good lesson for me to do that more, and not just once a year on a Hallmark-designated day. (Although, I shouldn't be too critical of Hallmark--afterall, they are the ones ultimately teaching me my lesson :-) ).

As the clock struck midnight, Jenny, Nick, and I welcomed in the official Valentine's Day with a big hug between the three of us, just as we finished watching the adorable movie "Waking Ned Devine" (for anyone who hasn't seen it, it will put you in the best mood!). A perfect way to welcome in a holiday. :-)

And today...I can hardly believe this myself, but Nick and I are off with Leonor and Elsa to Gualeguaychu, the site of the biggest Argentina Carnival celebrations! Us abuelos!! I am laughing at the thought of us there right now, as I sit all cozy and domestic at our upstairs desk, so quiet and peaceful with no idea of what tonight will bring! Nick has gotten a lot of high-fives from his students when he tells them that he's going to Gualeguaychu this weekend...Until he mentions that he's also going with his girlfriend. The admission is almost always followed with a sigh, and "Uh, it's probably not a good idea to bring your girlfriend there," or, my favorite, "That's unfortunate that your girlfriend is going..." Poor Nick!!! :-) I guess we are headed for Argentina's version of girls gone wild! I will keep you all posted upon our return tomorrow. Until then, happy carnivaling!!

Miracles

2009-02-11T05:02:00.001-08:00

Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a miracle in and of itself. In this amazing book, Barbara Kingsolver describes her family's decision to move permanently onto a farm, and their year-long vow to only eat what their farm or a neighboring farm in their county produces. It is honestly changing my life. The book is all about getting back to nature, becoming local, learning to love what comes out of the ground we are standing on. Reading this book coincides with construction on our house that has temporarily resulted in the gas being turned off, which means we can not cook. This is partly disastrous, because every chapter of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle contains an amazing recipe that leaves me salivating and my fingers itching to start some deliciously messy culinary project, like Frijole Mole or Basil Blackberry Crumble. HOWEVER, having no gas is a huge learning lesson on how much waste I produce with un-local cooking, and it is a good learning lesson while reading this book, allowing me to understand the impact of my eating, and encouraging me to change my evil ways (I can hear Santana chiding me) when the gas gets turned back on (please let that day be today...). For example, when we had gas (oh such a beautiful time), I would buy tons and tons of unlocal food--such as can upon can of vegetable, and bags of sugar. Although cans can be recyled, that still wastes energy (not to mention Argentina may or may not have a recyling program) in the process, and can totally be avoided with buying fresh produce. Because of not being able to cook, Nick and I have eaten primarily fresh veggies and fresh bread for the past two weeks. We have gotten almost all of our bread the day of eating it from the baker around the corner (and oh my goodness is it amazing), and with the exception of chickpeas, we have gotten all of our produce from the fruit and vegetable stands that dot every corner here. Our meals have consisted of fresh baguettes drizzled with olive oil, topped with fresh basil leaves, slices of tomato, and layers of cheese; salads made from zuccini, lemon, garlic, tomato, and these tiny green adorable pumpkins; fruit salads with fresh honeydue, bananas, and oranges; and for dessert, fresh ice cream from the heladeria or pastries from the baker. (And of course, everything is always topped off with Argentine wine!!) Although I am dying to turn on the stove and whip up some concoction, these past two weeks have been healthy, fresh, and delicious. Moreover, we have taken out the trash about twice a week, compared with the everyday we were taking out the trash when our gas worked!!! So, we have taken a vow to keep away from cans and stick with fresh bread when the oven comes back on...And, of course, I always have to carry it one step too far, and I have made Nick promise that in ten years, we will be living on a farm. Okay, just had to throw that little addition in there!!!

Here are some pics of the delicious treats we've been devouring:

And here is some random handsome hunk that showed up for dinner:

Something is in the air, because as soon as I mention this book to someone, I get a comment right away about how this book has already changed their lives. (I am behind on the times I guess!!) For example, my friend Laura, my hero and role model, who works for the Service Learning program at Ripon College in Ripon, WI, already founded a program at her college called the Local Food Project . This project is seeking to use social media to educate the Ripon community about the benefits of buying local food. And, it was all inspired by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I told my friend Beth I was reading this book (another hero and role model!!), and she told me that she and her boyfriend have begun to compost and plot a veggie garden because of this book. Moreover, her mom converted all their garden space at home to plant organic produce!! I couldn't believe all the CHANGE this one book is inspiring!!! It is so unbelievable and inspirational!! It seems that Barbara Kingsolver is indeed the hero of the day. THANK YOU, BARBARA!!!!

Oh my goodness, and there are more miracles...Yesterday it rained all day, sometimes in hurricane sheets, and it washed away the heat...Yes, today is sunny, breezy, mild, and BEAUTIFUL!!! It is making me love life...Yes our house has four leaks and was dotted with four pots collecting rainwater last night, but who cares?! Nothing beats falling asleep with the sound of rain pitter-pattering and then waking up to a day that would make even the biggest grouch an optimist! Leak all you want if this is the outcome!! (Okay, maybe not all you want...)

And a final miracle...Nick and I are working away for Enchanting Challenge, blogging our hearts out, and helping to coordinate 4 service trips!! We are honestly so excited. This is the first time that we feel like our personal and professional lives are in sync with each other, both from our heart, and we are honestly so dedicated and devoted to this project. We are also so, so blessed because so many friends have bent over backwards for us. Maira has begun to network her family friends for people who can help us with our service trips to Mexico; Laura has circulated flyers all around the Ripon campus about our service trips; Caitlin is preparing for a six-week Enchanting Challenge internship and finding resources up the wazoo for us to use; my dad is helping Nick get in contact with social entrepreneurs to interview for his blog; Hira is thinking about perhaps coming to join us for a service trip, and so much more!!!!! We are so, so blessed...It is as if we knocked on a door, and a hundred people answered. Thank you so much to everyone who has helped...It means the whole world to us!

Here's a tiny bit of background on the service trips: they are sponsored by Enchanting Challenge and work with partnerships with local foundations and eco-hotels in the service trip destination. We have four on the dockets now. The first one takes place in March and April in Tulum, Mexico. It is a six-day trip for university students to stay in an ecologically-friendly resort and work during the day on reforestation projects in the rainforest with the Mayan community, learning lessons on sustainable living along the way. The second one takes place in August in the Mendoza province in western Argentina. This service trip will include one week working with disadvantaged families in the city of Mendoza, and one week working with community development with the indigeneous community in the neighboring Desierto Lavalle. For that project, we are working with a wonderful group that has been running this service project for ten years. Previously, they have only worked with Argentines, so this is the first time US travelers and university students are encouraged to come!! Nick and I will be the contact people for any North American and/or UK volunteers for this service trip. Moreover, we will be spending the month of August in Mendoza and hopefully working with the organization to coordinate everything. And, we get to go on the service trip ourselves!!!! If you are interested in seeing pictures of the past service trips to the Desierto Lavalle, click here.

The third service trip will take place in October in Puerto Madryn, Argentina, working with the wildlife there, and the fifth trip will probably take place next winter in Patagonia, Chile, working with an organic farm endeavor and reforestation. So we are busy!! But determined, excited, and beyond grateful...

Take One! Take Two! And...CUT!! (And some reflections on Argentina in-between)

2009-02-08T12:03:00.000-08:00

About a month ago I was contacted by a documentary producer who had found our blog. He asked me if Nick and I would want to be part of a filmed expat discussion regarding how we North Americans have observed the after-shocks of the 2001 pesos crisis during our time in Argentina. The documentary is being produced by Current TV, a Los Angeles-based crew that is investigating the many faces of the current economic crisis in the United States. The reporters decided that a good segment of the documentary could include reflections from Argentines and North Americans living in Argentina, all who perhaps could provide insight into how to personally cope with economic instability.

Of course Nick and I immediately agreed to be a part of the discussion. What a great learning opportunity for us!! Last night was the big night, so we convinced Jenny to come along as well, and the three of us headed to La Olla, a lovely and trendy jazz bar in Palermo, where the camera was set to roll. There we met the film crew, two incredibly nice and sharply intelligent women from California, and the other ex-pats, who were from all walks of life. There was a fiction novelist from Chicago (who has an amazing blog called Water and Soul), a marketing consultant who has lived here for 3 years with her Argentine boyfriend, and a freelance/translator recent graduate from UNC (go Matt Todd!!)...And then there was RUSS.

Russ is a 25-year-old going on 100, if you measure age by life experiences. Keen to speak only when having something poignant to say and always delivering with a dead-pan irony, Russ casually informed us of such things as his fascination with Gary Glitter and his fear over the status of his chaotic Chilean youth hostel protected by a juvenile delinquent night-watchman under house arrest. Russ also announced to the table that he purposely ordered smoked salmon because the crew was paying, and really, smoked salmon is a luxury that he just can not justify splurging on when he is footing the bill. (He proceeded to point at Nick, Jenny, and me, and accuse us of "blowing our opportunity by ordering french fries.") Russ was pretty great.

Sometime in-between Russ's stories, the cameras started rolling, and along with them, some questions and responses that were though-provoking and reflective...The questions made both Nick and I realize that we have been here for nearly half a year, and with that time, our lives and our relationship have changed drastically through not always easy and fun situations, but situations that nonetheless we are endlessly grateful for.

For example, one of the questions was something Nick and I have reflected upon often: How has living in Argentina, a crisis-weathered country with a cash-culture and little access to credit, changed your spending habits?

In Washington, DC, Nick and I had a combined income of about $5,500/month, and we did a pretty good job of spending almost all of it. Not an outrageous sin, as we were living in seperate apartments and each spent about $900/month on rent. Nonetheless, for the months of October, November, and December, we were living on a combined income of at-most 3000 pesos/mo (more-or-less $1,000). Obviously, that would sink us below the poverty line in the US, but due to the cost of living in Argentina, it is possible here. Possible, not easy. In October and November, we were paying 1650 pesos a month for rent, so that right there gobbled up over half of our income. We moved in December and began to pay 900 pesos, which greatly helped. But still, we sweated with every item we dropped into our grocery cart and somewhat humiliatingly turned down countless invitations to restaurants, including on New Year's Eve, explaining to our friends that we were not being anti-social, but were just a little strapped for cash. At times such financial adjustments caused our stress level to soar as we had already been tested by security fears in our San Telmo apartment, changing and disappearing class schedules, and the simple struggles of making our way through the cultural and language barriers of life here.

However, these lessons of frugality are invaluable to our lives, and we will always hold them dear. Thankfully, our income is much better now--we do not sweat with our grocery purchases, and we can go grab some delicious and cheap Peruvian food without breaking the bank. Moreover we are so fortunate to be working for something that we love and believe in (Enchanting Challenge!). But we are extremely grateful for the lessons we have been taught because we have learned truly and deeply how to not be so wasteful, how, as the old saying goes, to live more simply so that others can simply live. Most importantly, we have learned how to be grateful for the things we should be...Although with more income in the future, I am sure we will relax more and stop washing our clothing in the bathtub, or begin covering our pillows with pillow cases instead of old t-shirts, or God-forbid, get a toilet that actually flushes without dumping a bucket of water in it, but we won't forget these months, and we will always try not to deviate too far from the frugality and simplicity it has taught us.

It was with these reflections and realizations in mind that the filming wrapped up, we said our good-byes to hopefully new-found friends, and Jenny, Nick, and I made our way deeper into Palermo to find a watering hole. We settled on a Brazilian bar, loud with chatter, bright with color, and decorated with glasses of Caipirinha, which of course we had to order. We stayed there until 2 am, chatting, sipping on Caipirinhas, Brahmas, and nibbling on rice and beans. It was the best.

***

Some Enchanting News

2009-02-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

It has been way too long since my last blog post, which is something I feel very uncomfortable about (the neurotic, OCD writer in me is coming out!)! But there have been some big changes in our Argentine lives, and I am so excited to share them with you! First of all, Nick and I have begun to work for a WONDERFUL new website: Enchanting Challenge. This site is a social network for those who wish to become environmentally involved. Nick and I are both so excited and so grateful to be a part of this endeavor!! And we REALLY believe in the meaning of this site...

Both our jobs involve blogging. I blog about service opportunities, while Nick blogs about social entrepreneurs and the innovative and inspirational projects they are working on. My blog can be found at this link (if you have any suggestions, or would like to contribute anything, please let me know!!), and while Nick's is not live yet, as soon as it is, you better believe I will paste his link all over this page!!!

And...There is one more surprise about Enchanting Challenge. None other than Ms. Caitlin Cunningham has been hired as an intern to be the on-site Environmental Guru for Enchanting Challenge!! Her cute little eco-self is making her way South in the middle of March. I can not believe the three of us will be working together in Buenos Aires, Argentina!! It is a crazy and completely unpredictable turn of events that just makes me laugh with wonder every time I pause to think about it...

***

Lately it has been blowing my mind how interconnected the world is. I know these words are coming from a former Luddite, but everyday I am just amazed at the powers of connection through the Internet. I love that the White House now has an official blogger, and I love how Obama had two Twitter feeds before the inauguration. I don't mean to sound so corny, but it has just been occurring to me that the Internet is the ultimate flattener of the world, and the connections and opportunities that can bring about are so exciting!! I know of course that it is a tool often misused, but sites and projects like Enchanting Challenge embody the good that can come from the technology of today, and it is invigorating. I really feel like we are living in a new era, where there is a lot of work to be done, but it suddenly seems possible if we are all committed, and such commitment is facilitated by the Internet, which is so exciting. Oy, sorry for this tangent, I have just been filled with such crazy feelings lately!!! And I've been filling my playlists with corny songs like "We are the World." Oh my goodness...(Only when Nick is gone, though, I wouldn't put him through such misery...Especially the Linda McCartney parts!)

Anyways, enough of my vague tantrums...I have to share with you another exciting tid-bit. Nick and I have loved our time in Buenos Aires, but we think that it is time to move on...The Cunningham parents are coming to see us for the first two weeks in April, and together we will explore Buenos Aires from head-to-toe. Then, when they depart for Washington, DC, Nick and I will depart for Cordoba, Argentina, the second largest city in Argentina. Since we are now working primarily as bloggers, we are so fortunate and have the opportunity to work from anywhere that has Wi-Fi. So we are going to work on the road. :-) We plan to stay in hilly Cordoba for two months, then travel to the northwest, deserty region of the country, then down to Mendoza (the wine-soaked Andean region), and then south down through Patagonia.

