La Pulperia

To top off a pretty incredible day of forgetting about our worries and our strife (isn’t that a line from a song? BARE NECESSITIES, MOTHER NATURES RECIPES!), we decided to really attempt to gaucho it up and head into the local culture and go to a pulperia or a saloon. I thought they were going to direct us to some touristy place, all done up where the waiters looked like gauchos but had probably never touched a horse in their life (no comments please after the days festivities)…but no, this place was authentic. Not only were we the only foreigners there, we were the only WOMEN there….and really (with a few notable acceptions) the only people under 50 there. It was amazing.

We walk in, 17 loud, young, inexperienced americans….confronted with a lot of older (many drunk) men, in cute little gaucho hats, jeans, sweaters and leather boots (yes there does seem to be some sort of gaucho dress code). We sit down at a long table they have “reserved” for us, and we suffer through the blatant silence and stares….and attempt to blend in. After a few minutes of shock and obvious discussion of our appearance, people return to their beers and we are quickly forgotten.

We were not satisfied with being forgotten however, and quickly decided to attempt conversation with the table of young gauchos sitting next to us. Most guys at bars, when a group of girls begins to look at you, and then to more blatantly stare…do something. These guys tried their hardest to simply avoid our looks and pretend we didn’t exist, which made our attempts even more determined. Until I just swung around and asked the stupidest question I could think of “So are you guys from around here?” I seriously, internally almost died of laughter…but I had no idea how else to start!

After a VERY valiant attempt to converse with them, and many questions answered with one word answers, “si”, “no”, “caballo” etc. we finally gave up. They are NOT the most social of all creatures, but I guess that is what you get when you work alone with horses all day. Gauchos indeed have a reputation for being a very serious, somber and solitary bunch….much like american cowboys….and these guys fit the bill perfectly. But they did not manage to get away without a picture!

Just to make something clear however, these boys are not “sober” good boys…those pepsi bottles on the table….they would mix the Fernet (spiced argentine alcohol) and pepsi and then pour it BACK into the bottle.

All and all it was an amazing, and extremely awkward night! And an extremely hysterical and fun weekend! FUE REALMENTE RE GAUCHO CHE!

San Antonio de Areco or Gauchoville: The Place of Relaxation, Reflection…and Disturbing Horse Relations

Needless to say we all arrived to Friday exhausted. A long week of community service, in another language, with misbehaving kids (both those in the comedores and of the stanford kind…they had been going out at night a lot!), then a tiring day of physical labor and an extremely intense and emotional soccer game that ended really late. Everyone (the FSD staff included) needed a step back and a break, and no better place to do it than in the home of the Argentina cowboy (gauchos) in San Antonio de Areco. A nice, slow country town far from everything and perfect to reflect, sleep and hang out with gauchos! Re gaucho che!

After a good nights rest on Friday, we got up at a decent hour and headed out to a day long of further lounging and recuperation of energy. We went to a ranch/estate outside the town of San Antonio, and began right away to attempt to fit into the gaucho life style….by going out horse back riding!

Or some of us did, and some peoples horses rode them and did whatever they wanted! Like stop for a snack!

Another group of riders, with their fearless gaucho leader!

Then we took a break from our stenous morning of lazy jaunts in the country side and had a drink and lounged around for a while.

Before an elegant lunch

After lunch, we all grabed a nice cup of tea or coffee to help the food go down easier and to digest a bit…while we watched a very interesting horse demonstration which did NOT help the food stay down. We all sat around on the group, with our little delicate tea cups in our hands and our jaws DROPPED OPEN…

Yes you are seeing that right….

Platonic love between man and horse….

And of COURSE we had to have a photo op afterwards, it was just too good to pass up! He was…something else. I will leave you to judge for yourself.

To finish off the afternoon, and maybe to forget a bit about what we had all just experienced….we danced off the lunch and distrubing visions with a little folklore!

And then one of the girls in the group, Taylor, who is a tap dance (and was a dolly at Stanford for those who know what that is) challanged one of the folklore dancers to a dance off, and she was pretty incredible given that she had never danced folklore before and was wearing someone elses shoes!

