Back to having to walk to internet.. probably better for my general travel experience, but now I feel like there's just so much to write about. Probably a good thing that the USB port on this computer doesn't work, cause I don't know if I'd have time for pictures.. but it's beautiful here, so I'll try next week.
After leaving Tucuman, I took a bus for four hours to Salta, the capital city of one of the northern provinces. I just stayed one night in a hostel that weirdly had lots of English around, which, in addition to the fact that I was sleeping in a room with three girls from California, kind of threw me off after two weeks of all Spanish all the time. But it was comfy and there was free dinner and breakfast and internet, so in general a success. The city was a lot more touristy than Tucuman (I got accosted by multiple tour promoters in like 10 minutes walking down the street) but I had fun wandering around checking out the plaza, gorgeous churches, art museum, city market, etc. Tuesday I took the gondola up the big hill on the edge of the city for gorgeous views and a longish hotish walk down, went to the anthropological (is that a word?I kind of forget English a little) museum which had lots of cool pottery, musical instruments, tools, etc. from pre-columbian civilizations, and had lunch in the park; then I took the bus out to the "dique" (dam, but really a lake) that Beatriz said I should go to. It was about an hour and a half from the city on a very hot bus, and from the brochure the tourist office gave me I was expecting a kind of water park mega-tourist area with banana boats, bungee jumping, etc (and I just wanted to check out the scenery and maybe swim).. but when I got there it was basically a deserted picnic area, some abandoned-looking boats, and the big lake surrounded by gorgeous hills. I have no idea where the dam or the tourists were, but I had a nice couple hours walking around the edge of the water trying to see the whole lake and encountering lots of farm animals (I saw a horse climb on top of another horse and I almost got attacked by a turkey).
After I got back to the city I took a collectivo in the other direction, to the pueblo Vaqueros where Aviva had instructed me to go to the pharmacy, find Alice, and ask how to get to the farm. Alice was really nice, as was the 9 year old girl who asked me if I knew Hannah Montana and taught me a couple Spanish words while I waited for Alice to close up shop. She gave me a ride to Finca La Huella, where I walked down a dark road to a dark house and introduced myself to the dark when I heard voices and guitar, hoping that they were indeed expecting "la amiga de Aviva".. luckily it was the right place, Aviva was there with all the other volunteers, and it was dark because the power had gone out.
I love this farm. It's big; I don't know how many acres, but I've wandered around a bit and I don't think I've come close to seeing all the land. Everything seems so green, and they're lots of animals: ponies, goats, chickens, geese, rabbits, cats, dogs, birds.. The family who lives there is really nice, works really hard (they've lived there for 12 years and only left the farm for 10 days), and have lots of good ideas about how to use their land (in addition to growing tons of vegetables and fruits and taking care of their own animals, they also take care of animals for people who live in the city, and host field trips for schools from the city where they teach the kids how to make bread and all about the farm). Olga is from Buenos Aires and Yan is originally from England by way of New Zealand but has lived in Argentina for the past 20 years, and they have three sons: Theo, 4 and adorable; Inti, 14, who promised to take me to his Aikido class (!!!) next week; and another who is studyign in Cordoba who I haven't met yet.
There's a big group of volunteers, with people coming and going pretty frequently. We've been as many as 10, and we're down to 6 at the moment: Antony and Jeremy, two 30-ish guys from France who have been on the farm for 4 months with no money except for when they sell the amazing bracelets that they weave with string and who walked here from Brazil; Nati, also 30 I think, who came from Cordoba to help out her aunt who lives nearby and then found out about the farm, and who is really nice about teaching me Spanish and helping me figure out what's going on when I don't want to bug Aviva; Matilde, from.. Quebec I think, who speaks French as well as Spanish, used to be an acrobat, and cut her long hair shorter than mine; Romita, from Argentina as well,w ho I haven't gotten to know too well b/c she's been gone visiting her boyfriend in the city; Aviva, my friend from Seattle, and me. We pretty much speak Spanish all the time as it's the common/only language, so still immersion for me..
I've done a lot of different work in the last few days, transplanting trees, picking vegetables and helping out in the kitchen, cleaning out the rabbit poop, watering plants, making bread and helping with the school.. the food is delicious, there's fresh bread and goat milk everyday, goat cheese, jam made on the farm, and lots of vegetables. I had a little trouble remembering how to relax and slow my brain down after travelling/living in the city, and I'm trying to stay focused on the present while figuring out what I'm doing in November (it's looking like Bolivia is a go, but there's lots to plan), but in general I'm really happy to be here and excited for the next week (and possibly a few days more). Particularly I'm excited for: learning how to milk goats, and goign to an Argentine Aikido class!
Okay Aviva and Nati have been waiting,t his is way long, and I should go... so until next week!
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
ultima noche en Tucuman
Tonight is my last night in Tucuman, and I'm feeling pretty drained from trying to communicate with a lot of new people in Spanish (more on that later) and actually kind of excited to be in my own little solo-travel bubble for the next couple days. I'm heading to the city of Salta in the morning, where I plan to spend a night in the backpacker's hostel and explore the city a bit before going to Finca La Huella, an organic farm north of the city, sometime Tuesday. I'll be there for a couple weeks, and probably won't have much internet access, so here comes a blogging binge before I go wireless..