View Larger Map

The idea of this journey sounds so, so exciting to us...We hope that it all works out and can come to fruition...We get butterflies just thinking about it, thinking of all the sites that will make our eyes open wide, the days on buses passing through landscapes we couldn't imagine, being forced to improve our Spanish, being inspired along the way, snapping pictures, and writing til our fingers are sore!!! So, here's to Argentina. Here's to our new world of interconnectedness and mobility, adventure, love, commitment, and gratitude.

From Beautiful Legs to Apples of Light

2009-01-26T04:05:00.000-08:00

Bellagamba, meaning "beautiful leg," and also the name of our new favorite bar in Buenos Aires. Tucked into a cozy room on Rivadavia in the Congresso neighborhood, this bar is lit by colored lamps remniscient of 1960s design that also brings to mind shag carpeting. Thankfully, the bar is not clothed in shag carpeting, but rather hardwood floors and tables made from old-fashioned, foot-pedaled sewing machines, making for a quaint and retro atmosphere. The ceiling is lined with shelves holding empty, antique looking beer and wine bottles, and the music that plays is all Argentine rock, with the occasional U2 smash hit thrown in there. It is lively without being overwhelming, and the perfect place to meet friends for a drink...If you live in Buenos Aires, or are visiting, I definitely recommend Bellgamba...On the 2100 block of Rivadavia. You will be smitten!

This weekend was one of the best, and included a trip to Bellagamba with Leonor and Elsa. Our cozy drinks at Bellagamba were precluded by a delicious Peruvian dinner off the corner of Rivadavia on Calle Matheu. Dinner was at an unnamed lively restaurant that played regaton loudly as you ate your spicy Peruvian cuisine and drank from cold Quilmes liters as you sweated through the 36 degree Celsius humidity. It is impossible to beat the heat these days, but cold Quilmes definitely helps take the edge off...And Peruvian is so good it helps to make any discomfort bearable! I think Peruvian food is one of my favorite discoveries of this time in Buenos Aires...From corazon de vaca (cow heart) to spicy broths poured over fresh seafood to plump papas fritas with crispy pollo...It doesn't get much better than that. Again to the Argentine traveller, make sure to go to the corner of Rivadavia and Matheu for a tasty insight into Peruvian cuisine.

Saturday also opened up a world we have not yet seen in Buenos Aires: an outdoor concert in Vincente Lopez, a beautiful suburb just outside the city limits. There we sat as the sun set, stretched out on the grass listening to Kevin Johansen, an Argentine and North American singer who switches without accent between Spanish and English, making the audience laugh with his jokes and his goofy plays on words in his lyrics. He had the audience dancing, and the people in the crowd ranged from elderly couples clapping along, to dads dancing with their toddlers bouncing on their shoulders, to young groups of friends moving in groups, and everyone in-between. Our friend Laura brought thermoses of screw drivers, and we sipped strawberry vodka and orange juice from plastic cups as we clapped along with the rhythms.

Finally, on Sunday, we became tourists again, taking a guided walk through the Manzanas de las Luces, which literally means "Apples of Light." However, "manzana" is the word for apple, but also the old-fashioned term for "blocks," so the conotation of this term is a metaphor for blocks of intellectual light, as it is the old Jesuit-established College of Argentina, a highly-esteemed center of education visited by everyone from Albert Einstein to Carlos Gardel, Argentina's most famous tango singer.

The tour was in Spanish, so it was all we could do to catch a few words, but it was a great language lesson, and also an exciting tour. The blocks are old buildings constructed in the 1600s, and have been used as Jesuit residences, markets for flour and produce, houses for orphans, military headquarters, and now, the National College. Most remarkable is that underneath the buildings stretch a winding web of tunnels, originally built by the Jesuits, but added onto by Presidents such as Juan Peron as an attempt to create an escape-route in case of a coup (yikes!). The tunnels now stretch to the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, just in case. I wonder if the Jesuits ever thought their tunnels would be used for such a thing...

After the Manzanas de las Luces tour, we walked over to the San Martin tomb and cathedral, a place we visited on our second day in Buenos Aires, when we were wide-eyed new arrivals. We entered the cathedral with such a different feeling this time, with a more intimate relationship with the city and all it houses, and a better sense of the history that is preserved in this place. It felt so good to delve into the history and the culture behind the walls erected downtown, to gain a deeper insight into this place...Sometimes I feel we could be here forever and still scramble to see all there is to see! It is a wonderful feeling to take advantage of your time and visit places that offer you insight into the place that is your temporary home.

It's all Happening at the Zoo!

2009-01-18T13:56:00.000-08:00

In the words of Simon and Garfunkel:

Someone told me
Its all happening at the zoo.

I do believe it,
I do believe its true.

Its a light and tumble journey
From the east side to the park;
Just a fine and fancy ramble
To the zoo.

But you can take the crosstown bus
If its raining or its cold,
And the animals will love it
If you do.

Somethin tells me
Its all happening at the zoo.

The monkeys stand for honesty,
Giraffes are insincere,
And the elephants are kindly but
Theyre dumb.
Orangutans are skeptical
Of changes in their cages,
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

Zebras are reactionaries,
Antelopes are missionaries,
Pigeons plot in secrecy,
And hamsters turn on frequently.
What a gas! you gotta come and see
At the zoo.

***

And is it ever all happening at the zoo...

***

Aprovechar: to make good use of; the mantra of 2009.

Our friends Jenny and Elise decided to start their new year with a promise to aprovechar, and Nick and I wanted to follow suit. We have all had some really hard times in BA, from being robbed, to being over-worked and under-paid and over-charged, to simply being part of the chaotic daily grind of a commuter searching for work in the over-populated capital of Argentina. But we are all here, which is somewhere we worked hard to be, and somewhere that begins our path to finding whatever it is that we are searching for. All of us forget this at times, times when we have been on the bus for five hours in one day and we are filthy from the pollution and the heat, and we are furious because a language institute forgot to tell us that classes are less expensive in the summer, which means we will get paid hundreds of pesos less than we expected. But then we come home, and Nick and I come home to each other, and we have to remind ourselves that we did this, we are doing this, and that we have an exotic continent at our fingertips, and that despite the slowness, we are beginning to grasp another language, and that suddenly we have close friends that we didn't know a mere 90 days ago. We have to remember that certain miracles have popped up along the way reminding us that yes, with hard work, your dreams can come true. And so 2009 became the year to aprovechar.

We are all trying to that in our own way. Nick and Brenna are moving to Patagonia, Chile in one month to begin a new job and a new life in the pristine environment of the south of the world...Jenny has begun a PR internship with one of her favorite restaurants in Buenos Aires--Pura Vida (http://www.puravidabuenosaires.com/). Elise has begun a job as the promoter of a pub crawl through the hippest part of the city for North American tourists (email me if you are interested!), something that is fun, exciting, and allows her to show off the city she is living in. Nick and I are taking steps to change our lives by finding freelance work and striving towards making a move to Corodoba in May, and hopefully after that, a "travelling wilbury" life through so many of the places in Argentina and South America that we are dying to see. And in the interim, we are all aprovecharing Buenos Aires, this city that to all of us represents dreams fulfilled dancing a tango with fears created (and faced!), but no matter what has given each of us a better and deeper sense of self and that will always hold a very sacred part in all our hearts.

Today, Brenna and I aprovechared Buenos Aires by going to the zoo. So simple and maybe boring to some, but it was honestly lovely. It was filled with people, but it wasn't chaotic, and sometimes that in and of itself is a blessing. The day was perfect--upper 70's and sunny. And to see animals!! We are in this concrete web of what feels like a mega-city, and to see animals and their squishy, cute faces, their fur that looks so pettable, ah, it was so much fun. Brenna said she felt like it was her first time at the zoo, and I was certainly snapping pictures like it was my first time, too. Giraffes, camels, ancient-looking tortoises, parrots, monkeys, polar bears, prairie dogs, gorillas, leopards, cheetahs, and lions. All of them were there, prancing around their miniature kingdom. To wander across the zoo's little bridges; to walk past its domed buildings, the paint peeling but regal nonetheless; to sit and eat salty french fries and drink cold water next to a river with cute little turtles paddling across; it all made for the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the city. Aprovechar here we come! In the words of one of the most special people I have ever met, of our Buenos Aires miracle-maker, "When you are open to the universe, the universe opens to you."

Chacarera and Choripan

2009-01-17T07:30:00.001-08:00

Imagine a grill, a giant grill, equipped with its own chimney and resting atop un monton de carbon--a mountain of coal. Imagine a patio dimly lit, a plastic table holding soda, wine, bread and cheese. The smells of choripan and proveleta--grilled provolone cheese--are wafting to the table, making everyone's mouth water. Imagine the sound of an acoustic guitar finger-picked in a snapping rhythm, and the sound of clapping in accompaniment.

It is a calm night in Ciudadela, a town in the province of Buenos Aires. Here we sit on Eduardo and Paula's patio, our magical intercambio pals. We have played Scrabble--once in English and once in Spanish-- and 20 Questions, munched our way through Pringles and peanuts, and now we wait for the good stuff--the asado.

While we wait, Eduardo plays chacarera songs on his guitar. Tango is the music of the Capital and chacarera is the music of la provincia. It is the first time we have heard Chacarera--it sounds rustic and flavorful. Eduardo hands out lyrics he printed out for us, and this is how they read:

Anda con la cola al viento
Corre para todos lados
Le hablo mi perro hambriente
Que me tiene preocupado...

He goes with his tail to the wind
He runs to all sides
I speak of my hungry dog
That has me worried...

Such a simple story, with such a crisp beat. The music breaks up the stillness of the night and we all sing along.

***

We didn't get home that night til after four in the morning. We laugh about how a night in Ciudadela is our big night out--and really it is. But we are so happy with that. Sometimes we can not believe how open and warm people have been to us here. There we were on Saturday with people who were strangers a mere month ago. And now they have opened up their home to us, shared an asado with us, and taught us the songs of the province. These are memories to be collected.

A Little Bit of Japanese Culture

2009-01-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes with all the running around and having our normal lives here in Buenos Aires, I forget to stop and smell the flowers...It's been ages since I opened up my Frommer's Buenos Aires travel book and took a look at descriptions of places I have yet to visit. So, this week, I realized it was time to put a stop to that ignorant nonsense. I opened up my trusty travel paperback, found a page dog-eared from ages ago: page 174 and the description of the Japanese Gardens deep in the heart of leafy Palermo. And here is what the write-up read:

"Special landscaping, rock islands, and small red bowed bridges give the feeling of being in Japan as soon as you step through the gates here. Carp swim in the large central lake, a delight for children as well as adults. Beyond the lake lies the Cultural Center, with a small museum and art exhibitions...A simple restaurant offers tea, pastries, sandwiches, and a few Japanese dishes. Open daily 10-6."

And, I wanted to step through those gates immediately. So, on Sunday, I arranged to meet Brenna at the nearest subway so we could have a stroll through the gardens. Was it ever lovely...Gated off from the main street, as soon as you do step through the entrance, the noise of Avenida Libertador is hushed, and you are free to meander upon the stone and dirt paths in tranquil quiet. True to its description, huge and colorful carp swim through the park lakes, and vendors sell fish food so that park-frolickers can feed the fishies from the bridge. The fish swim over each other and fish-kiss the air in hopes of being the recipients of the free food. The bridges are perfectly arched and painted a crisp fire-engine red. Native Japanese pines dot the landscape, and stone statues depicting samurai's hide amidst the tree's shadows. Park benches languish in the shade, and are perfect for sitting and enjoying a cup of mate, and people watching the park passers-by. Two wooden geisha cut-outs with empty faces stand just waiting to be posed in (how could Brenna and I resist?). A traditional Japanese style building houses a collection of cultural artwork, while a classy yet quaint restaurant on the grounds offers tea and sushi. It is lovely.

Brenna and I walked across each bridge and down each dirt pathway, eventually finding our way to a park bench, where we shared cup after cup of mate and of course, a bottle of white wine. We sat there for hours, munching on granola bars and fruit salad, passing back and forth a cup of mate and eventually making sangria with our fruit and wine. To sit in such a refuge in the middle of Palermo was such a peaceful and perfect way to while away the Sunday afternoon...And it was a perfect reminder for me to open up my guidebook more often!

Villa 31

2009-01-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

On Thursday evening after work, Nick sat down and read the following article in the Economist: "Misery in their midst: a fight over an iconic shantytown" (http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12891027&fsrc=rss). Sometimes we get frustrated because it seems hard to find news about Argentina in international news sources, even though it is a place that is never short of newsworthy headlines. So, we were excited to find an article about Buenos Aires, and about the poverty-stricken side of Buenos Aires at that, in such a widely-read magazine. The article is specifically focused on Villa 31, a slum in the heart of Buenos Aires, next to the very busy Retiro train station. This is a neighborhood that almost every commuter in Capital frequents at some point during the week, and the slum that sprawls along its tracks is very well-known. The life filled with misery that these slum-dwellers face is a stark reality inside the city, and it is a very important subject to be investigated and reported upon.

However, after reading the article, both Nick and I were shocked by the over-simplified tone the author took with the situation. The writer spoke about the slum's origins as a place built by Italian and Polish immigrants that had come to seek jobs in Buenos Aires during the Great Depression and settled near Retiro for its proximity to the port and downtown, and the jobs offered in both venues. The writer spoke about how that is still true today, except that the immigrants are now largely Bolivian instead of Polish and Italian, but they have come to Villa 31 for the same reasons as their predecessors--for "its proximity to downtown schools, hospitals, entertainment and jobs."

The author went on to characterize the legal situation of Villa 31 of that of a wealthy mayor versus a socialist government, with the people of Villa 31, a tight-knit community, caught in-between and fighting for survival. He wrote that "The settlement has become the focus of hostilities between Mauricio Macri, the conservative city mayor, and the left-leaning national government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner." All of this dramatic struggle was simplified in one page of text, ignoring huge details that significantly change the meaning of the situation.