Despite the slightly jaring experience, which none of us even talked about while we were there…we all just watched it and kept quite, it was only later that night that we finally talked about it…the day over all was incredible. Relaxing, recoperating, rejuvenating, rewonderful! It was a very gaucho experience, relaxing in the country side, something that we all really needed.

Some real life gauchos in action

Los Pirulines y Los Pinchas

Thursday of their first week at their organizations we pulled them out of their daily routine, and had them do another all day group community service project. This time at a comedor called los Pirulines, a comedor we had actually done community service with before last year, when we painted their class room. This time, since we were a much bigger group, we took on a more ambitious project…first, we decided to take on their much bigger common room (about 30 square meters or 90 square feet), then we had to plaster it first, before we could paint it. We also had a group working out in the back, creating a garden and moving a tree (??!?!?). It was really intensive labor actually, but they did an amazing job and really put their backs into it. The first time we had done the group community service work, many of them had only done the work half heartedly, but I think that their group leaders had a nice long talk with them…and told them not to act like privileged, entitled, Stanford students. They really gave it their all….

Sadly we were working so hard, that we didn’t take time to take many pictures…or maybe it is that we didn’t want to get paint all over the cameras!

While we worked hard, there was also a lot of fun to be had!

A nice group meal, consisting of some healthy breaded deep fried meat with cheese and ham on top, accompanied by extremely buttery mash potatoes.

At the end of the day!!!!! The whole crew! Notice how much Stanford pride they had…it was incredible how much Stanford clothing they brought with them.

Then after a long day of strenuous, rewarding work….we went to LA CANCHA! Estudiantes, the (better of two ) local soccer team here was playing in the semi-final of the Copa Libertador, which is the league in which all the best club teams from around Latin America play…not just the Argentine league. It is a big deal to be in the semi-final of the Copa Libertador, and we had managed to get tickets for the whole group to go (which involved me standing outside for about 4 hours one freezing cold morning). VAMOS PINCHA CARAJO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t even think that I need to tell you all just how incredible of an experience it was. I have been to about 10 estudiantes games now, and I love the team, own the shirt (and the scarf), fight with Gimnasia (their rival) fans, and know all the words to the songs….but this was something else! Everyone was going crazy, and the kids were blown out of their minds, it was the opportunity of a life time (needless to say Estudiantes is play in the finals now! Vamos pincha! Dale Leon!)…somewhere a bit over whelmed by the loudness, the insanity, the intensity of the Estudiantes fans…oh and their ability to continue jumping for an hour and half straight!

This is when they were about to come on the field, they just released red and white (the team colors) all over the field!

Needless to say I did NOT bring my camera with me…that is just asking to get violently robbed, so we are sorely lacking pictures…but I think you can get the idea…just imagine walking up to the top of the stands and looking down onto 35,000 screaming, jumping, singing, banner waving intense Argentines, and then the whole stadium explodes with red and white smoke, fire crackers, drums and confetti flying everywhere….and to add to all the insanity and overwhelmed senses…the government which was up for re-election 3 days afterwards….flew over in a helocopter and dropped about 5 million leaflets all over the stadium!!!!!! It was an amazing spectacle and it filled my heart to see the wide eyed Stanford kids taking it all in!

Oh yeah, and we won 0-1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Begining their community service projects

On Monday they went to their organizations and began needs assessments and began to think about what kinds of projects they wanted to develop with kids and the communities there.

The volunteers were split up into three groups, two groups going to one comedor, Tierra Nueva (one group in the morning, the other in the afternoon), and the last group to another comedor in another neighborhood, Cielo Azul. The “donations” they had made when they paid for their program where pretty hefty, especially when converted to pesos (especially since the pesos has fallen from 3 pesos to the dollar in January to almost 4 pesos to the dollar right now), so the kids had lots to play with an didn’t need to utilize quite the same tight belted creativity that I or the other interns did.

They set out and began to chat with the kids, find out their interests and topics they would be engaged in or they felt necessary to impart knowledge. One group decided to do a beautification project in the patio space behind the comedor, including a mural to brighten the space, painted chalk boards outside with chalk board paint, made board games on the ground with paint, and then also taught them daily about various health topics using fun and interactive games! The second group focused more on teaching them English and on creating and leaving games that can be used again in the future, including memory using English words, a world map which they used to learn how to do research projects, a new white board and lots of art project materials.