This week I spent quite a bit more time at the hospital, making the rounds and visiting patients with Diego and helpìng out with the merienda and salon again (I am now a facial pro). I also went to the commedor a couple more times, sat in on a meeting of all the commedor volunteers (mostly I just tried to understand what was going on, but I did get to help plan a game for the kids), and went to a public high school in one of the barrios to check out Program Dafna. Dafna is basically a mentoring program, and at the session I went to there were only 3 kids and 6 volunteers but I guess they usually have more kids participating. They spent pretty much the whole time talking about a "taller": trying to agree on the best way to organize a bunch of words that I assumed had to do with the planning/running of the taller, and then talking about the theme of the taller that they would have with younger kids (13-15ish) and scheduling for that. Unfortunately I didn't know that "taller" meant "workshop" until I got home so I was a little lost the whole time, but it was cool seeing the school and Dafna seems like an interesting program--I liked that the mostly 20-something volunteers who were mentoring the older teenagers were teaching them to do the same for younger kids.
Friday night the city put on a big cultural event, the "noche de los museos," with free admission, theater, and music in a lot of the museums. I pretty much live right in the middle of it, so I checked out the happenings at the Casa de Independencia (musica folklorico w/clarinet (!) and incomprehensible theater in Spanish) and another museum that I think used to be the home of one of the presidents. Then there was a big concert in the street with a...rockish band that was pretty cool. Yesterday, after going to the commedor in the morning, I took the collectivo for about an hour and a half to Villa de lleales, the pueblo where the group I met on Monday live. Lidia, the girl I exchanged numbers with, met me at the plaza and we went to her house to meet her grandma and aunt and cousins (basically her whole family lives on the same street). Lots of me pretending to understand what they were saying (I've gotten really good at guessing the appropriate non-commital comments and when I should laugh, etc) and looking at family photos. Then Lidia took me on a mini-tour of the pueblo (all the stores, the two schools, and the church are around the plaza, and other than that it's houses and farms) and we went to a fiesta de la Virgin, complete with a procession and fireworks. I got to see more of the people I met on Monday, and the padre akwardly called me out ("tenemos un amiga de los Estados Unidos" before peforming an awesome guitar/singing set. At that point they convinced me to stay the night and celebrate Dia de la Mama with them (today), so we went back to Lidia's hosue where I met her mom, and then we made the rounds of some firends houses, drinking lots of mate (herbal tea, bascially, that EVERYONE drinks here) and finally eating dinner around 12. Slept in this morning and then had asadas (BBQ) with Lidia's fam and then at a friend's house and took a tour of a friend's farm before I finally went home to the city, stuffed full of meat and cake and pretty exhausted from the constant stuggle to communicate, but incredibly thankful for the kindness and hospitality that everyone in Lleales offered me.
Recent setbacks: bug bites/waking up in the middle of every night to one stupid bug buzzing around my head; getting off the collectivo too early on my way to the commedor and getting lost in the rain in the barrio before I gave up and took taxi; neurosis over what I should buy/how much to spend on the days when I had to buy food myself; struggling to fill hours of downtime and feeling guilty b/c I feel like I should never be bored, ever; angsting over whether I'm being at all "useful" in my work with the Fundacion; general not understanding people; losing my Neutrogena facewash to Beatriz's cleaning
Recent successes: killing the stupid bug that wakes me up!; a smooth collectivo trip the next time I went to the commedor; giving facials all by myself in the hospital "beauty salon"; giving directions to random people on the street; successful conversation for the whole 30 min collectivo ride with Lorena, the volunteer who took me to the Dafna program; I found a cool woven bracelt/anklet in the street; communicating with Lidia well enough to set up my visit; making it to Villa de Lleales by myself; eating lunch in the Mercado for 5 pesos; letting myself buy chocolate cookies
Inexplicable events/phenomenon:
-One morning at the hospital they just closed the street in front, there was a big group of people standing around singing and clapping, and occasionally setting off fireworks.. apparently some kind of demonstration but no one could tell me what it was about
-the other night Beatriz asked to borrow my camera and when I guess she couldn't get the pictures she wanted, she took pictures of this guy on the TV and then saved them on the computer.. despite her attempts to explain I just have no idea what she was doing
-Women in Argentina seem to live forever/preserve better: in the hospital there was one abuela who was 100 and one who was 107, and they were both talkative and lively; Lidia's abuela said she was 70 but Í would have guessed 50; the gorgeous blond TV host who I would have guessed was maybe 30 is apparently 60! All I know is the 100 yr old woman in the hospital said her secret is to drink a glass of red wine everyday
Things I will miss about Tucuman: coming and going from the apartment building with my own key, seeing all the highschool kids in their different school uniforms, watchign TV (en Español of course) with Beatriz, listenign to her son Nico's music and occasional singing, crossing the streets between taxis, motorcycles, and the occasional horse-drawn cart, people watching in the Plaza de Independencia, watching the sun set from the roof of the apartment building, feeling like I live in the city again
Final weather report: four days of rain, then clouds, then HOT
Fotos: the 100 yr old abuela in la hospital, Lidia in the Llleales plaza, her abuela in their garden, their house in Lleales
The church-ish where the had the Virgin fiesta, with the padre performing; me and Lidia; Lidia's fam and friends hanging out at her house
This week I spent quite a bit more time at the hospital, making the rounds and visiting patients with Diego and helpìng out with the merienda and salon again (I am now a facial pro). I also went to the commedor a couple more times, sat in on a meeting of all the commedor volunteers (mostly I just tried to understand what was going on, but I did get to help plan a game for the kids), and went to a public high school in one of the barrios to check out Program Dafna. Dafna is basically a mentoring program, and at the session I went to there were only 3 kids and 6 volunteers but I guess they usually have more kids participating. They spent pretty much the whole time talking about a "taller": trying to agree on the best way to organize a bunch of words that I assumed had to do with the planning/running of the taller, and then talking about the theme of the taller that they would have with younger kids (13-15ish) and scheduling for that. Unfortunately I didn't know that "taller" meant "workshop" until I got home so I was a little lost the whole time, but it was cool seeing the school and Dafna seems like an interesting program--I liked that the mostly 20-something volunteers who were mentoring the older teenagers were teaching them to do the same for younger kids.