Nick immediately went onto the homepage of the Economist to find out how to write a letter to the editor, and subsequently drafted a response to this article. This is what he said:
"As a commuter who frequently passes through the Retiro district in Buenos Aires, I took particular interest to your article on housing in Argentina ("Misery In Their Midst", January 8th). However, I was struck at how your article over-simplified the situation between Villa 31 and the interested parties of the city and federal government. You seemed to boil the situation down to a few brave and noble citizens defending their historic working class neighborhood against the aspirations of the greedy property developer in Mr Macri. While Mr Macri is known for gentrifying historic neighborhoods, Villa 31 is a far cry from such a community. With a population of over 40,000, Villa 31 is an overcrowded lawless slum, characterized by violence, drugs, and sexual abuse. You mentioned that Villa 31's inhabitants "prize its proximity to downtown schools, hospitals, entertainment, and jobs." However, the majority of these people do not attend school, cannot afford entertainment, and their so-called "jobs" consist of humiliatingly selling trinkets to passersby. So while gentrifying the shantytown is not desirable, preserving Villa 31 as is would be irresponsible."

I really hope that what Nick wrote gets published in the Letters to the Editor section of the magazine. I don't hope this because I think we have more insight to shed on the situation than an obviously very-accredited journalist, but rather because I think that over-simplifying facts is a very dangerous thing to do in writing. From reading this article, I know that had I read it in the States before coming to Argentina, I would have thought of Mayor Macri as a greedy "capitalist" out to benefit the rich and hurt the poor. I would have taken this journalist's words that the Kirchnerista administration was by the people and for the people. And I would have pictured Villa 31 as, yes, out of place within perhaps ritzy-Retiro, but respectable and communal.

And such an image is innapropriate. I want to ask this journalist, What about the Kirchners is left-leaning? The fact that they nationalized pensions? Well, wouldn't they have to redistribute the wealth for that to be considered leftist? And they didn't. Instead, Cristina is off meeting foreign leaders such as French President Sarkozy, spending $15,000 on a pair of earrings in one day, spending millions of American dollars on her wardrobe, while her people spin lower and lower into economic deprivation. Are they leftist because they proclaim they are Peronistas, descendants of Juan Peron's party? Well, not even the Peronist Party can be said to be leftist anymore. Take Menem, the infamous Peronista of the 1990's, from the so-called "People's Peronist Party." And take a look at his legacy: the privatization of everything from the utilities, to the post office, to the national oil company; his country's dependance on foreign credit; and its shocking fall from grace in 2001.

Most Argentines would say that all politicians here are corrupt, and there is certainly evidence to fit the accusation: Menem has been found guilty for illegal arms-sales, but is currently unable to be indicted as he is currently an acting Senator (and no acting Senator can be indicted); Nestor Kirchner is being tried for acts of corruption during his presidency; Cristina Kirchner is currently under suspicion for campaign money that can be traced back to drug-dealers. The corruption does not seem to cease, and it is not fair to sum up Nestor and Cristina Kirchner as left-leaning socialists who use their time in office to fight for their people.

As for Macri, it is also unfair to characterize him as just a conservative roadblock to the country's socialist leaders. He is certainly no angel--while he is embarking on a number of campaigns to clean up the city in a progressive direction, such as starting recycling initiatives, the middle and upper classes readily confess that he benefits them more than he does the poor. He is guilty of wide-spread gentrification, polishing up neighborhoods like San Telmo without offering better locals for the original inhabitants there. Such gentrification makes the neighborhood dangerous as the locals bitterly look at the foreigners and trendy portenos who now take up residence on their blocks, making for an uncomfortable and sometimes violent clash in socio-economic status. If his plans for restoration of Retiro involve simply pushing out the slum-dwellers without helping to create a new home for them, that is inappropriate and irresponsible, and neither Nick nor I would ever advocate for such a thing.

However, just as Nick wrote in his letter to the editor, it would be equally irresponsible in the Kirchnerista method, preserving Villa 31 as is. Villa 31 is not a tight-knit working class neighborhood characterized by an under-privileged but respectable life. It is a sprawling, poverty-stricken mass of makeshift lodging quarters. Often a family of five lives in a home the size of a bedroom; sexual abuse is rampant, even within families; children do not go to school but instead spend their days outside of the train station selling useless trinkets to commuters. At night, street violence and drug abuse are the laws of the land; and currently a drug supposedly more addictive than crack is making its way into the crevices of the villas. It is populated by thousands of Argentines and migrants, many from Bolivia, who came to Buenos Aires searching for a better life. I think the arms of the villa in which they now find themselves is far from the life they sought.

To sustain the status quo of Villa 31 is to say that it is acceptable for a large part of a city's population to live in squalor, as second or third or fourth class citizens. Many, perhaps most, of the residents of Villa 31 are undocumented people, without records to their existence. They are residents that don't exist, and by keeping them in the slum that is their home, their Buenos Aires, it is allowing them to keep not-existing. And that way the Kirchners get to keep alive their image of fanning the flame of the companeros without having to lift a finger. Why don't the so-called Kirchner leftists put their money where their mouth is, redistribute the wealth they've seemingly stolen in broad daylight. Let's see some subsidized housing and national programs addressing sexual education, abuse rehabilitation, drug addiction, and education, like a real progressive, like a real Peronista. The corruption in Argentina is heart-breaking, but displays like these in which a government disguises its apathy as a fight for its people is nauseating.

Angel of the Villa

2009-01-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

"Les gustaria una tarjeta del Dia de San Valentin?" Would you like a Valentine? she asked, her round, brown face poking out of the TBA train window. Her eyes were playful and excited, despite the un-childlike tasks she had been charged with.
"No, gracias," we smiled at her and kept walking down the platform. We needed all the change we had for the bus ride home.
"Espera! Espera!" Wait, wait! she shouted. She bent down, out of site for a moment, only to pop up a second later, her black bob bouncing.
"Aqua!" Here! and with that she flung a valentine out the window at us, just as the train started moving down the tracks.
We laughed and shouted gracias, waving our thanks. She waved back and we watched as her little face and hand became littler and littler, until it was just a small dot in the distance.
We looked down at the valentine. It was just like the playing card-size notes we all handed out with candy sweethearts in the first grade. It had three swooning fairies encircled by puffy red hearts, each fairy accompanied by a love-dovey thought bubble. My favorite fairy had purple hair, blue eyes the size of a Disney character, and a pink dress. Her thought bubble mused that "Nuestro amor. Es sentimiento presente en cada rincon de nuestros corazones." Our love. It is a sentiment present in each corner of our hearts. We smiled and tucked the card into my purse. A sweet memento from a sweet little cherub of the TBA train.
Later on and into the next day, I kept wondering about this little girl. How did she keep smiling? Her sun-browned face was smudged with dirt; her knees were black with grime. She had no more than five years to her name and she was forced to sell trinkets on a commuter train when she should be have been playing in a sandbox. And yet, she seemed unscathed by this reality, by the lack of fairness that characterized her life.
As Nick and I were riding the train from the province back into the city, I couldn't stop watching this little girl. She simply set her goods down on each train rider's lap, giving each person a chance to consider her wares. When all the cards had been passed out, she would run from one side of the train to the other, giggling the whole way. When she went to collect the cards, she didn't seem frustrated or sad when people returned them without purchasing. She simply acted as if it were all a game between friends, a game without expectations of proof of purchase from a family in the shadows.
When the process was all over and all the cards had been delivered and re-collected, the little girl simply went and plopped down on her father's lap in the back end of the train car. How could her father allow her to do such a task, and do it alone? Why couldn't he at least hold her hand the whole time? And yet, she seemed happy as a clam.
I imagined her at home, smiling away despite the ramshackle dilapidation sweeping through the slum where she most likely lived. A villa (veejah) as they call the slums here, in the province or along the train tracks in the city. A villa where meals are eaten over-shadowed by the worry of where the next meal will come from. A villa characterized by street violence and persistent illnesses that come with poverty. A villa where thousands sleep when they are not sleeping on dirty mattresses on the busy city streets where they make their living selling objects like plastic angels and rubber figurines. A villa where children have children and the cycle continues.
And yet, here she was, this little valentine messenger, this little cherub, smiling in the face of such despair. How? Did she have someone that looked after her and taught her that she would rise above this? Or did she simply have an inner voice that told her this? Or was she purely innocent of the injustice of her situation? Who can know. But this is where the hope lays, in a child whose pure innocence and happiness is stronger than the violent poverty that she was born into, our little angel of the villa. Let us place our hope with her and the others like her. "There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle."

Sleepy San Pedro

2008-12-19T05:40:00.000-08:00

It seems that in this blog, I am always coming back to the kindness of the Argentine la gente. I don't mean to overstate it at all, it is just that when you are a foreigner, you are dependent upon the kindness of strangers. And while they owe us nothing, these people here have given us everything...And it makes our experience.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to work as an exam administrator for a language school in a small town called San Pedro, about 170 kilometers north of Buenos Aires. The owner and director of the school contacted me to see if I would be willing to come to San Pedro for the weekend, work for a total of ten hours administering exams, with my meals, transportation, and accomodation completely taken care of. I accepted on the spot, and Nick and I decided to stay an extra night and make a mini-vacation out of it. And what a vacation it was!

San Pedro is a town of 50,000 that feels more like 10,000. Right on the river, it is characterized by giant river bluffs, from which you can look out upon the rio and its islands. The architecture is very Latin, with red, shingled roofs and stark white houses among bright pink houses. The main plaza is gorgeous and strikingly symmetrical: two palm trees, two lamposts, two benches, the center fountain, then two more palm trees, two more lamposts, and two more benches. It seemed so old-fashioned, so still; it was so calming to sit there. Walking on from the plaza, the town center is a paved mall flanked by a handful of traditional, cafeteria-style Argentine cafes boasting classic cafe con leches and liters of cheap Quilmes. The "boulevard," a quiet road winding across the bluffs, is the popular go-to with the teens of San Pedro, and they sit on the curb, drinking their mate as the sun sets on Friday evenings. And every night when the sun goes down, people bring their fold out chairs to the stoop and sip their mate with their families. The town and its movements are traditional, neighborly, slow-moving, and soothing.

Working at the institute was so much fun because I was working with children. These kids were so cute, hopeful, and hard-working in their attempts to succeed on their exams. Moreover, I was totally spoiled while in San Pedro. My boss there took me out for pizza upon my arrival, took me out to barbeque after work on Friday evening (and fed me snacks of cake and mini-sandwhiches in-between tests), gave me pastries and coffee for breakfast on Saturday, and brought Nick and me a quiche for lunch. She arranged for us to stay in an apartment that a neighboring family rents out. It was the best--the family was so accomodating, always checking to make sure Nick and I had everything we needed.

When I was finished with exams on Saturday, Nick and I traipsed up and down the town, walking along the bluffs, and stopping into cafes periodically to share a liter of Quilmes stout or to sip on a cafe con leche. In the evening, we asked the family with whom we were staying for a restaurant recommendation. In speedy Spanish, they told us to wait for 15 minutes. We were confused, but of course complied. 15 minutes later, the entire family--mom, dad, daughter, and son--came out of the house, freshly showered and wearing nice clothes. The dad opened up his van, and the four of them piled into the two front seats. The back of the van was like a bed of a truck, without seats. To our amazement, the father took out two fold out chairs and propped them up in the van for me and Nick. We couldn't believe it. So there we sat in these fold out chairs as the van bounced across the road. We weren't sure where we were going and we were trying desperately with the Spanish the family was speaking. Finally, we arrived at the top of a bluff. The dad got out and pointed down the bluff, telling us of their favorite parilla restaurant that waited at the bottom of the hill. "Okay," we laughed, and proceeded to thank the family and head down the hill.

Finally we arrived to a wooden lodge of a restaurant, well lit and cozy on the inside. We sat down, and promptly ordered a complete parilla. It was 45 pesos, a price unheard of in the city. We went crazy and ordered two bottles of wine and flan topped with dulce de leche. I can still taste the flan...After we were nearly done with our second bottle of wine, a musician arrived and began to sing South American pop songs. One by one, the restaurant patrons began to rise and join the dance floor, and finally, we hopped on the bandwagon. It was the very first time we danced in Argentina, and it was such a great memory. People were dancing all around us--grandparents, young parents, young about-to-be-parents, friends that were in their 20s, friends that were in the 60s. One couple danced with their toddler daughter bouncing in their arms. It was nearing two am, and the girls' eyes were drooping. Finally, she fell asleep as her parents salsa-ed around her, her pigtails flopping around with every dance move. It was such a cute image.

On Sunday, we went to a cafe near our apartment, drank coffee and munched on facturas, or sweet pastries, and read the newspaper. We walked to the river and waded in. Finally, it was time to go. We caught the bus back, and both of us were so sad to leave the calm of San Pedro, back to our busy lives in the city. We watched the landscape roll by--farm after farm after farm, reminding us of the other Argentina outside of the capital, and we daydreamed all about future journies to that other Argentina.

A New Home Sweet Home

2008-12-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

Remembering that it is December 18th is a hard task when the temperature is hovering in and around 90 with a constant helmet of humidity surrounding your every move. I have gotten used to sweating profusely. In fact, I feel I might think something is missing when the day comes when I am not soaking wet for the majority of the day. In our new home, the terrace tiles get so hot that when I go to hang our laundry, even my calloused, weathered feet burn. Our poor little home is home to three avid cooks now, so it doesn't get much rest from the heat. It burns under the sun during the day, and it burns from our over-worked oven at night. But it feels so much like home...

Our new neighborhood is sleepy and calm, with shopkeepers who strictly observe siesta time, and wait outside their shops during non-siesta time, greeting potential patrons as they walk on by. There is no Freddo, the most famous and grossly-overpriced Argentine ice cream chain store; only independent helado shops with hand-made ice cream sold by men wearing old-fashioned short-sleeved white button-down shirts, refreshingly formal and serious about their service. The stars come out at night and the streets are quiet when darkness falls, allowing you to sit outside and enjoy the peace and tranquility that can be so rare to come by in the city. Although this peace and tranquility comes at a cost of being 35 minutes from the city center, it is more than worth it to us...All I need now is my rocking chair and my knitting needles.