Honestly, the Stanford students put a lot of work into these projects. While they were only in the comedores about 4 hours a day, they would meet or go shopping for materials with most of the rest of the day. At first me and my coworkers spent time attempting to mediate their expectations and ambitions, but in the end they actually ended up doing most of what they had planned.

In the middle of the first week we had them take a day off from their community projects, to go and do another one day community service project at another comedor…followed by a very special event!

Remains of the first weekend

After a long day of physical labor, and then many of the crew went out the following night to drink off some of that exhaustion, both physical from the days work and mental from being bombarded by a new culture and language, we decided to take it easy with them on Sunday. I also had a special guest back in town…poor Mariano had gotten really sick (that is what happens when you push your body so hard on a bike for months and months and then come and relax…and have someone to look after you …your defenses go down and you are toast!) and the crossing over the Andes between Argentina and Chile had closed because of a massive snow storm. So I ended up playing mom for a few days to a sick Argentine and a group of 15 stanford students. I felt right up my alley

So Sunday we just took them to Plaza Italia, to drink a few mates, shop a little and watch folklore. A typical Sunday afternoon activity in La Plata, because nothing is open and no one really wants to do anything!

Excuses for being a dead beat blogger

Yes, I know I have been EXTREMELY neglectful, but I must say that as people have been nagging me and telling me that I have fallin’ behind, it actually makes me quite happy…because that means at least someone is reading it! At least someone loves you little blog, even if it is not our own creator!

Now to the excuses as I attempt to justify my absence…or maybe I should just simply ask for forgiveness and beg you all to come back to me!!!!!

So about two weeks ago, the Service Learning Tour from Stanford University arrived here in La Plata, my new charges under my job as coordinator with FSD. There are 15 of them, and this trip is the last leg in a class that some of the graduating students designed about Argentina and the development challanges there. They came to do community service projects and workshops in two different comedores in La Plata, one named Tierra Nueva (New Earth) and the other Cielo Azul (Blue Sky) in two of the poorer neighborhoods outside the city. They arrived on the 17th, most of them VERY green (first time out of the US, many with no knowledge of spanish what so ever), but very enthusiastic and ready to work!

The first three days of the program are an intensive orientation, including a city tour, a short introduction to Argentine Spanish (vos, che, boludo) and Argentine culture (eating late, asado, pasionate men, and MATE!). Specifically for this group we had planned a activity with a woman (who I knew through Educaser, look at me utilizing my connections already!) to teach the Stanford kids how to create and run workshops with children, how to approach this alternate form of teaching and learning. We had ALSO planned to take them to the school where Silvia worked to show the workshops in action, but here began our FIRST of many, problems with Swine Flu. The school did not give us permission to come and take a look at their workshops because we were American, and had recently come from the (then) hot bed of the swine flu epidemic. It was really too bad and the Stanford kids were really disappointed, but as all the Argentines call the swine flu, it is the disease of the rich, of the people who can afford to travel back and forth to the US. And it is true, all the cases that came here where brought by wealthy travelers going to the US, and the people that the swine flu is killing are the poor people who could never even had dreamed of a vacation in North America….gotta love globalization!

So the student had there three day whirlwind orientation, getting to know the city, the culture, the language, and their organizations and then were shipped off to live with their host families. Phew, that was over whelming and fast, and to follow up their first few intense days in La Plata, we quickly put them to work doing a one day community service project at one of our other comdores, Estrategia de Caracol (it is actually where I did MY one day service project when I arrived!).

We worked in the garden (well sort of, many of them just pawed at the dirt some)

We broke branches to make fire wood for their wood oven

Sorted donated cloths to be sold (at one peso per peice of clothing) to raise money for the comedor

Helped make lunch (can you figure out where Jen was the whole time….)

And all of that in just the morning. Alot can be done with 15 people (even if half of them are only slightly motivated, it is still a lot of hands!). We then took a quick break, and started in the on the afternoons activities, which consisted mostly of painting play ground equipment to be installed in a near by park.