Friday night the city put on a big cultural event, the "noche de los museos," with free admission, theater, and music in a lot of the museums. I pretty much live right in the middle of it, so I checked out the happenings at the Casa de Independencia (musica folklorico w/clarinet (!) and incomprehensible theater in Spanish) and another museum that I think used to be the home of one of the presidents. Then there was a big concert in the street with a...rockish band that was pretty cool. Yesterday, after going to the commedor in the morning, I took the collectivo for about an hour and a half to Villa de lleales, the pueblo where the group I met on Monday live. Lidia, the girl I exchanged numbers with, met me at the plaza and we went to her house to meet her grandma and aunt and cousins (basically her whole family lives on the same street). Lots of me pretending to understand what they were saying (I've gotten really good at guessing the appropriate non-commital comments and when I should laugh, etc) and looking at family photos. Then Lidia took me on a mini-tour of the pueblo (all the stores, the two schools, and the church are around the plaza, and other than that it's houses and farms) and we went to a fiesta de la Virgin, complete with a procession and fireworks. I got to see more of the people I met on Monday, and the padre akwardly called me out ("tenemos un amiga de los Estados Unidos" before peforming an awesome guitar/singing set. At that point they convinced me to stay the night and celebrate Dia de la Mama with them (today), so we went back to Lidia's hosue where I met her mom, and then we made the rounds of some firends houses, drinking lots of mate (herbal tea, bascially, that EVERYONE drinks here) and finally eating dinner around 12. Slept in this morning and then had asadas (BBQ) with Lidia's fam and then at a friend's house and took a tour of a friend's farm before I finally went home to the city, stuffed full of meat and cake and pretty exhausted from the constant stuggle to communicate, but incredibly thankful for the kindness and hospitality that everyone in Lleales offered me.
Recent setbacks: bug bites/waking up in the middle of every night to one stupid bug buzzing around my head; getting off the collectivo too early on my way to the commedor and getting lost in the rain in the barrio before I gave up and took taxi; neurosis over what I should buy/how much to spend on the days when I had to buy food myself; struggling to fill hours of downtime and feeling guilty b/c I feel like I should never be bored, ever; angsting over whether I'm being at all "useful" in my work with the Fundacion; general not understanding people; losing my Neutrogena facewash to Beatriz's cleaning
Recent successes: killing the stupid bug that wakes me up!; a smooth collectivo trip the next time I went to the commedor; giving facials all by myself in the hospital "beauty salon"; giving directions to random people on the street; successful conversation for the whole 30 min collectivo ride with Lorena, the volunteer who took me to the Dafna program; I found a cool woven bracelt/anklet in the street; communicating with Lidia well enough to set up my visit; making it to Villa de Lleales by myself; eating lunch in the Mercado for 5 pesos; letting myself buy chocolate cookies
Inexplicable events/phenomenon:
-One morning at the hospital they just closed the street in front, there was a big group of people standing around singing and clapping, and occasionally setting off fireworks.. apparently some kind of demonstration but no one could tell me what it was about
-the other night Beatriz asked to borrow my camera and when I guess she couldn't get the pictures she wanted, she took pictures of this guy on the TV and then saved them on the computer.. despite her attempts to explain I just have no idea what she was doing
-Women in Argentina seem to live forever/preserve better: in the hospital there was one abuela who was 100 and one who was 107, and they were both talkative and lively; Lidia's abuela said she was 70 but Í would have guessed 50; the gorgeous blond TV host who I would have guessed was maybe 30 is apparently 60! All I know is the 100 yr old woman in the hospital said her secret is to drink a glass of red wine everyday
Things I will miss about Tucuman: coming and going from the apartment building with my own key, seeing all the highschool kids in their different school uniforms, watchign TV (en Español of course) with Beatriz, listenign to her son Nico's music and occasional singing, crossing the streets between taxis, motorcycles, and the occasional horse-drawn cart, people watching in the Plaza de Independencia, watching the sun set from the roof of the apartment building, feeling like I live in the city again
Final weather report: four days of rain, then clouds, then HOT
Fotos: the 100 yr old abuela in la hospital, Lidia in the Llleales plaza, her abuela in their garden, their house in Lleales
The church-ish where the had the Virgin fiesta, with the padre performing; me and Lidia; Lidia's fam and friends hanging out at her house
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
lluvia in la ciudad y mas fotos
Today it rained all day, and the city was completely transformed. Everyone was rushing around trying to get inside as quickly as possible, the plazas were practically deserted, and the only vendors were hawking umbrellas. I had a great time walking around sort of pretending I was in Seattle and rocking my raincoat (yes! using things I packed makes me so happy!!). I was literally the only person in the entire city wearing a raincoat, it was weird.. everyone had umbrellas or nothing, except for the guys on bikes/motorcycles, who had some nice ponchos. No work--for some reason the rain cancelled the Fundacion's activities at the hospital--so I did the rainy day museum thing and checked out the Casa Historica de Independencia and Museo de Arto Sacro. I'd say they were both worth the 2 pesos I paid, semi-interesting but not enough to hold my attention for long.
Back to los fotos..