And our home...I love it. It is two stories with a gorgeous terrace, on which we eat dinner every night. The downstairs is full of light with windows on all sides. The kitchen is tiled and has marble countertops. There are glass jars for our spices and our roommate has arranged everything so nicely and home-like. She has flowers planted in a windowbox outside the kitchen and a sage plant resting in the sun. At night, the neighbor's cat crawls across the roofs and comes to join Nick and me while we eat dinner, reminding me of Janie. I wish she could come back inside with us. :-)

I feel settled...So refreshingly at home. After being in the pulse of everything for the first leg of our journey, I realize that to be at the center of things is so exciting, but can be exhausting, especially when you need to be concerned about your safety, and also about being overcharged with extranjero prices in a touristy neighborhood. So, sigh, I feel home...On Tuesday, our first full day at our new house, I did not have class until the evening, so I unpacked all of our suitcases, arranged our room, scrubbed the floor, watered the flowers, poured our spices into the jars, and handwashed our laundry and hung it up to dry on the roof. I wanted to feel a part of the house, and I really, really do. Our roommate is also so wonderful, and helps so much to make it feel like home. I am just so thankful for this new chapter of our Argentine journey.

This Crazy Life

2008-12-15T05:49:00.000-08:00

Nick and I arrived in Buenos Aires nearly four months ago, full of images, ideas, and preconceived notions of our new city and our new careers. We came imagining a true Paris of the South, with beautiful boulevards and cafés teeming with patrons. We came excited to learn about a government that was democratic and outspokenly for the people. We came nervous to teach, but confident that the work would provide for a sustainable and stable life in this new world.

And now, after four months, I understand why anthropologists can not publish reflections on places in which they have not lived for more than three months. These past few months have systematically broken down our preconceived notions, and replaced them with life-long lessons. Upon arrival, we did see remnants of a Latina Paris, with the leafy Palermo promenades, the beautiful Belgrano mansions, the Recoletta cafés and meticulously curated museums and mausoleums. But turn the corner, and there we did also see just another Latin American city raped by decades of corrupt governments.

We have seen protests march by the Casa Rosada, demanding justice for the 30,000 who disappeared under the military junta of the 70's and 80's. We have seen alarmed headlines alerting the public of the $4 billion that has fled the country in the wake the President's decision to nationalize pensions. Everyday we see dozens of children with bare, blackened feet and matted hair, crowd subway entrances in pursuit of loose change, their baby siblings crying in their laps, making old men and women of these little boys and girls. We have seen people get robbed in broad daylight, and we ourselves have been robbed underneath a street lamp outside of our very own apartment door. And though that has made us scared and leary, our blame has limits, for we have never known the desperate poverty of our perpetrators.

In the past four months, we have stood by and watched as the global financial crisis takes its toll on a fragile economy. Rampant inflation without salary increases has pushed many to the limit. For us, hard economic times means that fewer people are willing to invest in extracurriculars such as learning English. Now, our work is very much week-to-week, as one company will cancel lessons and then we scramble to secure more hours within a different company. We have been incredibly lucky and have begun to teach for many American and European companies, conducting in-company lessons for Ernst and Young, Schlumberger, Moody's, and a few more. We work hard to procure these assignments, but sometimes it is out of our control; for instance, last week I had 25 hours whereas this week I have merely 10. Much of this week will be spent trying to find work for next week. It can be tiring and also scary.

And yet, despite the fear and the constant struggle to stay afloat financially, Nick and I have seen the most beautiful things, things no guidebook could capture, things that make us look at each other and say in a glance, ¨thank goodness for this.¨ These things we see and experience can be summed up in one word: kindness, kindness that you can not imagine, kindness without reason. It is so humbling, and such a life-long lesson for us. We have been given so much, and so often by those with very little to give. Nick and I have collected these acts of kindness, countless instances that we cherish and derive strength from during some of the challenges we face here. We have so many examples of this type of kindness, I would exhaust you if I named them all. But I must discuss a few with you, because I fear that unless I write them down, they will be forgotten in their specificity, in their uniqueness. I know that sometimes challenge and struggle stands out in your memory, its rough edges and harsh corners pricking your memories far into the future. At times, we forget the soft moments of daily miracles and blessings, and right now, these little miracles are changing us daily, are the gentle guide to our experience here, and I don't want the softness of their memories to get lost admidst the roughness of the struggle.

The first example of kindess I want to share with you involves one of my students, Martín. Martín is a thirty-year-old father of two, a sweet man whose life revolves around family and Argentine soccer. This is Martín's first English class, and since this experience is more-or-less my first Spanish class, there are many barriers in our efforts to communicate. Yet, through many hand gestures and lots of laughter, we manage to get our points across. Over these past two months, Martín has asked all about Nick, and I have asked all about his wife and children, and in this manner we have come to know one another's families, and come to be close.

Last Saturday, Martín and his wife, Paula, invited Nick and me to go to the Racing soccer game with them and their son, Franco. Racing is one of the most popular Argentine soccer teams, and the games are supposed to be quite an experience. Nick and I of course did not hesitate to say yes, and we met Martín and his family at the number 100 bus stop downtown, and rode the 35 minute ride to the stadium. Martín and Paula chatted with us along the bus ride, speaking slowly and pointing out landmarks along the way. When we arrived to the stadium, Franco was in his element, wearing a Racing flag tied around his neck like a soccer superhero, and Martín and Paula explained all the crazy things at the stadium. There was a section for the fan club, wild and crazy fanatics with Racing tattoos and shouts that never stopped. The field itself was a sight, with a surrounding moat so that crazed fans didn't storm the grass, and just in case they did, a circle of shielded policemen stood guard to beat off any rabid fans who crossed the water. The opposing team's fan section was also caged in by shielded police, and the crowd never stopped whistling their boos, when the ref came out, when a player was injured, when a yellow card was issued to a Racing player. So many chants, so many cheers, so much energy. It was insane. And it was something Nick and I would have had a really hard time navigating on our own--the bus, buying tickets, navigating the bleachers...As we have, or rather I have, such rusty Spanish, it must have been quite frustrating for Martín and Paula to communicate with us, and yet they smiled the entire afternoon, pointing out this and that, and always checking to make sure we were having a good time. When we got back to our apartment in the evening, we felt as if we had just spent the day with family friends; we felt as if we were home.

My next example of unfettered kindness involves two new friends: Eduardo and Paula, the cutest father-daughter team in the southern hemisphere. Eduardo had made a post on Craigslist, advertising his need of an English teacher. Nick responded, saying that he would love to teach him English, or to participate in an intercambio if he would rather. Eduardo responded in favor of the intercambio, and noted that his daughter, Paula, would also participate. They set up a meeting time of half-past seven last Wednesday night at a café downtown. Little did we know that this meeting would be one of the best nights of our Argentine life thus far.

Wednesday night rolled around, and I entered L'Opera, the café on the corner of Callao and Corrientes where we had agreed to meet. There they were, sitting at a table by the window, a red Spanish/English dictionary laid out on the table as an identifying marker. We introduced ourselves and jumped into a conversation. We ordered media lunas and cafés con leche. Nick arrived a half an hour later, after his class, and Eduardo teased him for liking Racing (Eduardo's favorite team is their competitor), and a friendly tone was set immediately. We spoke in a Spanglish mix for the next three hours, Eduardo sharing interesting and little-known tid-bits of Argentine history, Paula sharing with us her favorite parts of her trip to the United States last summer, and Nick and I sharing our story of why we are here, and how we are making our life here. When it was time to go, Eduardo insisted on treating, and then drove us home in his 1976 turquoise blue classic car. The car has a pretty awful turning radius, and as we turned corners, we went over sidewalks to avoid hitting the buildings on the other side of the street. As we tooled around the city, bumping along curbs, Eduardo regalled to us stories of street names, often forgetting to focus on the road, so immersed was he in his city's history. Nick and I kept looking at each other cracking up, as Eduardo would tell us the story of the Battle of Piedras as we passed Calle Piedras, or how Belgrano created the flag as we passed Avenida Belgrano, all the while hurtling over sidewalks. It was such a funny night, and it reminded us of all the reasons we love Argentina. Paula and Eduardo were so kind, and treated us with such generosity without needing to, without even knowing us...

These are just two examples of the type of interactions that Nick and I have been blessed with time and time again. We came here with nothing, without even knowing the language, and yet, there have been so many friends we have met here who have gone so out of their way to make us feel at home here. It has made our experience...It has made us fall in love with Buenos Aires, with Argentina, with Argentines. Yes, there are many hurdles...To work twenty hours teaching means most likely that you will actually be working at least 40 hours, with the actual hours of teaching coupled with the transportation time as well as the lesson planning. And then you must secure your work for the next week, and you need to be aware of your safety, and you need to take into consideration that there might just might be a subway strike, and then the avenues will be so crowded that it will take a bus forty minutes to go one block. But then you arrive at your class, and you realize the person you are teaching has lived this and more their whole life, and they still have the energy to reach out and bend over backwards to an americana extranjero who doesn't even speak their language. And you remember how lucky you are, and you realize how much kindness can be expressed by a single person within a single moment...

I teach a woman named Claudia, a mother of two who lives two hours away from the city, in a small town in the province that is safe and a good place to raise a family. And yet, there are no jobs in this town, so Claudia travels to the city and back daily in pursuit of work. Her life is overshadowed by the horrible worry of impending financial problems if she does not find work. And yet, she showed up at our class last Wednesday with a pair of silver earrings for me--she said she noticed that I always commented on her earrings, and she wanted to give me a pair of her's to remember her by. She has nothing to give, and yet she gave me that gift...It was so valuable...It is something I will never forget. And the next time I am sweating on the subte or waiting for the bus complaining in my head, I need to remember Claudia, and her silent journies done without complaint, and her willingness to give when she has nothing left to give.

Everyday I think about how life is different here, so different. The average person's life has been characterized by countless struggles. In the past twenty years, the Argentine economy has experienced four crises. Financial magazines have headlines advertising on how to prepare for the next crisis. It is a different world, one in which citizens have had to arm themselves against an uncertain future, to reach into the depths of their strength and become intensely self-reliant. I feel guilty when I think of challenges that I face here, because although Nick and I live a much more frugal life than we did in Washington, DC, our meager salary is what so many would dream of here. Things we once complained about giving up we now realize are luxuries to so many. Moreover, we come from the United States--we can always go home. Citizens here, this is there home. And while I may care deeply for the people, the culture, the land, if the going gets tough, I am under no obligation to stay here...But for the millions of people scattered across the nation, raising families and working for the progress of the country, they are a part of the tough goings, sailing up and down right along with the economy. They have every reason to be bitter, untrusting, and yet, so many of them remain so incredibly, unbelievably open-hearted...To say it is beautiful would be to undermine it. It is truly beyond words. I will live in admiration of the Argentine people for the rest of my life.

Lessons from the Little Prince...And a Thanksgiving to Remember

2008-12-01T04:23:00.000-08:00

Saturday was unseasonably chilly and drizzly, so Nick and I read our books all day and did not get out of our pajamas until 6 o'clock at night...I know that sounds incredibly lazy, but it was actually incredibly glorious. While outside was gray and windy, inside was extremely cozy and I think between the two of us we must have drunk a dozen cups of coffee...Nick read, and finished, Ghost Wars, and convinced me to read it now as well...While he read his monster of a book filled with researched footnotes, I made my way through my good ol' children's book, The Little Prince. Because I am extemely slow in translating, 30 pages took me about 4 hours, but it was such a wonderful 4 hours. Maybe because it feels like a feat to understand a sentence, I appreciate the sentences so much in Spanish! I laugh out loud all the time while reading it, and even get choked up sometimes at the Little Prince's sincerity and simple, sincere thoughts...His innocence breaks my heart! But he imparts the reader with such wonderful life lessons that are easy to forget in our fast-paced lives. My favorite part that I read on Saturday was the part where the Little Prince, or el hombrecito as St. Ex sometimes calls him in Spanish, talks about the astroner who discovered the asteroid where the Little Prince lives, Asteroid B612. The astronomer was Turkish, and when he first came to present his discovery to the International Astronomy Congress, he dressed in Ottoman-style clothing. Nobody paid attention to his discovery because they were too focused on his clothes. The Turk did not want to give up, so he came to the Congress a few years later dressed in a suit, and this time, everyone listened, and believed his findings regarding Asteroid B612. However, the Turkish astronomer was disheartened this go-around because after his presentation, he longed to make friends with these fellow astroners. As the Little Prince recounts, he wanted the astronomers to ask him what he dreamt of and what games he liked to play, but instead they asked him how much he weighed and how much money his father made. After knowing these things, the astronomers felt close to the Turkish astronomer, because that is all they feel they needed to know, but the Turkish astronomer felt lonely because he knew these things do not matter in life. (Which all really reminded me of none other than Mr. Michael Esders, who hates when people say first in introductions, ¨What do you do?¨ rather than ¨What do you like to do?¨)Maybe I am too sentimental, or maybe I was just excited to read a passage like that in Spanish, but those words still have not left my mind! I've got el principito on the brain...

When Nick finished the last page of Ghost Wars, he closed the covers with a bang and told me he was going to head to the store--we were going to have people over in the evening to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving. Because I was cozy and lazy, I sent him off alone, promising that I would do the cooking when he got home. Of course, as karmaic retribution for me, a torrential downpour started not two minutes after Nick left. And I mean torrential. Within a few minutes, the sewers were backed up, and completely overflowing. Our street was flooded so that the water level was above your ankels. I started cracking up, grabbed an umbrella, and ran to the grocery store. When Nick saw me, we were both soaking wet and laughing. We bought the groceries, and headed home, both of us ducking under the umbrella that wasn't doing much good. The wind was so strong that it was blowing the rain underneath the umbrella's covering. We were absolutely drenched. When we turned onto Piedras, we saw three cars stuck in the middle of the road, unable to drive because of the level of the water. The passengers were sitting with their arms crossed and stares of death coming from their eyes, penetrating the windowshields. At the end of the block, two men stood outside and directed traffic away from our flooded calle. We turned the key into our apartment building, ran upstairs, poured glasses of red wine to warm up, and watched the chaos from our window.

And was it ever chaos!! Buses eeked down the street, creating tidal waves as they turned a corner; cars sputtered past, surrounded by the waves their wheels were creating; a group of teenagers down the street took boards and were literally surfing in the street. Nick and I felt bad for the two men who had volunteered to become crossing guards, so we thought we should share the wealth and give them some wine. I ran down to deliver it, and the two men thanked me and shouted ¨¡Estados Unidos!¨ Once again, Nick and I were dying of laughter.