Over all they are a good group of kids, who came ready and willing to put their backs into the some community service work down here. It has been rough at times because many don’t speak spanish very well, and so you end up being a translator, and most have never traveled before and so it is helping them to not feel lost, scared, vunerable and to respect the culture and the people they are around. They tend to talk in loud american voices, find every little thing extremely facinating (and I may be a little jaded!), and have about a million and one questions. It can get over whelming, but it is also great to watch them coming into their own and learning their own way and how to manuver in foreign situations. There is a first time for everything, and they are learning to take it in stride.

More of their ups and down and stuggles will come out at the journey continues.

A duo of fiestas and a special visitor

29. A year to reflect on….

Last weekend I had the pleasure of turning this fruitful age, and as a way of heralding in another insane year of my life and saying bidding farewell to the one that just past, I had a set of parties. If you can’t get all your friends together in one place….just have multiple parties in multiple places!

In addition to an entire (three day) weekend of partying to celebrate my completing of years (a nice direct spanish translation), I got a special visit from my Argentine, Mariano…who got his ass on a 24 hour bus ride from Santiago Chile (as far north as he has reached on his biking trip), braved the mountain crossing and came to see me as a present. Best present I have ever gotten by far.

Fiesta numero uno

The first party was on my actual birthday, and had decided long ago that I wanted to celebrate it in the barrio with my local friends. Leave it to me to think that an appropriate birthday celebration is not in a bar with all the americans and hip and fashionable argentines that I know….to me an appropriate birthday celebration here is in the ghetto, making empanadas, putting back a few cold ones and hanging out for the afternoon. Oh and dragging poor Mariano and my friend Nancy along with me!

It was a great afternoon. Sadly (or maybe not so sadly) I had invited my Paraguayan friend and her family to come, but at the last minute her daughter was picked to be the flag barrer in a school procession, which is quite an honor actually because the selection is done based on grade point average. I was so proud of Micaela that she was chosen, so I can’t say that I was truly sad that they couldn’t come….but Eva, the wonderful woman that she, did still make me a cake!!!!!!!!!

Making the empandas

Takin’ a break with the kids…. Maia and Valentine!

And of course, with Eva’s AMAZING cake that the baked me. Especially for me…after we had had a nice long conversation about what I wanted…and she had promised me a peanuty-dulce de lechey suprise! Yes…it was a dulce de leche batter cake, with a filling of cream, dulce de leche and peanuts in the middle…I almost died of happiness…and then of an exploded colon!

It was the perfect birthday celebration, and everyone left full and happy!

Fiesta numero dos

Jump forward a few days to Monday, since it was a three day weekend in honor of my birthday….ha ha ha! That would be pretty cool though. The second party would be at my best friend Mari’s house, in the most tranquil place in the world for me, the middle of no where Villa Elisa. Honestly, one of the happiest places on earth for me….you can breath easy, see the sky, hear yourself think…oh and Mari is there, and her warmth and love is just buzzing around the place. There is a reason that I will be moving in there my last three weeks here in Argentina!

For this afternoon of relaxing fun, again I dragged alone Mariano and Nancy, though this time I knew it would be more of a pleasure for everyone, instead of my silly need to have a party in the ghetto My other teacher friends from Educaser came, Lidia and Camilia along with their spouses and children, along with Mari’s mother.

This is Luca, the son of Camilia, who is probably the cutest most button nosed being on earth…

And it turned out to be a nice enough day that we took it all outside (even though it is winter here….gosh globe warming scares me), at which point the afternoon took an amazing turn. Lidia took out her guitar and Camilia’s husband magically produced his acordian…and we all sang Argentine folklore and tango for a while. Until the singing took that deadly turn…to happy birthday! And an amazingly decorated cake was produced…thanks Mari, honestly the intertwining of two worlds.

Yes that is a map of the Americas!!!!!!!

I might have cried. Just a little bit. I do really love my friends here, and to have the best ones all at my side at the same time was pretty amazing. Thank you Mariano and Nancy and Mari and Camilia and Lidia and all the people of Villa Alba, Eva and Norma and Mari for making this one of the best and most memorable birthday weekends of my life.