I love this kind of thing.. Iglesia La Merced reflected in the Honda window (everyone rides motorcycles here, pretty muich all the traffic is either taxis or bikes)
Entrance to the big city park, Parque 9 de Julio
I walked around the park Sunday evening and it was a completely different scene from when I explored in the morning last week. Tons of people hanging out, flying kites, playing futbol.. all kinds of food and toys for sale, people fishing and swimming in the lake (ignoring all the trash washed up on the banks)
Lake in the park. Here's the lake, and some kids fishing:
The Casa de Gobierno, fountain in the Plaza, and Iglesia Catedral at night:
Monday was a holiday, Dia de la Raza (Colombus Day), so I had the day off and decided to venture out of the city. I set out for San Javier, a big park on the Sierra close to the city about an hour collectivo ride away, at noon. It was a little rainy and really cloudy, so the ride up a really windy road in the mist was pretty exciting. Unfortunately when we got to the top of the hill I couldn't really see anything, so I wasn't sure where to get off.. I caught a sign for la cascada just in time. There was a nice little trail down to the Rio Negro, through a forest that actually felt kind of like the Pacific Northwest rainforest. Maybe cause it was raining.. but anyways, the river valley was gorgeous, and I had a nice serene nature moment eating my sandwhich by the waterfall.
Mid-sandwhich, a whole huge group of kids (and then some teenagers and their parents) showed up and started throwing rocks in the water, running around, generally having fun. Didn't take long for them to notice me, and as soon as I introduced myself to a couple kids I found myself surrounded, explaining my life story/trip to an incredulous audience (estats sola? tienes diez y ocho años???)
But it was a nice interrogation, and one of the adults explained that they were from el campo (the countryside, basically) and I think they were on their way to have? give? all the kids communion.. or something, in Tucuman anyways. We took some photos, it started raining, and all of a sudden I was invited along with them and ended up on their private collectivo, eating sandwhiches with my new 10 year old novio and watching the dance party in the aisles.
Fotos! Nature, me (being crushed) and kids, more kids
On the way to Tucuman we stopped at a dam/lake and played lots of games that I couldn't understand despite everyone's best efforts to explain the rules to me.
Below, the lake w/dam and the ten year old who adopted me with people fishing in the background:
Back at Parque 9 de Julio in Tucuman, I exchanged phone numbers with one of the older girls (chaperones, I think) and possibly was invited to visit their pueblo/go out dancing with her this weekend. Definitely not how I thought the day would go.. but what a cool turn of events.
I'll finish up with some pictures of the hospital form this morning:
Back to los fotos..
I love this kind of thing.. Iglesia La Merced reflected in the Honda window (everyone rides motorcycles here, pretty muich all the traffic is either taxis or bikes)
Entrance to the big city park, Parque 9 de Julio
I walked around the park Sunday evening and it was a completely different scene from when I explored in the morning last week. Tons of people hanging out, flying kites, playing futbol.. all kinds of food and toys for sale, people fishing and swimming in the lake (ignoring all the trash washed up on the banks)
Lake in the park. Here's the lake, and some kids fishing:
The Casa de Gobierno, fountain in the Plaza, and Iglesia Catedral at night:
Monday was a holiday, Dia de la Raza (Colombus Day), so I had the day off and decided to venture out of the city. I set out for San Javier, a big park on the Sierra close to the city about an hour collectivo ride away, at noon. It was a little rainy and really cloudy, so the ride up a really windy road in the mist was pretty exciting. Unfortunately when we got to the top of the hill I couldn't really see anything, so I wasn't sure where to get off.. I caught a sign for la cascada just in time. There was a nice little trail down to the Rio Negro, through a forest that actually felt kind of like the Pacific Northwest rainforest. Maybe cause it was raining.. but anyways, the river valley was gorgeous, and I had a nice serene nature moment eating my sandwhich by the waterfall.
Mid-sandwhich, a whole huge group of kids (and then some teenagers and their parents) showed up and started throwing rocks in the water, running around, generally having fun. Didn't take long for them to notice me, and as soon as I introduced myself to a couple kids I found myself surrounded, explaining my life story/trip to an incredulous audience (estats sola? tienes diez y ocho años???)
But it was a nice interrogation, and one of the adults explained that they were from el campo (the countryside, basically) and I think they were on their way to have? give? all the kids communion.. or something, in Tucuman anyways. We took some photos, it started raining, and all of a sudden I was invited along with them and ended up on their private collectivo, eating sandwhiches with my new 10 year old novio and watching the dance party in the aisles.
Fotos! Nature, me (being crushed) and kids, more kids
On the way to Tucuman we stopped at a dam/lake and played lots of games that I couldn't understand despite everyone's best efforts to explain the rules to me.
Below, the lake w/dam and the ten year old who adopted me with people fishing in the background:
Back at Parque 9 de Julio in Tucuman, I exchanged phone numbers with one of the older girls (chaperones, I think) and possibly was invited to visit their pueblo/go out dancing with her this weekend. Definitely not how I thought the day would go.. but what a cool turn of events.
I'll finish up with some pictures of the hospital form this morning:
Monday, October 13, 2008
fotos de Tucuman
After putting in a good couple days of R&R I may have finally kicked the fever, and I've been dutifully photo-documenting everything since then for your viewing pleasure. Here we go...
Saturday I got to check out another one of the Fundacion's programs, Matias, which is sort of a combination day care/food bank run out of a church in one of the barrios. There were a lot of volunteers there; I went with Joann the French guy (he helped me out with the 40 min collectivo ride there), and there were also two girls from Barcelona and a lot of local volunteers. We played with the kids (aged few months to 14 or so) who generally needed a lot of attention but were sweet/fun, and then we served them lunch and helped clean up. Below, some girls working on an art project; lunch in progress; the church where the commedor is located
That night I went to Diego's (from the Fundacion) house-warming party. It's still weird for me to wait until 11 or 12 or later to go out, but that's the way it goes here, and Saturday night at least it was still hot. The party was pretty much how I imagine 20/30 something parties are in the States.. lots of beverages and people standing/sitting around talking. So it wasn't that exciting but I managed like 3 conversations with strangers in Spanish so I decided to consider the night a success.
