DALE LEON

After taking the Stanford kids to the semi finals in the Copa Libertador (which includes clubs from all over latin america, it is NOT an Argentine league…it is a regional league), Estudiantes vs. some Uruguayan team (see just how truly deeply involved I am…), the Stanford kids continued their journeys back to the US and the Estudianes club continued on to the second of two games in the semi final, this time playing in the stadium of the Uruguayan team. They won. It was great. Lets go rock the finals guys!!!!!!!!

The final was against a Brasilian team called Cruziero from Belo Horizonte.

First they played in La Plata. I did not go to the game.

But they won, even with out me there! And the city exploded. Even if I wasn’t at the game, I definitely remember where I was when it happened!

So the last game, the second game and final game in the championship matchup in the Copa Libertador, was played in Belo Horizonte Brazil (where my old roomate Mariana had just come back from studying abroad…good thing she came back when she did, to the correct side of the tracks…ha ha ha ha) on July 16th. The matchup was particularly charged because Brasil and Argentina have a huge soccer rivalry (and Brazil usually wins) and so honestly not only were ever single set of eyes in la plata fixated on this game the entire country was watching and rooting for Estudiantes. This match up was way deeper than any two club teams. This was national pride.

Estudiantes was up to the challenge. The game was phenomenal, honestly. A lot the time the players are just cocky and arrogant and just get lucky….but this time they played like they had wings on their feet.

And well….they won. THEY WON THE COPA LIBERTADORRRRR!

It was incredible to watch! Then afterwards the fans partied in La Plata all night long. I was staying with Maria Elena far far away from the center of the town at this point, so did not get to first hand watch the festivities, but the whole city exploded and I am sure they partied far into the night and probably until morning the next day.

A day later they set up a gathering for the players to come and speak in the main square down town, La Plaza Morena. To give you an idea of how many people came out to congradulate them and for the celebration, there were so many fans waiting along the high way to get form the airport to La Plata, that it took them 8 hours to make the trip (normally an hour).

Wrapping it up Buenos Aires style….in every sense

Finally, after two extremely successful weeks including amazing projects at their community organizations, a relaxing retreat with an indian molesting a horse, a rowdy and emotional Estudiantes semi-final, and topped off by an awkward forth of July reunion…..it was almost time for the Stanford students to take off. But first, they couldn’t POSSIBLY leave Argentina without going to the Bs As, so we made a few day pit stop to round out the trip.

I won’t bore you all with the details of running around Bs As, since I have gone there and dragged you all with me quite a few times, but we did the normal touristy stuff, going to San Telmo, la Boca, the Recoleta cemetery, Puerto Madero, Plaza de Mayo, Palermo, a tango show, a parrilla, fugazetta, faina and moscato and of course tons and tons of shopping.

It was actually a pretty low key predictable trip, but for one certain occurance…which truely rounded it off as a nice experience in a large Latin American city. I got robbed. Full blown, ganked, and right from under my nose! No violence, but some impressive slight of hand.

So we get off the bus we chartered from La Plata, on a side street in San Telmo, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires, right in front of our hostel. It had been decided that, because of the over lap of groups that I needed to go to Buenos Aires alone with the kids, and if there was time one of the other staff members would possibly catch up with me later. So I jumped off the bus and rushed into the hostel, as the kids started to get their stuff off the bus….I knew that once they all got into the lobby it would be a crowded mess and I wanted to start to assign them their rooms so we could get the wheels turnin’.

I ran into the hostel, grabbed the paper work, which involved filling out some sheets with their names and passport numbers on it, grabbed a folder out of my purse, put the purse down on the table next to me and began to fill in the paper work. Actually had the thought that I shouldn’t put it down next to me, but was like…we are in a hostel, there are tons of people, and I need to get this done so we don’t create a scene! I also had the thought at one point…everyone is really crowding me and a bit in my personal space….minds are weird, they can sense things even if you are only barely conscious of it.

Should have listened to both intuitions, but in my anxiousness to prove that I had the situation under control, and to prove that I was a capable trip leader, especially when left to do it alone, and to attempt to rapidly defuse the absolutely full lobby….I didn’t adhere to my own percautions. And some really amazing thief…who must have pin pointed us from far away, from down the street, and then pin pointed me and the most vunerable, and the leader so most likely to have the largest amount of money on me (and I did, by far….that must have been one happy son of a bitch when he opened up my bag)….and then took advantage of the caotic situation, and the fact that no one in the hostel knew who was with me, nor did anyone in my group know who was with the hostel.

It took about 1 minute. They didn’t touch a hair on my head. There were over 30 witnesses present and no one saw a damn thing. They got it all, a lot of money, my wallet, my passport and my keys….really they just took the whole bag. It was really impressive.

3 days later, they all got on an airplane and went home.