A little fiestita

I have been a relatively absentee blogger in these past few weeks, and I appologize THOROUGHLY to my one or two deticated blog readers! Weirdly, strangely, I have had nothing to report….after a year and a half of finding lots of things to say (or making shit up) I am finally don’t doing anything not worthy (though I am not sure that I ever was doing anything note worthy….I just wrote about it anyway).

I guess you could say that I have been gearing up for the final throw back, for the final whirl wind experience for my time down here. First, my birthday is this weekend and I will be having two seperate parties, one in the barrio of Villa Alba with all adopted families and friends (only I would want my birthday in the ghetto in Argentina….) and then a second one at my friend Maria Elena’s house….two different crowds, two reasons to get drunk. I am sure SOMETHING news worthy will come of them, most likely just silly drunken pictures of me as I reign in 29….almost 30. And look at where I am….

Then in other news, next week the group of Stanford kids arrive, and I will be on their tails and at their beck and call 24/7. But it will be a really fun experience. We have managed to come up with some pretty great activites while they are here, INCLUDING paying me to travel for two weekends and a big old 4th of July party. So there will be lots of note worthy and fun stories as I/we get to know the cast of characters. 15 Stanford kids who barely speak any spanish and some have never traveled, running around La Plata argentina, hanging out with poor, underfed, troubled argentine youth…and me leading them. Does anyone else see a problem with this? I will try not to kill or let any of them get killed.

While grand, entertaining or culturally relevant stories I do not have, I did go to a party that my friend and coworker Agustina had, a little party to celebrate her one year of dating her boyfriend….and they exchanged promise rings…but when I told her that i gave her one year until they are married (they already live together and he brought his dog) she laughed in my face and said no…anyone want to place bets with me?

The “little party” was a fully catered dinner with all her and his family and friends, many traveling many hours from where they live to come and be at this dinner and celebrate with them. Quite a bash just to throw a bash….

The happy couple…can I call them that?

Her with all her friends from high school who all drove here from their home town 5 hours away….yes she is only 21

Me and her

And every good party needs some drunk pictures. The girl in the middle is Australian?!?!?! don’t even ask

Another Despedida…to Los Piojos?

Even the Argentine bands are leaving me! It is official, it is time for me to go, when it goes so far that even amazing, Argentine bands are deciding to take a break of indeterminate length while I am here. But man, what a going away show they threw…best I have been by far!

Saturday night was the good bye show of Los Piojos (which means the fleas)…

They have been rockin’ in Argentina for over 20 years, and are a classic rock band, and a lot of fun to listen to.

Check them out…this is my favorite song by them, though they didn’t play it!

Bicho de Cuidad

This is another fun song called, Desde lejos no se ve.

So early Saturday my friend Maria Elena and I took off for her families house in Quilmes (a city between here and Buenos Aires) to drop off her daughters and a bunch of our stuff, and then her friend swung by and we took off. When we left it was about 35 degrees and raining. The show was in the soccer stadium of River, one of the two big soccer teams in Buenos Aires (the other being Boca Juniors). The stadium full seats about 60 people…but for the show they covered the field and put most of the fans on the field itself. We were not lucky enough to get those tickets (even though there were about 30,000 of them sold), and so to add to the amazing cold and rain, we sat up in the grand stands with the whipping wind!

We didn’t care. We danced and screamed and jumped around….lost all feeling in many different body parts and had the time of our lives. They played for over three hours, and at one point came out to thank the crowd and the 30,000 sweaty jumping loose cannon fans in front of the stage held up home made banners telling them how much they loved Los Piojos and where they were from…and he read THEM ALL! Thanked the whole friggin’ country! And people came from all over the country to say good bye. It was fantastic and emotional….and the band wanted to keep playing and playing, but apparently there is a city ordinance that after 1 am shows have to be over, so the neighbors can sleep or something ridiculous. So at one ten, in the middle of like the 4th encour, the lead singer came out and announced that he had to stop playing because the government told him he had to. You can imagine how these rebellious Argentines took to that news! It was brilliantly played on his part! People booed and hissed and got angry and indignant. It was fun. But we all had to close up shop for the night and we started our long trek home.