In the morning I was supposed to go to Plaza San Martin for some sort of traditional card game get-together with the Fundacion... which ended up being me eating a lot of medialunas (like sweet croissants) and watching old guys play truco, which I didn't even try to understand. But it wasn't a bad way to pass a nice spring morning.
Plaza San Martin
San Martin statue
playing truco
Beatriz and Diego
Mas fotos: The office of the Fundacion, ¨my¨ building, among others; me at the front door; the kitchen
Around Plaza Independencia: the Casa de Gobierno, Iglesia San Francisco, Iglesia Catedral, and the corner of the PLaza closest to my street
OKay sounds like Beatriz needs the computer, but I still have pictures of the park and pictures/stories about an adventure today. So more soon, hopefully..
Saturday I got to check out another one of the Fundacion's programs, Matias, which is sort of a combination day care/food bank run out of a church in one of the barrios. There were a lot of volunteers there; I went with Joann the French guy (he helped me out with the 40 min collectivo ride there), and there were also two girls from Barcelona and a lot of local volunteers. We played with the kids (aged few months to 14 or so) who generally needed a lot of attention but were sweet/fun, and then we served them lunch and helped clean up. Below, some girls working on an art project; lunch in progress; the church where the commedor is located
That night I went to Diego's (from the Fundacion) house-warming party. It's still weird for me to wait until 11 or 12 or later to go out, but that's the way it goes here, and Saturday night at least it was still hot. The party was pretty much how I imagine 20/30 something parties are in the States.. lots of beverages and people standing/sitting around talking. So it wasn't that exciting but I managed like 3 conversations with strangers in Spanish so I decided to consider the night a success.
In the morning I was supposed to go to Plaza San Martin for some sort of traditional card game get-together with the Fundacion... which ended up being me eating a lot of medialunas (like sweet croissants) and watching old guys play truco, which I didn't even try to understand. But it wasn't a bad way to pass a nice spring morning.
Plaza San Martin
San Martin statue
playing truco
Beatriz and Diego
Mas fotos: The office of the Fundacion, ¨my¨ building, among others; me at the front door; the kitchen
Around Plaza Independencia: the Casa de Gobierno, Iglesia San Francisco, Iglesia Catedral, and the corner of the PLaza closest to my street
OKay sounds like Beatriz needs the computer, but I still have pictures of the park and pictures/stories about an adventure today. So more soon, hopefully..
Thursday, October 9, 2008
que paso?
I'm sitting at the personal computer with internet in Beatriz´s apartment, listening to a guy outside in the Plaza play "House of the Rising Sun" on his traditional Peruvian/Bolivian flute... this is Tucuman, as I´ve experienced it so far. The downtown microcentro is really modern and busy, and feels surprisingly like a city in the U.S. But then mixed in with all the stores and schools and offices are these gorgeous old colonial buildings, like the Cathedral a block away, the Governor´s House, and the Casa de Independencia (Tucuman´s claim to fame). And while you can walk down the street in the morning and see all the panaderias and supermercados full, and everyone walking (hardly anyone drives) to school or work or to go shopping, if you go out in the middle of the afternoon once the heat has set in, everything is closed and the streets are practically deserted and it's like, oh right, this IS Argentina.
Unfortunately I haven't been out and about as much as I'd like, because the stupid fever from the farm has returned and I'm trying to get rid of it once and for all. I was fine Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning; started feeling a little funky Tuesday afternoon so I took an ibuprofen and the that night, fever again. Yesterday morning was okay but I was kind of struggling to hold it together, and when I got home the fever was back up at like 103.7... so I took the afternoon off, and Beatriz called her doctor friend who urged more ibuprofen and of course, rest and water. This morning (no fever) we went to see him and he decided that since I don't have any other symptoms besides the fever, I have some sort of virus, so I got pills for that which I take for 48 hours and we see if the fever comes back. Argh. At least I'm in another good place with people to take care of me, and here there's also the big benefit of my own CLEAN room.
The time I've spent at the hospital is definitely good for putting this all in perspective. The Centro de Salud is the biggest and best hospital in the area, with the only burn treatment facilities. And all of its services (like all healthcare in Argentina) are FREE. Which is great, because no one gets turned away, but also results in really long waits for the few beds available. The hospital was remodeled pretty recently, and it looks nice and clean--not the huge, sterile, all-white building I'm maybe more used to, but it seems to serve its patients' needs well. There are generally 4-12 beds in a room, so not a lot of privacy, but the patients seems to all get to know each other and their families.
One of the biggest problems the hospital faces is understaffing--though the staff are very good (there´s a lot of prestige attached to working at the Centro de Salud) there just aren't enough of them--so much of what Fundacion Leon, the organization I'm here with, tries to do in the hospital is pick up the loose ends that the busy staff can't deal with. This means visiting the wards in the moring, checking in with all the patients personally and seeing how they're doing and if they need anything. The Fundacion also provides a "Meridiana Solidaira" twice a week, basically offering snacks and juice to the patients in the middle of the day. There's also a "beauty salon," volunteers who visit the women patients once a week and offer manicures, hairdos, facials (I got to help with those), companionship and some light reading material. I think the Fundacion also brings in live music once a week, but I may be missing that today :( In addition to the personal work with the patients, the Fundacion donates equipment sometimes--and right now they're actaully remodeling a whole wing of the hospital.