An hour after the downpour started, it began to let up, and it looked like people would be able to come over afterall. We started a-cooking, making a whole chicken, amazing mashed potatoes that Nick mastered, and a French silk pie, that turned out to be more like pudding (that I un-mastered). Nick and Brenna came over with a DELICIOUS green bean casserole, another whole chicken covered with apples and onions, and an adorable carved pumpkin to make it festive. Lisa and Diego came over with green been and artichoke salad as well as a spinach salad; Sheila came with a dulce de leche cake, and of course Leonor, Elsa, and Fernanda came with the much-needed Quilmes. Jenny and Elise arrived a little later with wine, and so we ended up celebrating Thanksgiving with 8 Americans, 2 Peruvians, and 2 Argentines. It was lovely. It really was.
We all missed home for this holiday, but it was such a blessing to have friends here with whom to celebrate. As we went around the circle saying what we were thankful for, I said I was thankful to have made friends to celebrate with, and I really meant it. How lucky it is that we have met these wonderful people during our stay here thus far.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!!

Trying to Learn Spanish

2008-11-25T19:27:00.000-08:00

Trying to learn Spanish, like trying to learn any language, is so difficult, but there are bright moments where the clouds clear and you think, as cliche as it sounds this process can be so rewarding. New languages produce new thoughts and ideas, and it is all so awakening. But Spanish is particularly beautiful (in my biased mind). Even when you do not comprehend the words, the language is so fluid, so melodious, so thick with feeling. For example, in the Pablo Neruda book of poems that Nick gave me for my birthday last year, the translator advises the reader, "Even if you do not speak Spanish, I urge you to read the original poems. The words have notes, they resonate like a song. Our translations can never aspire to exactly replicate the rhythms and colors of Neruda's words..."

And it is true. Take for instance the following stanza from Neruda's poem, "Unidad":

Me rodea una misma casa, un solo movimiento:
el peso del mineral, la luz de la miel,
se pegan al sonido de la palabra noche:
la tinta del trigo, del marfil, del llanto,
envejecidas, destenidas, uniformas;
se unen en torno a mi como paredes.

These words in English can be translated to mean the following:

Just one thing surrounds me, a single motion:
the weight of rocks, the light of honey,
fasten themselves to the sound of the word night:
the tones of wheat, ivory, of tears,
aging, fading, blurring,
come together around me like a wall.

The meaning is beautiful in a simple, universally understood way: nightfall brings the unity of everything so that all the colors of our day fade into one wall of darkness. It is hard to appreciate the beauty of a poem without first understanding its meaning. But once you understand the meaning of these words, and you read it again in Spanish, as the translator says, the melody and harmony of the original Spanish syllables will sing more than the translation ever could. And it is the realization of this kind of unique harmony that pushes me on to find out what all of these beautiful words actually mean.

***
After three months of living in Argentina, I am embarassed to say that I am still very much a beginner when it comes to the Spanish language. (Some may even say pre-beginner...) Not to make excuses, but teaching English for a living makes learning Spanish a bit difficult. Difficult, yes, but impossible, no--something I must keep reminding myself.

Little-by-little, poco a poco, I notice small feats, which give me hope and encouragement. From daily interactions, things such as directions, food, and monetary transactions are becoming much easier. I get so excited when someone on the street asks me for directions and I can respond without thinking (too much). It is just that when it comes to emotions, ideas, and feelings, I stumble, fumble, and panic. After two months of teaching, I feel very close to many of my students, but because many of them are just beginning to learn English, there are many obstacles in our ability to clearly communicate. I am dying to ask them how they feel about lessons, how they learn, which methods of learning they prefer, but I lack the language skills to properly do so...

But despite the obstacles, the small feats, such as providing directions correctly in Spanish, give me just the positive umph I need to keep on going. Plus, I have my secret weapon: Nick! He really amazes me everyday in that he never stops focusing, never stops paying attention to all the new words swirling around us. He reads all the store-front window signs, listens to the conversations going on around us, buys newspapers in Spanish, and never hesitates to ask anyone a question regarding Spanish. He is a sponge when it comes to the Spanish language, and I really am so impressed everyday. He is a great motivator to me, and really helps me learn along the way. Together we have made some language goals to help us in our Spanish pursuit. At night this week, we have been turning on the news in Spanish, and we have also resolved to use some of our free time in the evenings to learning new verbs. We have been researching undergraduate classes at universities in Buenos Aires so that we can audit a class, something that will hold us accountable to keeping up in Spanish, something that will force us to learn more words than we would ever voluntarily learn in our free time. And in the meantime, we are reading The Little Prince in Spanish--El Principito. One of the sweetest books in any language, it is so much fun to re-read this book, to re-discover it with different words. Also, who can deny that once again, Spanish comes through with its uniqueness, as what could be a cuter word for little prince than principito?

Bienvenido a URUGUAY

2008-11-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

After spending three months in Buenos Aires, it has begun to feel familiar, comfortable--like home. That is, of course, a blessing, as we learn the street names, and walk them easily without always having to glance at our maps, or ask kiosk merchants for the nearest subway station (although we still have to ask them for the nearest bus station, but the buses are a wholeeeee different animal...). But of course, often with familiarity comes the forgetfullness of daily wonder, and I think I had begun walking the streets with my head down rather than remembering to look all around me, remembering to remember that I am in SOUTH AMERICA. And Saturday was an exhilarating wake-up call.

Upon entry, our passports had been stamped with the date August 26, 2008, with a warning in all caps stating, ¨TOURIST VISA, GOOD FOR 90 DAYS.¨ Seeing as it was November 22, 2008, our grace period was almost up. So, we hopped on a ferry to Uruguay so that we could re-enter the country and get a refreshed stamp for a refreshed 90 days. The ferry left from Tigre, a small coastal resort town an hour train ride from the city. It was called the DELTA CAT, and she took us clear across the Rio de la Plata. The Rio is so wide--it took us three hours to cross over to Uruguay--that you forget you are sailing across a river and not an ocean. It left the Tigre station at 11 am, and as mid-day approached, the heat escalated, and Nick and I and the friends we were travelling with began to burn as we sat on the boat deck and watched the passing shoreline. As we crept closer and closer to Uruguay, we passed abandoned and rusting ships anchored next to the shore; giant sailboats and pontoons with Spanish flags, Italian flags, and Argentine flags; little motor boats cruising in our wake; and kayakers swiftly paddling away. The closer we got to Uruguay, the greener the shore seemed to become, and as we sailed into the Carmelo harbor, we were greated by the site of smooth beaches stretching before us.

Enter Carmelo, Uruguay. As we disembarked the boat, we were immediately confronted with the smell of pine trees. No buses, no traffic, no smog, just the smell of pine. There were trees with purple blossoms--jacarandas, I think--that gave off a soft and flowery scent, and left the street stained purple from fallen petals.

One kiosk had its doors open, and the rest of the shops, restaurants, and bars had signs that warned us not to disturb during siesta.

The streets were so quiet, and the five of us--Nick, Brenna, Nick, Lisa, and I--were the only people walking down the road. As we walked, Lisa commented on how everything was flooded with color, and it was true--a pink house, a purple restaurant, an orange house, a yellow house, a white house with a rainbow of a garden, a red bridge. We crossed the red bridge, and passed a simple green sign that advertised ¨COLONIA¨ in the direction we were walking. As we looked at the highway it pointed towards, we saw a two-lane country road, flanked by fields without people, without houses, without farms. Not to sound too cliche, but it looked like a scene from Motorcycle Diaries, and I felt a rush of reminder, We are in Latin America!!

After the bridge, we turned right, following the sign to the Playa Sere, the BEACH! The road to the beach passed houses and one restaurant-bar, with an old black lab sitting in-between the plastic patio-tables. The ground was grassy and covered with pine needles, and in-between houses were dirt paths leading to the residential side of the beach. As we approached the shore, we entered a wooded campground, with horses tethered to trees and grazing on the grass.

The beach sand was so smooth and light, and there were plenty of trees for shade. We unfurled a blanket and sat down to picnic on the rice salad and ham sandwhiches we brought in our backpacks. The shade was so cool and refreshing, but the water was so, so clean, and even though none of us had brought our swimming suits, we could not resist wading in.

The bottom of the river was so smooth, and the water was the perfect temperature. I of course had to take it all a step further and totally submerge myself, soaking myself and my dress, the only clothes I had for our day-trip to Uruguay. But it felt amazing. I swam about a hundred meters out, and there were groups of kids playing in the water, which was so shallow you could still stand even that far out. The kids were so cute, all there camping with their families, and Lisa, our Spanish whiz, heard them all talking about where they were from...It was so cute to see these children who had just met playing like they had grown up together. They were just splashing about, doing mini-dives while plugging their noses, chasing each other in the water. When I looked around, it was just beach and sparkling water for as far as I could see. It was beautiful...

We didn't have much time in Uruguay, as the ferry left the port at 6:30 pm. So, after a couple of hours on the beach, we dried off and walked down the road to the purple resto-bar we passed, the one with the sleeping dog. We walked up to the patio, where one table was occupied by customers and another was occupied by the waitress and the cook, chatting and resting in the shade. We sat down around a shaded table and ordered three literes of beer for the table. The waitress brought it out, and the dog took a position right next to our table for a nap. We drank the beer and chatted, taking note that the Quilmes-tasting beer had a Uruguayan label we had never seen before. At 5:45, it was time to head back to the port, and we paid the tab--360 Uruguayan pesos, only about 30 Argentine pesos, but the huge number really throws you off!

We walked back past the houses drenched in color, back across the bridge and past the Motorcyle Diary highway, past a few Uruguayans peddling on bicycles, past the miniature Greek-style plaza, and finally to the awaiting DELTA CAT. We stopped before embarking to buy croissants with ham and cheese, sparkling waters, a box of wine, and some pastries. And we took off, sadly leaving sleepy Carmelo behind us.

The five of us were sun-soaked and exhausted, and we closed our eyes inside the boat for the first hour of the trip. When we opened our eyes, dusk was approaching, and we all headed out to the deck to watch the passing scenery. Nick brought the box of wine and we poured it into our empty water bottles, taking sips as we passed sailboats, houses on the shore with smoking asados, couples cruising on jet-skis, and rickety motor boats trying to catch a wave from the DElTA CAT's ripples. The sky was all different colors, and the waves rocked the reeds on both sides of the shore.

As we pulled into Tigre, the setting sun illuminated the tops of the palm trees and the soft city lights made the town glow gently. We passed through customs and held out our passports to be stamped, thankfully allotting us more time in Argentina.

Being in a new place was such an amazing wake-up call of where we are living. Although we have been having wonderful days here, enjoying our classes, learning about our students, trying new foods, spending time with new friends, I think I had started to put these activities into the cruise control part of my brain, to take them for granted--going to work, meeting with friends, going to a restaurant, etc. I was forgetting to stay alert, to remember each day as something unique, as a day holding experiences I have never had before. Going to Uruguay was a reminder that this is a new land, with constant surprising offerings, lessons, experiences, sights, beauty, people...I remembered how Nick and I dreamt and planned for almost a year before coming here, how we spent every lunch hour looking at pictures on the Internet of sites in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the rest of South America, day-dreaming of the places we would go. Or how we would spend our work-breaks and train rides home practicing Spanish, imagining the situations in which we would use this new language. As I remembered what it took to get here, the planning and the acceptance of the unknown, and also the hope that coming here gave us, the hope of following our dreams, I reminded myself not to go on autopilot...To remember that each day is brand-new and has everything to offer that you can not even imagine, something that life everywhere has the potential to offer, but a lesson that travelling can remind you of. Carmelo was not only a beautiful, peaceful, sandy-pine-tree oasis, but also a beautiful reminder to not take anything for granted...To soak up everything.

Comida a la PERU

2008-11-15T06:28:00.000-08:00

I woke up with visions of last night's dinner, visions that I fear will not leave me for a very long time. I am worried no meal can compare to the cuisine of yesterday eve, and that I will be having food envy for a past meal for days, perhaps even weeks...I have two words for Buenos Aires residents or travellers: El Rey.

El Rey is a Peruvian restaurant on Aguero right off of Avenida Corrientes, across from the Abasto Shopping Center. A truckload of us went there last night--Nick, Brenna, their roommate Clara and her two friends, Jenny (our roommate from the homestay), Jenny's two friends, and of course, our Peruvian, emapanada angels, Leonor and Elsa. The twelve of us reserved a giant table, and gathered round. Leonor and Elsa ordered a series of plates for us all to share and we ordered bottles of Quilmes to be passed around. While we waited for the meal, we munched on french bread dipped in Peruvian dipping sauces--some spicy, some with cilantro, some with onion. And then the dishes began to appear.

First came leche de tigre, or tiger's milk--a delicious medley of sweet milk (maybe coconut) with seafood, hot peppers, and cilantro. We passed it around the table with one spoon as if it were mate. It became the communal leche de tigre, and it was too delicious to worry about germs. Then came meat with potatoes in a cheesy sauce over rice, which got absolutely gobbled up. Then came chicken with spicy rice, and then the corazon de vaca, or cow heart, which was absolutely delicious. Finally, a plate of chicken covered in spices accompanied by a giant plate of french fries was placed in the center of the table. We were all so full, but we could not leave one bite leftover--it was too good to waste even a morsel. So we ate and we drank and Leonor and Elsa explained the recipes, and chatted with us about Peru, about the religious festivals, about the Inca, about the family culture, about Lima and the sea, about the different foods (including 3 kilo papayas), and about their own lives there.

At the end of the meal, the Peruvian waitress brought out twelve glasses of refreshing, pear-flavored champagne, which we all used to toast to our wonderful hostesses, Leonor and Elsa. And which we followed with more bottles of Quilmes, all set to the beat of the mariachi father-and-son group who sang famous Mexican ballads such as Bessame Mucho, all accompanied by a guitar and a trumpet and of course in traditional mariachi sombreros and suits. We were at the restaurant for four hours, but I don't think any of us noticed how much time had passed as we listened to the music and ate El Rey's amazing cuisine.

On the way home, without warning, a torrential downpour started, and when we hopped off the bus 3 blocks from our apartment, we were drenched within seconds. We hailed a cap for those last few blocks, got home, and drank a glass of fernet and Coke while listening to the rain. In the morning, the 90 degree humid weather was a distant memory, and an unseasonable chill had taken over, reminding us of a November day in the States. I went to teach for a couple of hours, Nick and I met up with a friend for coffee, and then we made a traditional Argentine dinner that, although it couldn't compare to the comida a la Peru that we had revelled in the night before, was still an exciting new culinary discovery: milanesas.