I dropped into bed at 4 in the morning in Quilmes, frozen, teeth chattering, starving, without voice, exhausted and the happiest person on earth.

Reporting back: One Week In

As I had done so faithfully in the beginning of my blog, and trailed of eventually as even the most enthusiastic bloggers and diary writers can be accused of….I am checking in to give an update after my first week of work. Warning: there will be no pictures or drawings with this entery…so if you need visuals, just keep glancing up at the header.

Last Monday, May 18th, 2009, I began working as a Service Learning Tour Program Coordinator for the Foundation for Sustainable Development International. Try saying that three times fast…and then in Spanish. Soy la Coordinadora del Programa del Tour de Servicio y Aprendizaje realizado por la Fundacion de Desarrollo Sostenible…DALE LEON!

The Service Learning Tour consists of a group of 14 university studens from Stanford, who designed their own class about the history, culture and development of Argentina (why anyone would want to study that, beats me!!!!). This group of super motivated, pro-active and way too gung-ho students contracted FSD Argentina to come here and save Argentina in a sustainable way in 20 days get to see a bit of Argentina, and feel good about themselves because they think they are making a huge difference. I am not going to lie, I might be a little sceptical about their expectations, and honestly how helpful they will be (considering coming and working anywhere for just two weeks usually ends up being more of a pain in the ass for the organization than a help….) but we are working hard to make this the best experience for both the students and their organizations.

The kids will be split into three groups and each of the three groups will work with a different comedor in La Plata, in the mornings they will be planning their projects and workshops, and in the afternoons they will be on site at the comedores working with the kids and developing their proposals. At the end of the two weeks, their goal is to have a presentation of their works at the comedors and be able to show off what they have done to help the third world and be able to feel good about themselves. OK! Basta Jen, it is very positive that both the children in the comedors meet foreigners (open their minds to other cultures and ideas) and that the Stanford kids leave with a reality check but still feeling good about themselves….they are all good and wonderful things. It simply isn´t sustainable development. But then you can´t just come in and do sustainable development in two weeks, especially if you don´t speak any Spanish (not sure what some of the kids where thinking coming down here with zero spanish)….but despite my scepticism, volunteer tourism isn´t the worst thing in the world.

My job currently, is to work with the other three coordinators who are here presently, Anna, Fabian and Nancy, to contact and make arrangements with the three organizations, to find host families, to create an orientation for their arrival, to create an itinerary for their trip, including volunteer based activities and recreational activities. So basically what i am saying is, I get to plan trips, look for things to do, work closely with my coworkers (who I have known for a while and happen to all be my friends), work more closely with organizations in the area which interest me, make connections….let met tell you, I am on board for the ride.

When the group gets here (June 17th…luckily it is after my birthday because on that day, I cease to have a personal life), I am their official baby sitter. While my other three coworkers will be around and assisting me, they have the normal interns, plus another group coming that over lap for a week (from Northwestern), and I am the one hired specifically for this group. I have to be with them at all times, though I haven´t really figured out how I am going to be with them at three comedors, in three different places, all at the exact same moment…but Argentines are known for attempting such feats…which really just means they are late for everythng always.

Apart from accompanying the volunteers here in La Plata, doing translation work for most of them (the vast majority speak little to no spanish) and helping them keep their expectations and projects resonable and guided by the principles of community empowerment and sustainable development, I will also be accompanying them on their two weekend excersions outside of La Plata. One to Buenos Aires (including a tour of the city, a tango show, etc.) and the other one to San Antonio de Areco which is like the gaucho, plantation, folklore haven about 2 hours from here. FINALLY somone is paying me to travel The trips should be fun…and honestly, dispite my massive amount of scepticisim about the purpose of the program….I think it will be alot of fun, I think the students will get alot of the experience (we are trying really hard to make it as meaningful and enriching as possible)…and it will be fun to be by their side, help motivate, teach, guide and manipulate them….and it will be fun to be a cultural interpretor and a tour guide.

All in all, I am pretty stoked about all the different facets of the job, both in that is utilizes skills I enjoy using and sharpening as well as it has the potential to teach me an imense amount, and will be a really meaningful experience for me as well.