Besides the program in the hospital, the Fundacion also runs a kind of mentoring program in a highschool, and a food bank type thing in one of the barrios. I said I wanted to spend most of my time in the hospital, so I haven't seen those programs yet, but they're on my schedule for later so I'm excited to check them out. Probably the most interesting work the Fundacion does, for me, is a microcredit program modeled after a Bank fo the Poor in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately they can't use international or short term volunteers in that program (understandably) but I picked Diego's brain about it earlier. Basically the publicize it in the barrios--the idea being that the bank come to you--and then anyone who has an idea for a project they can do with a loan form a group of 5 with their neighbors, and they recieve a small loan which they pay back oiver along period of time. The group has to provide support for each other, so they build community and help with whatever problems come up--and the amazing thing is that the bank has gotten 100% return so far. This is probably really boring for a lot of people, but Diego was talking about how the Fundacion tries to balance giving people concrete things that they need, and helping them to get the things for themselves (the old give a man a fish, etach him to fish thing) and this sort of microcredit system seems like kind of the perfect balance.
Anyway, what happened the days I was functioning? Beatriz took me out to see sort of the lay of the land, we went to the Fundacion office and met some of the volunteers who were having a meeting with Diego, I followed Diego around on the patient visits and tried to speak Spanish (harder in a hospital than anywhere else so far), explored the big city park (lots of orange trees! so cool), met another volunteer who is from France, visited a... nursing home? where Diego works as well (also free, in the midst of remodel but beautiful, the people were even harder to understand), made the morning rounds at the hospital again, sanded a metal cart to get the old paint off, helped with the beauty salon, went to the Fundacion to meet the other program coordinators.
Lots of walking (takes about half an hour to get from Beatriz's apartment to the hospital) which is fun cause I get to check out everyone else who is walking around, and a fair amount of heat so far. But after the initial farm to city culture shock, and excepting the stupid fever, I'm really happy to be here and to have such a great place to stay and so many interesting things to see. Sorry this is so long, but what else is there to do during siesta? Right, sleep... good idea.
Unfortunately I haven't been out and about as much as I'd like, because the stupid fever from the farm has returned and I'm trying to get rid of it once and for all. I was fine Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning; started feeling a little funky Tuesday afternoon so I took an ibuprofen and the that night, fever again. Yesterday morning was okay but I was kind of struggling to hold it together, and when I got home the fever was back up at like 103.7... so I took the afternoon off, and Beatriz called her doctor friend who urged more ibuprofen and of course, rest and water. This morning (no fever) we went to see him and he decided that since I don't have any other symptoms besides the fever, I have some sort of virus, so I got pills for that which I take for 48 hours and we see if the fever comes back. Argh. At least I'm in another good place with people to take care of me, and here there's also the big benefit of my own CLEAN room.
The time I've spent at the hospital is definitely good for putting this all in perspective. The Centro de Salud is the biggest and best hospital in the area, with the only burn treatment facilities. And all of its services (like all healthcare in Argentina) are FREE. Which is great, because no one gets turned away, but also results in really long waits for the few beds available. The hospital was remodeled pretty recently, and it looks nice and clean--not the huge, sterile, all-white building I'm maybe more used to, but it seems to serve its patients' needs well. There are generally 4-12 beds in a room, so not a lot of privacy, but the patients seems to all get to know each other and their families.
One of the biggest problems the hospital faces is understaffing--though the staff are very good (there´s a lot of prestige attached to working at the Centro de Salud) there just aren't enough of them--so much of what Fundacion Leon, the organization I'm here with, tries to do in the hospital is pick up the loose ends that the busy staff can't deal with. This means visiting the wards in the moring, checking in with all the patients personally and seeing how they're doing and if they need anything. The Fundacion also provides a "Meridiana Solidaira" twice a week, basically offering snacks and juice to the patients in the middle of the day. There's also a "beauty salon," volunteers who visit the women patients once a week and offer manicures, hairdos, facials (I got to help with those), companionship and some light reading material. I think the Fundacion also brings in live music once a week, but I may be missing that today :( In addition to the personal work with the patients, the Fundacion donates equipment sometimes--and right now they're actaully remodeling a whole wing of the hospital.
Besides the program in the hospital, the Fundacion also runs a kind of mentoring program in a highschool, and a food bank type thing in one of the barrios. I said I wanted to spend most of my time in the hospital, so I haven't seen those programs yet, but they're on my schedule for later so I'm excited to check them out. Probably the most interesting work the Fundacion does, for me, is a microcredit program modeled after a Bank fo the Poor in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately they can't use international or short term volunteers in that program (understandably) but I picked Diego's brain about it earlier. Basically the publicize it in the barrios--the idea being that the bank come to you--and then anyone who has an idea for a project they can do with a loan form a group of 5 with their neighbors, and they recieve a small loan which they pay back oiver along period of time. The group has to provide support for each other, so they build community and help with whatever problems come up--and the amazing thing is that the bank has gotten 100% return so far. This is probably really boring for a lot of people, but Diego was talking about how the Fundacion tries to balance giving people concrete things that they need, and helping them to get the things for themselves (the old give a man a fish, etach him to fish thing) and this sort of microcredit system seems like kind of the perfect balance.
Anyway, what happened the days I was functioning? Beatriz took me out to see sort of the lay of the land, we went to the Fundacion office and met some of the volunteers who were having a meeting with Diego, I followed Diego around on the patient visits and tried to speak Spanish (harder in a hospital than anywhere else so far), explored the big city park (lots of orange trees! so cool), met another volunteer who is from France, visited a... nursing home? where Diego works as well (also free, in the midst of remodel but beautiful, the people were even harder to understand), made the morning rounds at the hospital again, sanded a metal cart to get the old paint off, helped with the beauty salon, went to the Fundacion to meet the other program coordinators.