Milanesas are a popular Argentine type of meat--a thin cut of beef breaded and lightly fried, like a beef version of chicken parmesan. Nick and I hadn't tried them yet, but one of my student's provided me with a recipe, so we decided to take a stab at it. Soaking the slices of meat in egg yolk and parsley, we then dipped them in bread crumbs mixed with minced garlic, and then lightly fried them in olive oil. After the patties were done, we laid them in a pan, topped them with mozzerella, and then Nick's amazing homemade tomato sauce--full of onion and oregeno and hot pepper. After baking for 10 or 15 minutes, they were ready, steaming and looking delicious. We piled them onto our plate and poured glasses of Quilmes and dug in. They were good!! More than that, it was exciting to try a new Argentine recipe, something we will bring home to the States with us as a tasty reminder of life here. ¡Buen provecho!

Correo Argentina, Take Two

2008-11-14T11:04:00.001-08:00

I have been defeated again by what is quickly becoming my South American nemisis: Correo Argentina. For some reason, my skewed mind thought that it would be easier sending a package rather than receiving it. So, as my sisters' birthdays are fast-approaching, this morning I packaged up their gifts, sealed them in a box, and headed to my first class, planning on going to the International Correo right after the lesson.

After my lesson, my student asked me what was in my bag. I told him I was sending my sisters gifts for their birthdays. Immediately his face clouded over. ¨Do you want them to receive this package?¨ Was this a trick question? ¨Yes...¨ I responded. ¨Well then, don't send it through the Argentine postal system. At the very least, use OCA [Argentina's version of UPS], and even that is not guaranteed. My advice is to not trust any Argentine enterprise for international mail.¨ Hmmm, great. This was going to be a long day.

I left the lesson unsure of what to do, but finally headed to the only OCA I knew of, right across from the Obelisko in Microcentro. I popped out of the subte and headed into the nice, line-free, air-conditioned building. I pulled out my shabbily-taped box and explained in horriffic Spanish that I needed to send this box to the United States. The OCA employee shook his head and said two loathsome words: ¨Correo Argentina.¨ He proceeded to then explain directions of how to get to the nearest office. Apparently it was in a tunnel near-by. Of course it would be.

Why on earth was I rejected on the spot? My only guess, my hopeful guess rather, is that it wasn't personal, but rather OCA must operate only within Argentina. (???) I decided to save face and go with that theory. Moving on, I walked the twenty meters that the OCA man had instructed to do, walking and sweating down Avenida Corrientes until sure enough I saw a stairwell descending into what looked like nothing-ness, a nothing-ness with a big red sign that said ¨PASAJES.¨ Hmmm, I though, Pasajes, here I come.

Enter Pasajes. Seemingly a strange underground shopping center, with kiosks advertising kitschy Argentine goods, a few stores with electronic goods, and of course, good ol' Correo, which was, true-to-fashion, accompanied by a line of homicidal looking people, a line which I joined both physically and emotionally.

30 minutes later, I was up. Once again, I pulled out my box. The postal employee looked at me, looked at my box, and looked back at me. Finally she opened her mouth. ¨No me peudo.¨ I can't do it. ¨OHMYGODTELLMEYOUAREJOKING!¨ I shouted--in my head. In reality, I meekly asked why not, to which the postal employee responded that I need a Correo Argentina box to send something. I asked her then politely if I could please buy a box from her so that I could send my package. ¨No, we don't sell them here.¨ Obviously. Why on Earth would the post office sell the boxes that you need to send something through the post office? That would make life far too easy. I focused on her nose-ring to distract myself, a tiny silver dot in the lower half of her left nostril. A nose-ring that seemed out of place on this bored-looking, middle-aged red-head wearing a white-collared shirt, who was in other words, very proper in every way besides the jewel in her nose. Should I feel some connection, some compassion perhaps towards her, as a fellow-nose-ringer? I tried to let her nose-ring and the question of its purpose distract me from the rage that was slowly collecting within my intestines. Maybe that focus worked, or maybe it was telepathy and she too felt a need to feel a connection with a fellow-nose-ringer, as she finally took some mercy on me and wrote out the address of the store at which I could buy the necessary box.

The store was six blocks away, on Libertad and Sarmiento. I walked there, pushing my way through the mid-afternoon Microcentro crowds. I arrived at the appointed corner, and there was no store to be found with the name the postal employee had given me. I double checked, walking the area again and again, checking in every window. No where. I surrendered and decided to walk home, drink some ice water, and look up a UPS store online.

I got home, chugged some ice water, and did some research until I found the address of the nearest UPS store. It was only a short bus ride away, so I grabbed monedas and went to catch the bus. As I approached the UPS store, I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass reflection. Today was not my best day. Sweat was visible even in a store-front reflection, literally glistening from my face. My hair had ceased to be curly and had instead turned into a massive knotted glob of yellow frizz. I decided to grin and bear it, and I opened the door to UPS, only to trip and fall, and send my shoe flying. Even the homeless man standing outside looked sorry for me. Oh Lord, I was almost there.

Inside, the UPS employees were as nice as could be and the room was so refreshingly cool. I explained what was in the box, and they weighed the contents. Weighing in at not even three kilos, this box came to a whopping total of $116 US DOLLARS. That is 360 pesos, over two days of work. Oh my goodness, my bank account could not afford this. ¨DOLLARS, US dollars?¨ I asked the UPS employees. ¨Yes,¨ they told me, looking sorry even as they said it. ¨Oh my gosh, I can not send this,¨ I told them, thoroughly embarrassed and blushing a fire engine red. They laughed, and I laughed, too, in utter relief of their response. ¨It is very expensive to send things from Argentina,¨ they informed me. ¨I can see that,¨ I told them. ¨Our advice is to pack it in your suitcase when you go home.¨ Oh no, but Lizzie and Colleen...

My poor sisters. I did not send the package. I left without my dignity, with the presents still in their box, still in my hand. But I can promise Lizzie and Colleen that their gifts will of course be waiting here as good as new whenever they come and visit, along with their Christmas gifts and other goodies along the way. I hope they are not upset!!

On the way home, I grabbed four cans of beer for me and Nick, and here I am, sitting at the computer with a can of Quilmes, revelling at how complicated the Argentine postal system is. One blogger commented on my previous post about Correo Argentina, saying that they grew up in Argentina and now cherish the US Postal System as one of the perks of living in the US. I could not agree more! Nick and I were laughing that here we are dealing with the Pony Express. :-) But at the end of the day, it is chalked up to a funny story and a good lesson, of which there are many in Argentina. One of my students told me the other day that living in Argentina is like reading a 1000 page book on life lessons. I think that may be one of my favorite expressions I have heard yet in these three months.

---

Other than Correo adventures, this week has been wonderful. Nick has been working for the past month for one company that he has come to really love, and which has come to really love him--they offered him two new classes this week! So he is very busy teaching, getting more comfortable in the profession with every passing day. He is reading up a storm, currently reading Ghost Wars, the book Barack Obama is also currently reading. :-) He continues to follow the news religiously regarding the President-Elect, and he has also found time to become very good at Scrabble, beating me in 4 out of 5 games this week. Yikes!

Other big news with us is that we are currently on the look-out for a new apartment. Although we have loved living in San Telmo and living with Cecilia, some things have convinced us that it is time to move. For one, San Telmo is relatively expensive for Buenos Aires, as it is very popular with tourists. In addition, unfortunately, Nick and I were robbed last week. However, for an unlucky situation, we were very lucky in that neither one of us was hurt at all--only our wallets suffered. Although a robbery is something that could happen absolutely anywhere, we feel that because San Telmo has so many tourists, it might at times proove to be a good target for thieves. So, we are taking extra precautions, taking cabs at night if we are alone, not taking anything valuable with us when we go out, etc. We have told Cecilia that we will be moving on December 15th and are currently looking at some nice and very safe areas, like Caballito, Almagro, and Villa Crespo--areas that are a little more removed from the city center, but seem to be very safe and have a community all their own. It is exciting looking for a new apartment--we will be moving in right around Christmas time, and will bring in the New Year in a new home, with new lessons under our belt, and a new chapter of our Buenos Aires adventure. We will keep you posted with descriptions and pictures of the new home we decide upon! Until later, ¡buen fin de semana!

A Night to Remember

2008-11-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

A Palermo apartment overheated by the massive glob of Americans & Argentines and made warmer by the oven working over-time to keep the swing-state food warm (genius idea donated by the Cunninghams). There were jalapeno poppers from New Mexico, corn from Indianna, rice and beans from Florida, an oreo cream pie from Ohio, and of course, the Victory Lemon Meringue Pie. CNN was projected onto the blank white wall, and Celeste, our amazing host, was running around making sure everyone was set with food and drink. The hours ticked by: one, two, three ,until it was four in the morning, and although we all had jobs, classes, and appointments to make in just a few hours, nobody cared about time or lack of sleep on this particular Tuesday night.

Watching one of the most historic elections in history thousands upon thousands of miles from home was a unique experience. I think that perhaps Nick and I feel a special kinship with other Americans here, simply because we are all in the same boat, and so far from our native port. Throughout the last leg of this election, that kinship has made watching the debates and now the final moment of truth electric. Living in Argentina has made Nick and I fall in love with this country, undoubtedly, but also become thankful and respectful of our country as well. Argentine friends share stories of being paid to vote for certain candidates, of seeing their savings disappear as the peso becomes devalued, of rampant cronyism accepted by other government officials and unable to be commented on by government-controlled media. These stories leave us in awe of the resilience of the Argentine people, of their amazing ability to keep moving on, to stay so welcoming, despite the disillusion that has colored their lives. And these stories also remind us to be thankful and respectful of the institutions and relative stability we experience in the US--for the relative freedom to vote for the candidate of our choice, for the relative transparency through which our government operates, and for the relative freedom to express discomfort and disagreement with the government, and therefore in a way govern those that govern. With these feelings of respect and gratitude comes a great desire to show the world our best face, the face we were so proud to see named the next President of the United States on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008.

As Barack Obama was announced the winner, Celeste's apartment erupted in screams. I could not stop crying, my friend Rebecca could not stop crying, a handful of our crowd ran to the balcony to shout in celebration, and my friend Elena uncorked the champagne. Nick and I looked at each other and remembered to remember this moment forever.

At 4 am, Nick and I walked to Avenida Santa Fe and caught the #64 bus home. As we sat in the bucket seats of the bus, we felt our repressed fatigue hit us full force, as the anticipation and excitement melted away into relief and happiness. The next day my students greeted me with ¨Obama!¨ shouts and we spent the first moments of English lessons watching our President-elect's acceptance speech on youtube. It is wonderful to feel proud of our country's decision, and it is wonderful to proudly represent two votes of that decision here in Argentina.

Feliz Compleanos!!

2008-11-06T04:56:00.000-08:00

It began with a candle smooshed into a pre-packaged cupcake and a bunch of fellow TEFL grads singing a well-intentioned and hilariously-off-key Happy Birthday, while in full costume attire. It was midnight on Halloween, officially the first of November; Nick was turning 24 in Buenos Aires.

Bringing Nick's birthday in at our friend's Halloween party was perfect. Almost all the people we know in Buenos Aires were in one place, and we all on silly outfits. There was a great rendition of Joe Six Pack, a Sarah Pallin dead ringer, an impressive Marie Antoinette, a unique David Bowie, a wonderwoman, and a few more goodies. We listened to music, drank wine, talked with friends, and headed home when we realized it was allready 4 am.

The walk home took 45 minutes, and by the end of it, we were starving. We walked to Independencia, the major street two blocks from our apartment, and popped into the only open restaurant we could find. The restaurant was a very narrow two-story dive decorated like a ship, with anchors and fishing nets serving as the decor. It was perfect in every way save for the techno that they insisted on blasting. We ordered a grande mozzerella to go, and ten minutes later and thirteen pesos poorer, we were heading home with watering mouths. Within minutes of arriving home, the pizza was smoked and it seemed later than late. It was time to call it a day.

The next day, it was time to celebrate in earnest. We made coffee and a big lunch of bruschetta and sauteed vegetables. It was a beautiful day, 75 degrees and sunny, and we ate with the windows wide open. As soon as we finished our food, we piled the dishes in the sink, threw on shoes, grabbed the Scrabble board, and headed to the park. En route to Parque Lezana, we stopped at a bakery and ordered three pastries and four cans of Quilmes. We were set.

When we arrived, we staked out a patch of grass and set up shop, sipping on Quilmes and Scrabbling away. Two hours later, half the beer was consumed, the pastries had long been gone, and Nick had beaten me fair-and-square by twenty points. We packed up the board, opened the remaining cans beer, and read our books stretched out on the grass. It was my favorite afternoon in Buenos Aires.

After our beers were gone and the sun had moved so that we were now in the shade, we packed up and headed home. We made more bruschetta and some sangria and turned on Van Morrison. Nick and Brenna and our friend Katarina came over, and we listened to music, drank sangria, and munched for two hours. When all was finished, we grabbed our jackets and headed down Defensa to our very first parilla--Disnivel.

The restaurant was great--filled with happy diners and bustling waiters, pink walls, and countless framed pictures. Nick and I ordered a famous Argentine steak, and it was delicious--tender, juicy, and full of flavor--well worth its international reputation. The four of us toasted Nick and gobbled up our meals.

After dinner, it was again later than late, but we were the kind of tired that comes happily after a day well-spent. I could not hold my eyelids open any longer and I drifted off as Nick was opening his presents and reading his card. He didn't seem to mind, though, and we called it a day, a happy birthday day.

Correo Argentina

2008-11-03T02:56:00.000-08:00

Lisa Maxwell strikes again. No matter how hard the obstacle, she will find you. In high school I went to the Australian Outback for two months, and week after week, her packages found their way across the desert to PO Box 153, Lake Grace, Western Australia. In college, though I was a mere 10 minute drive down I-43S, St. Nick's always began with a package delivery via campus mail to my dorm room. When I studied abroad in Ireland and subsequently celebrated my 21st birthday in Galway, I think the little Gaelic post office was overwhelmed by Lisa Maxwell's love affair with the courier system. But nothing compared to my year in Washington, DC. Week after week something arrived on my porch covered in styrofoam peanuts and wrapped in packing tape. I think Ro once asked me if my mom had considered buying stock in UPS, because it might have served to be a good investment at that rate. Needless to say, 3903 Morrison Street would have had much less flavor without those packages...