As one group goes, another comes and we take advantage of so many americans in one place: 4th of July

In the middle of the second accelerated week of this SLT group, ANOTHER group of interns arrived, from another program through the University of Chicago. The structure of this group is slightly different; they are spending 7 weeks in la plata, working in groups of four at three different organizations and the trip was preceded no by a semester long class about Argentina, but a week long intensive institute about development work in South America. I think that saying they came down here thinking they knew more about development in Argentina than we do is an understatement, and it resulted in us needed to adjust a few “expectations” or attitudes.

So to put it plainly we had a week long overlap of tempering and channeling extremely high flying goals and expectations from one overly enthusiastic group of young go getters, while at the same time having to knock a few know-it-alls off their high horses and put them squarely in their place. And to celebrate and bring it all together with a grand old bang, we threw a 4th of July party for both groups and their host families…a small gathering of 60 people or so (and watching the two groups mix was like dumping a big bucket of oil into a pot of water…and then throw in those poor host families to boot. We didn’t know which little isolated exclusive group of people to stop and mingle with!)

We decorated the space with some read white and blue, one of the mom’s made a cake…

And we dressed up a little for the occasion….

And all in all we had a good time, even though it was sort of stiff and awkward and far from the drunken family BBQs that I know and love.

Me and the my coworkers Anna and Nancy along with two of the group leaders from the SLT trip, Christina and Sergio. *note: two people are missing from this picture who should be present, my other coworker Fabian, and another group leader Abby….where were they you might ask. Picky, non-eating, abercromby and fitch model….ask me personally about this one folks.*

Week two: the race toward finishing some grand expectations

After a great trip to San Antonio de Areco, the group entered their second week and last week of community service work in the comedores, and they had made a lot of work for themselves. The projects they had planned and designed were really grand and they were going to have to put in a lot of back and leg work to get it done. On top of having these projects, we had planned a day trip to La Republica de Los Ninos (Children’s Republic) which is a theme park on the outskirts of the La Plata,

which is supposed to be like a miniture replica of building styles and different cultures around the world…very much like Epcot center in Disney World. IN FACT, La Republica de Los Ninos was built before Disney world, and Argentina proudly claims that it was the inspiration for the world famous amusement park. Argentina likes to claim A LOT of things, the validity of which can definitly be questioned, though in this case I have no idea who inspired whom.

Basically on top of all their ambitious plans and high expectations for the projects they had designed with the kids at the comedores, they also had this trip planned. It was going to be quite the race. Until in steps…Swine Flu. As the epidemic finally reaches Argentina, panic and fear sweeps the nation, and they close EVERYTHING. They extend the winter school vacation (planned for the last two weeks of July) to the entire month of July, they cancel all the classes in the University, and close down all cultural centers and community spaces. Oh, and they freak out…wear masks everywhere, declare a state of emergency, many refuse to ride on buses, go to the bank or even leave the house! We begin to get panicked phone calls from parents in the US that they want their kids to come home and asking us what our plan B is to deal with the epidemic….our plan B is to do nothing, just be smart about it…that, or full head on evacuation, which seems TOTALLY illogical. So we all just take a deep breath…not TOO deep a breath, in case we in hail other people’s swine flu…and keep going like normal people.

As a side note, the funniest thing about this who epidemic here, is that there are so many cultural norms which make this spread like wild fire, but they don’t address those cultural norms, they simply close schools and throw the whole country into a tizy! 1) Kiss on the cheek when you great each other and say good bye. I mean why don’t we just eskimo kiss, that would be about the only MORE contagious greating pattern. 2) SHARING MATE! Basically….you just end up making out with all of your friends, relatives and coworkers all the time. Man, seriously this flu couldn’t have found a better way to travel!

Therefore, thanks to the swine flu epidemic here in Argentina, the trip to the Republica de Los Ninos was canceled and the groups had just enough time to wrap up their projects!

Two of the groups where working with a comedor called Tierra Nueva, one group in the morning and one group in the afternoon. Unfortunatly I was not able to make it out there for there wrap up activities on the last day and so have no visuals to present to you. These groups however did alot of art projects with the kids, decorated the walls of the comedor, made games, painted, and brought them goody bag with all kinds of school supplies. The kids went home so happy the last day, I don’t think they even realized that they would never see their american friends again!

The other group was in a comedor called Cielo Azul, and I was able to make it to a bit of their fiesta final! Here are a few picture so you can imagine visually what the accomplished. I fully lament honestly that I have no picture of how it was before the created the transformation that they brought about but if someone out there (maybe on facebook that feels like sharing) has one, it would be wonderful to be able to see the comparative difference, because it is quite the transformation.
They painted a mural across the back wall of the patio of the comedor, as well as painting the walls with chalk board paint (who knew where was such a thing…what an amazing invention!), and even hop-scotch on the floors…it really was quite a change. Here are some after pictures, but not so mind blowing witout the before…but still gorgious!!!!!

Here is the mural

The crew who worked there….

And the chalk board paint!!!!!!

The place really looked spectacular when they were done, and alot more usable….in other words, a sustainable job!

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.