Lots of walking (takes about half an hour to get from Beatriz's apartment to the hospital) which is fun cause I get to check out everyone else who is walking around, and a fair amount of heat so far. But after the initial farm to city culture shock, and excepting the stupid fever, I'm really happy to be here and to have such a great place to stay and so many interesting things to see. Sorry this is so long, but what else is there to do during siesta? Right, sleep... good idea.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
vida ahora y antes y muchos fotos
SO after a lot of difficulty communicating with the program director (to be expected, except that he speaks perfect English so it was phone issues), I´ve actually made it to where I´m supposed to be in Tucuman. My longest busride so far, from Mendoza to Tucuman, was opvernight and took 16 hours.
Highlights: My own two seats, chillin out to slow jams en español (I could actually understand the Shakira chorus because I´m mastering the future tense: vas a ver = you will see!!), this girl who looked about my age asked me to hold her tiny baby while she went to the bathroom and he just smiled at me for the whole 5 minutes, one last sunset over the andes and my first sunrise in the northwest
Lowlights: Stops all through the night made it a little difficult to sleep, as did the occasional cries of the cute baby, slight concern that I couldn´t tell anyone when I´d be arriving
But when I got here this morning I juat had the guy in the tourist office call Diego for me, and he gave me the address for my homestay and I took a taxi and voila! Now I´m in an apartment near the center of town the feels immaculate and palatial after two weeks of farm living. I tooka shower, my clothes are in the wash, I have my own room (!) Sweet deal for 20 pesos. My host, Betty, is of indeterminate age--possibly because of the chain smoking--but she´s been incredibly nice and generous so far; her 14 year old son has been...shy. When I arrived another volunteer, Lucy from New Zealand was getting ready to leave, so I got to chat with her about her experiences here and elsewhere and that was a nice introduction. Diego is coming over tonight to get me oriented, and I assume I´ll start working tomorrow. All in all I´m getting really excited to live in a city for two weeks (Tucuman has some beautiful buildings, nice size, I hear there´re mountains you can hike in nearby), have some mor eintense Spanish immersion, and see what Fundacion Leon is all about.
Backtracking to the last week on the farm...
Let´s see, we had the weekend off, went out Friday, hiung around in Tunuyan Saturday, and then on Sunday Pumita and I went with Julian and Kiley to see a bodega in Maipu (close to Mendoza). It was pretty much the only on eopen since it was Sunday but it was really cool and I´m glad I did the wine tourist thing since that´s what Mendoza is famous for.. I´ll put some pictures of the bodega, it was beautiful. Ooh and then we a parilla in Mendoza, massive amounts of BBQ meat. mmmm. When we got back to the farm soem new volunteers had arrived, Heather and Kevin from the US, who I don´t think would mind me calling them hippies in the most awesome way.
Projects for the workweek: more artichoke mulching, more stick house weaving, trading for building supplies (3 bottles of tomato salsa = 2 cartloads of cow pies; bundle of fruite trees = 600 empty wine bottles). Also cut down a lot of good branches, fixed the broken side of the bano seco (built the same way as the stick house but didn´t hold up in the winter...hmm). AND THEN... mixing the stuff to put on the house. Take clay, water, dirst, straw, lots of cow pies, put them in a big contained bed, and mix... with your feet. Yes, cleanliness is oh so relative and just when you think it couldn´t be worse you stick the stuff on with your hands. Nice. On the plus side, we showered a lot more this week..
Although I somehow escaped the stomach bug everyone else got, I was out for about two days, 3 nights with a really bad fever (up to 104) which gave me lots of time to be confused (how do you even get a fever, anyway? why won´t it go away?), feel bad about not helping with the work, listen to other people´s travel stories late into the night (highlights: drug smuggling and unforunate bowel movements in Nepal.. sorry Soph), and really appreciate the community of people there. As much as I can be independent in a lot of ways, its really really hard to be sick by yourself, and I felt so lucky to a) be staying somewhere where I could jsut lie in bed and drink water all day and b) be in the company of essentially random strangers who would check on me and bring me whatever I needed. Even the kids, Paloma and Nacho, played nurse for a little while and it was so cute to see them tiptoe in and ask how I was doing.
It was weird saying bye to everyone (Pumita and Hayden left earlier in the week, then Kiley, and I left Julian, Marco, Jared, Heather, Kevin, and of course the wonderful family behind). On one hand, it´s a random group of people thrown together and I doubt I´ll be in touch with anyone for long, but on the other hand, it started to really feel like a community that made me appreciate the benefits of not toughing it out alone all the time. People to go out with, people to rely ion, people to learn from.. you can fill in the corny end. BUt I´m realizing that´s how it is with travelling, you just meet so many people and you can really appreciate the time with them but its still so impermanent.
All in all I´m so happy with my experience at Rincon Madre Tierra and I also will never forget: the most stars I´ve ever seen and the clearest milky way, hearing the rooster crowing in the middle of the night, Azucena´s impressive creations with basically starch products and vegetables, learning to work for four hours without a watch, swimming in the river looking at the Andes (doing everything looking at the Andes), watching the sunset from the top of a woven stcik house (finsihing said house , playing with Paloma and Nacho, riding in the back of a truck bed, thinking in Spanish when I´m sick with a fever, all these people´s stories and ambitions
Oh also now I´m really paranoid about eating b/c whenever I thought I was better and ate something the fever came back so today I´ve had: two oranges, two cups of tea, five crackers with marmalade
I think my stomach has shrunk to the size of a walnut... not in a good way. But don´t worry parents I´ll be fine soon!