It was only a matter of time before Lisa Max's package service found its way to Calle Piedras. However, getting here proved to be quite a maze, and a prime example of Argentine efficiency operating at its best.

The saga began a week ago from Friday when a slip of paper was shoved under our apartment door notifying me that I had a package to be picked up at the nearest post office. Only three blocks away--not bad. True, I wondered why the mailman couldn't bring the package to me if he could bring a slip of paper to me, but I figured it could be a lot more painful. My first free morning came three days later, so Nick and I headed down the block for the p.o.

Five minutes after arriving, I was up. This is easy, I thought. I handed over my ID and package notification to the postman. He mumbled something into the microphone and looked at me expectantly. Ahhh, I was lost. ¨He needs your passport,¨ Nick translated for me. Oy, I didn't think of that. ¨Uno momento,¨ I told the postman.

15 minutes later, Nick and I had raced home and raced back, only to find we had to take another number and get back at the end of the line. 15 minutes after that we were up again. Feeling relieved that this was about to be over, I proudly handed over my passport. The postman looked at it, nodded, and took my notification slip into the backroom. Expecting to see him walk back with a beautiful, cardboard box sparkling with packing tape, my heart sank when I saw him return with another piece of paper. I knew it couldn't be easy, I cried on the inside.

In contrast to my about-to-scream insides, the postman looked quite pleased with his findings.

¨Here you go, señorita,¨ he said as he handed me my new notification, taking the courtesy to circle the new address to which I must travel. Apparently, I needed a notification to receive the official notification for which I needed to receive my actual package. Receiving a package in Argentina is akin to embarking on a scavenger hunt, and one that will teach you a lesson in patience.

Allright, let's get 'er done, I resolved. The new address was in Retiro, a neighborhood where I was scheduled to teach on Friday until 2 pm. Perfect, the post office closed its doors at 5 pm, so I would have plently of time to hippity-hop over after my lesson and pick up the goods.

On Thursday I texted my friend John to see if he wanted to get a drink with me and Nick that evening. ¨At the international post office,¨ was all his reply said. It was 3 pm. Could he possibly mean he might be busy at the post office through the evening? This could not be a good sign.

Well, John ended up making it out, and upon arrival proceeded to down two liters of Stella Artois by himself. As the alcohol relaxed him, he began to recount his boiling frustration after sitting at the post office for three hours, an unfortunate circumstance that led him to rip open his mother's carefully wrapped care package right outside the building in Retiro, miles away from his homestay. After tearing open the box, he proceeded to chomp his way through the packets of gum his mom sent, and begin to read the book she had enclosed, David Sedaris' latest, Engulfed in Flames. Laughing at Sedaris' imitation of Parisians while chewing the heck out of some Orbit apparently made John feel better about his situation, and he headed home and came out to meet us. Hmmmm, my Friday chore was beginning to sound ominous...

My time arrived and I surrendered to Correo Argentina at approximately 2:15 pm Friday afternoon. Chin up, I walked in, tried to ignore the massive herd of homicidal-looking people stalking the waiting room, and took a number. #86. I looked up at the board to see a neon #30. Okay, I can do this, I thought to myself, and I opened up my book. About 30 minutes later, my number was up. Whew! That was relatively pianless. This time, I came prepared and had my official, official package notification ready with my passport. The postman, a glorious Argentine with snow-white hair, a deep tan, and a half-unbuttoned white collared shirt, nodded approvingly at my passport, stamped my notifications, and disappeared in back...Only to come out with another notification.

You are kidding me, I thought. There is no way. Just no way. But, oh, it turns out there was a way. The postman handed me my new slip and circled the six-digit number at the bottom. ¨Go the other room and wait for this number to be called,¨ he instructed in Spanish. Sweating profusely at the anxiety of the postal system and also at trying to understand Spanish in such a hectic environment, I nodded my understanding with wide eyes, and obediently headed to the next room.

It looked like an emergecy room waiting room, just as desperate, just as manic. Rows and rows of fold-out card-table chairs, filled with rows and rows of feverishly angry yet knowingly helpless people sitting with their heads down, eyes glued to their slips of paper where their holy 6-digit saving grace was printed. I listened to the numbers being called off the loudspeaker, and immediately my over-worked pores poured. The announcer was listing off these 6-digit numbers so quickly, and without pause in-between patrons, I panicked. How was I going to understand him?? I was going to miss my number and this whole debacle will have been in vain. Oh, pobrecita!

To help me, I wrote down my six-digit number in every possible way it could be called. Uno siete ocho nueve uno cero. Dies-y-siete ochenta-nueve dies. Uno siete ochenta-neuve dies, etc., etc., so that my slip was now covered in written accounts of possible verbal translations of my number. Okay, that made me relax a little and I proceeded to stare at my numbers, my eyes glued to them everytime the announcer came to the mike.

One hour later, I wasn't hearing my number. It was allready 4 o'clock. I thought for sure I had missed it, I was going to go home packageless, I was never going to see what my mom had sent. I resolved to wait until the post office closed, and maybe I would be lucky and they would call everyone who did not respond to their called number. Just hold tight, I told myself, as I looked around and felt like the obvious Americana with deer-in-the-headlight eyes, grasping my number with a grip like the jaws of death.

45 minutes later, I heard it. My number, my glorious number was called, and I understood it! I raced to the back to pick up my package and joined the queue of the others who were just called. When I got up to the window, I proudly handed over my ticket, and the postman just as proudly handed over my package. Hallelujah!! I was so elated I literally felt 20 pounds lighter, and I bounced out of the post office, shouting to every postal employee ¨Buena fin de semana!!!¨ on my way out. They looked at me like the crazy Americana I am, but I was too relieved to feel self-conscious.

I arrived home at 5:30, three hours after my journey to the p.o. began, and Nick and I tore open the package. Scrabble!!! Lisa Maxwell had saved the day by sending a Scrabble board--and just in time, as Nick is really beginning to worry about his post-Tuesday life when there will not be anymore polls to read or pundits to analyze. :-) Scrabble, a box of chocolates, a candle, and a pair of purple loafers that I have not taken off for three days. It was so worth the wait. Lisa Maxwell indeed strikes again.

An Interesting Intercambio of Our Own

2008-10-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

Perhaps Nick took lessons from our friend Lisa (I don't know, I am choosing not to look too deeply into this), but he searched Craigslist Buenos Aires for an intercambio. I thought it was weird that his ad said, ¨American hottie searching Argentine hottie for language exchange and more,¨ but I didn't want to nag.

Just kidding! In truth, we were looking for a cheap way to accelerate our espanol learning curve. With Cecilia on vacation for the past month, we haven't had our daily doses of practice aside from random grocery store interactions and at times making Leonor and Elsa patiently wait while we stumble through a broken sentence. So, Nick really did search Craigslist (he just didn´t mention in his search that he was an American hottie), and he ended up finding us a really amazing intercambio.

We arranged to meet our language partner in the afternoon last Thursday at Bar El Federal, our favorite bar thus far in San Telmo--a notable it is called, as it is a landmark and preserved in its 19th century style. Nick and I walked in and remembered that we didn't know who we were looking for. We saw a man sitting at a table for four all alone, looking about with a newspaper under his arm. It must be him. ¨Marco?¨ I asked him. He looked at me completely mystified. ¨No,¨ he finally said, without a hint of a smile. Yikes, okay, moving on.

Nick and I sat down at our own table, eagle-eye watching the door. Bingo. A man walked in alone, and made a beeline for us. ¨Marco!¨ I called out. He looked startled, and that's when I realized the beautiful girl sitting at the table right in front of us. I had obviously interrupted their much anticipated reunion. Oy. He only let me throw him off for a second before he threw himself to his awaiting beloved.

Nick and I just sat still for a minute, acknowledging that maybe we should stop--I should stop--trying to pinpoint every poor schmuck who walked into Bar El Federal as ¨Marco.¨ Luckily, not long after, a man walked up to us. This had to be Marco.

¨Marco?¨ I said sheepishly.

¨Hola,¨ he smiled back. Relief! Moving right along...The three of us got a table in the back that was quiet and where we wouldn't disturb anyone (I averted the eyes of all the fake Marco´s I had accosted before), and we began the Spanish chapter of our intercambio.

Three coffees and three brownies later (of which I had two because Marco said he wasn´t hungry), the three of us were comfortable and in the swing of some much-appreciated espanol. Marco kept it simple for us, asking us why we were in Argentina, how long we have been here, where we would like to travel to, and where we had been living in the States. We tested the waters with our Spanish, responding to every question, and then we ventured further and asked him about himself, such as why he is learning English. He told us that he is learning English because his girlfriend is American and does not speak much Spanish. His English is good, but of course, he wants to improve. We then asked what he did as a living, and he explained that he had just returned from Afghanistan, where he was working as an aid worker through an international organization.

Yes, Afghanistan. Three years in Kabul. Wow, now if that doesn't change you...This smiling, happy-go-lucky, jolly man across from us began to tell us incredible stories of his experiences--of being unable to leave the house for days, of Western women learning they they also can't leave the house without a headscarf if they want to be safe on the street, of doctors working as taxi drivers because the pay is more on the street than in the hospital, and of much more--a world that is unfathomably foreign to me. I was speechless. We switched to English so that Marco could practice, and the tales continued as Nick and I fired question after question at him.

His stories were mind-blowing. Literally. Two hours later, we said goodbye and thank you. Our intercambio had given us language lessons yes, and some very unexpected life lessons...Marco is someone I will never forget, and hope to meet again!

Magical Intercambios and More

2008-10-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

Our friend Lisa signed up for an intercambio, or a meeting in which English is traded for Spanish with a Spanish-speaking language partner. In an intercambio, you usually meet at a neutral location, for instance a cafe or a park, and speak in Spanish for one hour and English for the other hour. You help your partner along with English, and they help you along with Spanish. It is free and can be a great way to meet friends. Well, anyhow, our friend's intercambio was going quite well. So well in fact that she and her language partner began to email incessantly throughout the day, and then they began to text, also incessantly. This saga was unfolding back when we were in our TEFL course, and one day Lisa's phone buzzed during class. She began to glow slightly and leaned over to whisper that her language partner had just texted her because he was having trouble tying the knot on his tie. "Isn't that cute?" she wanted to know. ¨Lisa, this isn't normal,¨ I whispered back. ¨No, no, we're just friends. They're all like that here. Friendly.¨ Yeah right.

One month later and Lisa and her language partner are in the midst of a swingin' romance, going to the zoo on weekends, to the Tigre Delta on Columbus Day, movies during the week, and hosting asados on Fridays (much to our glee...). Asados are the most popular Argentine past-time. Picture the most delicious barbeque you can conger up: that is an asado. Lisa and her language partner boyfriend had us over and we all gathered around their barbeque pit. It's spring and although the days are hot, the nights are chilly, so the grill kept us warm (along with the countless bottles of red wine...), and Lisa's beau grilled us serving after serving of parilla--or grilled steak--and pork, and chorizos, with which we made mini choripans. It was beyond delicious...I thought I would nearly faint with culinary ecstasy when Lisa then carried up a plate of home-made empanadas, her roommate majestically appeared with a huge glass bowl of strawberries covered in whipped cream, and her roommate's boyfriend emerged with a bowl of divinely home-made potato salad. I was full to the point of being in pain, but I couldn't stop eating. Hey, I didn't know when I would get this kind of chance again! :-)

But, back to Lisa and her language partner. It is so funny and wonderful seeing them together now. After arriving here and meeting Lisa, all of us within our first weeks here, sea-legs not quite acquired, and hearing her timid little tid-bits about a cute language partner. And now look...They are as comfortable with each other as could be, and their story of how they came to be is one of the most memorable I have heard.

It is so nice forming these bonds with people we met in class. Everyone in class was there for a different reason--some were there to do something while applying for graduate school programs, some were there to become fluent in Spanish, some were there purely to travel, and some were there to try their hand at teaching to see if it could be a career to take home with them. While we all know that Buenos Aires won't be our forever, we will forever remember one another in this moment. I think perhaps because we are all so far from home and we all started at square one, or square zero rather, in terms of having a community here, we all reached out to each other quite strongly to make bonds. Which has made all the difference in the world. I was thinking about all of this a lot just this past weekend, which was surprise-party central. It was both our friends' Nick and Breanna's birthdays last week (confusing, I know!), and Brenna threw Nick a surprise party on Friday night, and Nick (her husband) and Nick (Cunningham) and I threw Brenna a surprise party on Saturday night. It was quite a weekend!

Friday night's party was hosted by our friend Bobby from class. Bobby is one of the most sincerely kind people anyone could meet. An elementary school teacher from Houston, TX, you couldn't find a person more perfect for working with children. But anyways, I keep rambling...Bobby hosted the party at his apartment's terrace that is just gorgeous...It has the loveliest view of the city, and just to stand and look over the streets and the river was just a wonderful reminder of how great Buenos Aires can be...It reminded me of the first week Nick and I arrived when we were just dizzy drinking everything in.

But, there was more to the party than just the view. Brenna made pitcher after pitcher of sangria, and grilled steak and chicken for fajitas. Our first Mexican meal since we got here!!! She was really the hostess with the mostest. It was delicious...Once again, I ate until it hurt. (I should probably stop doing that...) Nick (her husband) was so surprised, and so happy to see everyone from our class. It was a really magical night...Brenna did an amazing job, and she was so exhausted, I don't think she thought for a second that we were planning a party for her the next night.

Brenna's surprise party was not as glamorous (because it was at our house!), but still very fun. Nick and I hosted it at our apartment, and it was so much fun to have our Argentine friends over to our home here!! We ordered a dozen pizzas and stocked up on Quilmes and Malbec, and of course rum and Fernet as well, and our classmates trickled in. Lisa came with her beau, Nick and Brenna's roommate from France came, Leonor and Elsa, the Peruvian empanada-angel sisters came, and pretty much everyone else from our class! Brenna was really surprised, and it was such a fun, low-key night. Two surprise parties in one weekend...Not bad! :-) Here is a picture of our apartment, because I don't think we have posted any yet:

Nick and I were exhausted after the double-whammy weekend because not only did we have two surprise parties, but we sold empanadas on Saturday and Sunday! Unfortunately, we were not very successful...On Saturday, I left Nick all alone at our stand because I had to teach (yikes...minus points for me as a girlfriend...). I walked with him to Puerto Madero and helped him set up shop, bought him a choripan to cushion the blow, and then left him high and dry.

