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











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