And now, time to catch up with the pictures. first some more from Valparaiso:
Valpo, out to dinner with my host and her daughter, and the bus ride over the Andes(!!!)
our current casa de voluntarios: kitchen, main room, bedroom
volunteer house, family house, vineyards and bodega, with Pumita on the bus
Julian mixing caca, the completed casa with Kevin and Paloma on the roof, Andes from the farm, last moring with Kevin, Heather, Marco y Jared
LONGEST BLOG POST EVER. free accessible internet is dangerous sorry
Highlights: My own two seats, chillin out to slow jams en español (I could actually understand the Shakira chorus because I´m mastering the future tense: vas a ver = you will see!!), this girl who looked about my age asked me to hold her tiny baby while she went to the bathroom and he just smiled at me for the whole 5 minutes, one last sunset over the andes and my first sunrise in the northwest
Lowlights: Stops all through the night made it a little difficult to sleep, as did the occasional cries of the cute baby, slight concern that I couldn´t tell anyone when I´d be arriving
But when I got here this morning I juat had the guy in the tourist office call Diego for me, and he gave me the address for my homestay and I took a taxi and voila! Now I´m in an apartment near the center of town the feels immaculate and palatial after two weeks of farm living. I tooka shower, my clothes are in the wash, I have my own room (!) Sweet deal for 20 pesos. My host, Betty, is of indeterminate age--possibly because of the chain smoking--but she´s been incredibly nice and generous so far; her 14 year old son has been...shy. When I arrived another volunteer, Lucy from New Zealand was getting ready to leave, so I got to chat with her about her experiences here and elsewhere and that was a nice introduction. Diego is coming over tonight to get me oriented, and I assume I´ll start working tomorrow. All in all I´m getting really excited to live in a city for two weeks (Tucuman has some beautiful buildings, nice size, I hear there´re mountains you can hike in nearby), have some mor eintense Spanish immersion, and see what Fundacion Leon is all about.
Backtracking to the last week on the farm...
Let´s see, we had the weekend off, went out Friday, hiung around in Tunuyan Saturday, and then on Sunday Pumita and I went with Julian and Kiley to see a bodega in Maipu (close to Mendoza). It was pretty much the only on eopen since it was Sunday but it was really cool and I´m glad I did the wine tourist thing since that´s what Mendoza is famous for.. I´ll put some pictures of the bodega, it was beautiful. Ooh and then we a parilla in Mendoza, massive amounts of BBQ meat. mmmm. When we got back to the farm soem new volunteers had arrived, Heather and Kevin from the US, who I don´t think would mind me calling them hippies in the most awesome way.
Projects for the workweek: more artichoke mulching, more stick house weaving, trading for building supplies (3 bottles of tomato salsa = 2 cartloads of cow pies; bundle of fruite trees = 600 empty wine bottles). Also cut down a lot of good branches, fixed the broken side of the bano seco (built the same way as the stick house but didn´t hold up in the winter...hmm). AND THEN... mixing the stuff to put on the house. Take clay, water, dirst, straw, lots of cow pies, put them in a big contained bed, and mix... with your feet. Yes, cleanliness is oh so relative and just when you think it couldn´t be worse you stick the stuff on with your hands. Nice. On the plus side, we showered a lot more this week..
Although I somehow escaped the stomach bug everyone else got, I was out for about two days, 3 nights with a really bad fever (up to 104) which gave me lots of time to be confused (how do you even get a fever, anyway? why won´t it go away?), feel bad about not helping with the work, listen to other people´s travel stories late into the night (highlights: drug smuggling and unforunate bowel movements in Nepal.. sorry Soph), and really appreciate the community of people there. As much as I can be independent in a lot of ways, its really really hard to be sick by yourself, and I felt so lucky to a) be staying somewhere where I could jsut lie in bed and drink water all day and b) be in the company of essentially random strangers who would check on me and bring me whatever I needed. Even the kids, Paloma and Nacho, played nurse for a little while and it was so cute to see them tiptoe in and ask how I was doing.
It was weird saying bye to everyone (Pumita and Hayden left earlier in the week, then Kiley, and I left Julian, Marco, Jared, Heather, Kevin, and of course the wonderful family behind). On one hand, it´s a random group of people thrown together and I doubt I´ll be in touch with anyone for long, but on the other hand, it started to really feel like a community that made me appreciate the benefits of not toughing it out alone all the time. People to go out with, people to rely ion, people to learn from.. you can fill in the corny end. BUt I´m realizing that´s how it is with travelling, you just meet so many people and you can really appreciate the time with them but its still so impermanent.
All in all I´m so happy with my experience at Rincon Madre Tierra and I also will never forget: the most stars I´ve ever seen and the clearest milky way, hearing the rooster crowing in the middle of the night, Azucena´s impressive creations with basically starch products and vegetables, learning to work for four hours without a watch, swimming in the river looking at the Andes (doing everything looking at the Andes), watching the sunset from the top of a woven stcik house (finsihing said house , playing with Paloma and Nacho, riding in the back of a truck bed, thinking in Spanish when I´m sick with a fever, all these people´s stories and ambitions
Oh also now I´m really paranoid about eating b/c whenever I thought I was better and ate something the fever came back so today I´ve had: two oranges, two cups of tea, five crackers with marmalade
I think my stomach has shrunk to the size of a walnut... not in a good way. But don´t worry parents I´ll be fine soon!
And now, time to catch up with the pictures. first some more from Valparaiso:
Valpo, out to dinner with my host and her daughter, and the bus ride over the Andes(!!!)
our current casa de voluntarios: kitchen, main room, bedroom
volunteer house, family house, vineyards and bodega, with Pumita on the bus
Julian mixing caca, the completed casa with Kevin and Paloma on the roof, Andes from the farm, last moring with Kevin, Heather, Marco y Jared
LONGEST BLOG POST EVER. free accessible internet is dangerous sorry
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