Two hours later, in the middle of my class, I got a text: ¨Calling it a day. Not very successful.¨ I came home to a slightly disappointed Nick who informed me that he sold a grand total of 5 of our delicious pastries. What the heck was wrong with everyone?? These babies are drool-worthy, let me tell you. Nick figured it out that Puerto Madero is really choripan territory, whereas the San Telmo Antique Fair is empanada haven. Therefore, we chalked it up to some market research and resolved to have a successful day at the fair on Sunday.

Sunday came and the alarm clock went off. I could not get out of bed. I was stuck. Like a tree. After a weekend of surprise parties, teaching, baking empanadas, cleaning for the party, my body ached. I didn't drag myself out of bed until 11 am, which meant we didn't hit the vending streets until about 2 pm. Which meant...We missed the noon rush! We had a difficult time selling our goods that day, although we did have some very sweet customers who helped the hours tick by. Three hours later, and down 36 empanadas, we decided to call it quits. But it wasn't all for nothing--we were left with a 25 peso profit, and about 50 empanadas for ourselves, which to me is a pretty fabulous coup.

When we got home, I promptly passed out for an hour and a half, and when I woke up, Nick had our spicy black-bean soup boiling away on the stove, and the Sopranos ready and waiting on the computer. What a perfect Sunday.

Rainy Day in BA

2008-10-22T04:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked our first Buenos Aires thunderstorm. We have had a string of sunny, warm, cloudless days, so when the noise of rain coming down in heavy sheets rang as our alarm clock, it was quite surprising. The sky was gray, gray, gray and it was so drenched outside that there was no way we were going to go outside. Luckily, neither one of us had class yesterday, so we had no obligations to be anywhere except inside our cozy apartment.

The day started out like most of our days here: pots of coffee made and drank, Nick at his computer, I at mine, occasionally one of us telling the other news that we have via email or an article we are reading online. Only this day, there was no rush. I can not count the cups of coffee I drank, and I took my time making the most delicious egg sandwhich for breakfast. I read a huge chunk out of the wonderful novel I am reading, Norwegian Wood, courtesy of Sarah Bobbe, and Nick read through-and-through the entire Economist. Finally, around 4 o'clock, we got out of our pajamas and into semi-real clothes--jeans & a tshirt, as good as it was going to get on a rainy day. (It sounds so lazy, but it was, in fact, glorious...)

And then we made soup. But not just any soup. A gigantic pot of home-made broth flavored with bulion cubes and garlic, then made hearty with potatoes, black beans, corn, chickpeas, tomatoes, onions, hot sauce, jalopenos, and rice. When it was done, bubbling and boiling, we topped it off with avocado slices and cilantro...It was so thick and so refreshingly spicy (the Argentines cringe at picante, so finding hot food is a challenge)...We were sweating with each bite. After one bowl, I was so full, but I didn't have the will-power to pass up another bowl. Nick went back with me and then he went back again, and again :-) (In fairness to him, his bowl was a lot smaller than mine!) I was bursting, but I could have eaten more bowls just for the flavor...There is nothing like spicy soup during a thunderstorm...And to top it all off, after we ate our soup, we spent two hours watching the Sopranos...It really couldn't have been a better day.

In the evening, Nick & Brenna came over, and we munched our way through olives, garlic bread, and cookies, while sipping our way through three liters of Quilmes and two bottles of wine, all as we semi-played a game of good ol' midwestern Yeuker. At midnight, it was officially Brenna's birthday, and we celebrated to that. At moments like that, as we are with a friend to celebrate the first moment of her birthday, Nick and I realize how we are so thankful to have met the people we have here...We arrived nearly two months ago, knowing no-one, excited and motivated, but scared and a tad lonely, missing all the friends & family that we had left in Washington & Wisconsin. Although we still miss everyone at home everyday, we are so lucky to have made the friends we have here; without such relationships, our life in Buenos Aires would be quite different. From Brenna & Nick, to Leonor our empanada angel, to Jenny our roommate from our homestay, these are people that Nick & I want to know forever, who have helped us beyond words to settle here and become comfortable.

It is a sunny day again today, a day filled with teaching English and taking Spanish, a day back to the go-go-go of our normal lives. It is gorgeous outside and I can not wait to open that door and enjoy the sunshine, to join the hectic beat of the crowds outside. But yesterday was a pause to be grateful for, a break that allowed us to take a breather and realize all we have to be thankful for, here in BA.

In Search of Carlos & the Humanist Movement

2008-10-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

Last week was a busier-than-ever maze of new lessons, continued lessons, new leads, failed leads, and all the up's and down's of our semi-anxious quest to find work. We graduated two weeks ago from TEFL, and we both have some solid, wonderfully engaging classes. Nick is loving his courses at an IT firm on Wednesdays and Mondays, where he is meeting and teaching people from Buenos Aires and other parts of Argentina, learning their personal stories, and helping them to express all of this in English. He has also begun to meet with a journalist on Friday afternoons, so he not only teaches the journalist about English, but gets to learn about the life of a periodista in South America. Pretty cool stuff! And needless to say, right up Nick's alley. :-)

I have been teaching two business-English classes a week, which have been great. Just like in Nick's cases, my students are eager to express complicated thoughts in English, and have been teaching me a lot about their area of expertise: chiefly finance, which means they have been talking to me a lot about the financial crisis, which is so helpful to my annoyingly liberal-arts-geared mind. I have also been continuing to meet with a very sweet woman who takes English to help her in her Human Resources department.

However, we have had some challenges along the way. I ended up being misinformed by an employer as I was told that a teaching school was a half an hour away by bus, when it turned out to be over an hour away, far outside the city limits, and not in the best place to be standing alone waiting for the bus at dusk. However, my contact was understanding when I told her that I could not continue this particular position, and hopefully no bridges were burned. It was a hectic way to learn such a lesson, as it was on a day I had many other classes, and left the house at 7:15 and did not return until 13 hours later. In the end, it was a great lesson to learn to be able to be smarter about where I go when I teach, and to stand up for certain rights without ruining professional relationships...These are all lessons that have to be learned, usually the hard way, and at the end of the day, I think that Nick and I are so lucky to have each other, which helps with all challenges. Well, I should say, he helps me with all of my challenges. :-)

This is all bringing me to my point expressed in the title, I promise...Nick and I decided that volunteering and/or being engaged in organizations outside of our 9-5 job has always been important to us, and was definitely a big part of our life in DC. We had sort of been putting such activities on hold because of our job search, but I think after two weeks we have realized that we are doing all we can, and being anxious about it in the interim is a waste of time when we could be putting our time and energy elsewhere. Therefore, we contacted a man we met here who runs a nonviolence and ecological movement in the city. We met this man in a bar on our second night here, an incident that seemed very much to be a sign. As I said before, we had just arrived in Buenos Aires: we were wide-eyed and a bit nervous about not knowing a soul in such a huge city. We stumbled into a cozy bar where a band was setting up a stage and a crew was working on the sound and lights for the performance. We were the only customers in the bar, and the instructor of the lighting/sound crew approached us and engaged us in conversation. We explained to him that we had arrived the previous day, and that we were to begin an English certification course within two weeks, and were just currently exploring the city. We found out his name was Carlos, and he in return explained to us that he heads a group that meets to discuss and take action to decrease violence. With our broken Spanish, it was hard for the man to convey exactly what his group does, but it sounded quite impressive, and good-natured. He gave us his card before saying goodnight.

It had been a while since we had looked at that card, but two months later, it really began to feel like the right time to contact Carlos. Nick sent him an email on Friday, and he speedily replied by Friday evening, asking us to meet him at his office in the Almagro neighborhood the next afternoon. We whole-heartedly agreed.

Saturday rolled around, a necessary break from the rigor of our past week, and we got up early to greet the day. I had to teach and Nick went to the gym, both of our heads a little heavy from drinking too much wine at a friend's barbeque the night before. We were so tired from the week, but determined to meet Carlos and make contact with someone who could help us get into an extracurricular world we both were craving. We decided to meet in Chinatown after teaching and the gym to do a little shopping for the curry we use up so fast before our meeting with Carlos.

A few hours later, we had bought spicy curry, mustard seeds, and cilantro, and we were pumped. Now we only had to find the 168 bus that would take us from Belgrano to Almagro. Should be no problem, we thought, as there is a bus depot just around the corner from Chinatown. We headed to the bus depot and saw about ten buses, and none of them were the 168. Slightly discouraged, we walked the other way from the bus depot, sure that we would find the 168. Of course, we couldn't. We walked for 20 minutes in the opposite direction as the bus depot, seeing no new numbers, discouragingly. We were sweaty, slightly hung-over, and a little jet-lagged from our crazy week, and the bus system just would not throw us a bone. We tried a last resort of walking towards the next subway stop in the far opposite corner of the neighborhood, about a half an hour walk. We saw dozens of other bus numbers, but the 168 was nowhere to be found. Finally, we called Carlos and told him we were having no luck finding a bus, so he told us to take a bus to the correct subway line and ride the train to his office, which was a block from the station. We did that, and finally, one hour later, we arrived, thirsty as all get-out, bleary-eyed, but so thankful we finally arrived.

Carlos' office was what looked like an old house, with high ceilings, a homey kitchen with a gurgling coffee maker, and two open rooms that ran into one another, but yet provided privacy for the people working. There was a man from Chile working away on a laptop, rocking out to some tunes, and another couple from Chile that came to drop off groceries. Carlos took us into a corner of the room where a desk was seated, and two chairs. We sat down and he spoke to us about the mission of his organization, weaving in and out of Spanish and English. His mission is one that seeks to bring together people of all different nationalities, religious beliefs, and cultures with one common aim to take the violence from our society and to refocus on the humanity within the world. He was one of the kindest people we have met in Buenos Aires, and we were so thankful to establish a connection with someone who runs an organization that perhaps we could be a part of in some small way. About an hour later, we thanked Carlos for his time and promised to stay in touch. In no time at all, we were back at our apartment, more exhausted than ever, and cooking up a feast, which we chased down with Quilmes while watching the Sopranos. A hard week with a perfect ending. :-)

Come Get Your Gringo Empanadas!

2008-10-20T04:33:00.000-07:00

It was 9 am on a Sunday morning, and we were already hitting up the grocery store. We piled ground beef, a whole chicken, onions, hot sauce, and emapanada pastry dough into our baskets. We headed home, turned on the oven, and got to work. It was team work at its best. I put the ground beef in a pot and lit the stove; while I was chopping onions, Nick seasoned the meat. When both the onions and the beef were done, we opened up the dough, and placed it circle-by-circle onto a cookie sheet. Nick scooped the onions and beef into the middle of the dough circles, and then I folded the dough together, making sure to pinch the ends together to form traditional empanadas. We baked them until they were golden brown, and then we started on the chicken ones. 72 empanadas later, our apartment smelled like cumin, cooked meat, and toasted pastries.

While they were still hot, Nick and I lined tin after tin with rows and rows of empanadas, seperating each layer with a paper towel to soak up any grease and to keep them warm and fresh. We threw on our salesman clothes (an ancient summer dress and cargo shorts and a tshirt, respectively), and carried our cartons of empanadas down the street and to the San Telmo Sunday Antique Fair. At the beginning of Plaza Dorrego, we heard our names being called, and turned to see our friends Nick and Brenna walking towards us with their bright blue serving bowl lined with dulce de leche and banana empanadas, pastalitos, the carmel colored sweet syrup leaking out of the pinches in the dough. My mouth was watering at the sight of them.

The four of us staked out a corner in the plaza and held up Nick's handmade sign advertising our emapanadas for 2 pesos a piece. And customers actually began to come! I think we were so surprised by the first customer that they probably wondered if they should buy one of our pastries, based on our displays of over-gratitude. But the fair was so busy, and crowds kept passing us, and random passers-by would see our sign, smell our emapanadas, and hand over a two peso bill. We were absolutely cracking up that this was working, that we were actually selling empanadas!

A few minutes after we arrived, our friend Leonor arrived, Leonor our empanada sale savior. Leonor is a woman we met while student teaching for our EBC, TEFL-certification course. She was one of our students at the center, and quickly became one of our favorite students. She is one of those people who literally radiates warmth; she is always smiling, always laughing, and always inviting us everywhere with her sister, Elsa, and their friends. Yesterday, Leonor showed up in all of her glory, and led the way. She shouted out empanadas and pastalitos slogans, explaining to customers about our pastries for sale when the Spanish confused us. She took our baskets and walked through the plaza, drawing customers in along the way. She stayed out there with us for three hours, selling our empanadas and keeping us company. Needless to say, we could not have done it without her...Our empanada angel. :-)

Throughout the day we had many different kinds of customers. We had portenos frequenting the fair, Europeans vacationing in Buenos Aires, supportive friends who came to visit us and help our budding business, and American tourists. One family from Michigan was sitting outside at a nearby cafe and called us over. Why are you doing this? they asked. We explained how we are English teachers living here in Buenos Aires, and looking to make some pocket change by doing something we love: cooking! They got such a kick out of a bunch of Americans selling traditional Argentine pastries that they bought six. They made our day. What also made our day were travellers with fancy cameras taking our pictures, mistaking us for Argentines. We laughed and posed with our baked goods, trying to get them to buy one along their way.

At the end of the day, our friends Vera and Eva paid us a visit, and then paid us for 6 empanadas, topping off our day and buying the last of the empanadas. We had sold 70 empanadas, and made 120 pesos for doing something we loved. To celebrate, Nick and I, Nick and Brenna, and Leonor and her sister Elsa all went out for pitchers of beer. We sat at a cafe, half-watching a soccer game in the background, and thoroughly enjoying our cold glasses of Schneiders. We were exhausted, but excited and slightly in shock that we had just sold dozens of empanadas. We kept cracking up at the idea that our quirky idea had worked, somehow (Leonor, thank you!!)...

So, for all of you Americans out there in Buenos Aires, come buy American next Sunday at the San Telmo Antique Fair, come buy some American-made empanadas! And, for all you Argentines, come try something exotic, come buy some gringo empanadas! We will be there. :-)