Ok, so we actually did start teaching English on Tuesday. It was kind of a surprise that there were no more roadblocks that the Assistant Principal threw in our way, but he still managed to be kind of a jerk. In conversations with him before, he and Sarah's father talked about a little photo display/exposition of some of our travel photos. So we went to the trouble of getting them printed and then we matted them on some really nice paper that we picked up at an art supply store. All in all, while not much, the whole deal cost us around $20. Then we bring them on our first day and the secretary (who happens to be one of the nicest people ever) is in love with them and we go over everything with her. Then we find out our classroom and we go there to wait for the students. Just as we are about to start, the Assistant Principal comes in holding the photos all riled up. He starts going on about "what are these?" and "what am I suppose to do with these?" and "how am I supposed to understand what these are?" Apparently he had no recollection of talking about the photos and was also angry with us that we had not labeled all of them for him. I happen to think that the Machu Picchu photos speak for themselves and that in general, most of the other photos could have had a title or explanation but that it was not necessary. So, apparently, the work that we had put in getting these printed (and printed again since they overexposed everything the first time) and then mounting them on backing wasn't enough for him. However, after that day, he was nothing but nice to us. God only knows why he was so strange the first two days. Either way, it was a terrible first impression to give and it proves that incompetant administration can be found all around the world.
However, the students and teachers completely redeemed the odd actions of the assistant principal. Our first day was great. We divided the class into boys and girls. I had 5 boys and Sarah had 8 girls. All of the students were in their first year of studying English. This is (obviously) not the ideal group for a conversational English class, but this was the assistant principals idea of the group of students who would benefit the most from us. So we had all these grand plans of talking about and comparing life in the United States and Chile and talking about the school systems and university and everything. But we had to cut everything down so that these students could understand us and get something out of this class. We found out that they have an oral exam coming up in a few weeks and decided that the best idea would probably be to talk to them about things that we likely to be on the exam. So this included sports, family, school, neighborhood etc... The time flew and before we knew it, we were done with our first day. An English teacher had come in to observe us and we stayed for almost an hour chatting with her after class. She was dumbfounded as to why only beginning students were with us and also why our class was scheduled for 6-7 when the students actually end class at 6:15. Oh well, class still went well.
For the rest of the week, our classes were similar, but with other students who had heard about it and those from the first day who really wanted to be there. We had some more advanced students come on Wednesday and we talked to them about in depth about the university system and that was really awesome. It is good to know that the kids who did stay after school for this completely voluntary activity were actually interested in learning more and improving their English. We went over things like daily routines and what people want to study in university. We also tried to have them go around in a circle and make up a story by each person adding a sentence. It worked ok, but the level of comprehension and their confidence levels were not quite there for it to be really complex. I do believe that between Tuesday and Friday, some of the students showed much more confidence in trying to put together sentences and realizing that they actually did understand what we were saying even if they were not completely sure and that was awesome. For the last day (with all of three students who were awesome and dedicated) we brought in snacks and watched Harry Potter. It was a movie that all of them had seen and we stopped it a couple of times to ask them a few questions in English about the plot and the characters and what happened. Since they knew the story, it was easier for them to answer than some other questions and topics that we had been going over earlier in the week. All in all, it was a success. At the end, our difficult administrator thanked us and said that the doors are always open if we ever want to come back and that he had gotten great feedback from the students about us. So that was very nice of him. We enjoyed our time here and we wish that we could have spent more time here.
So, since our classes were only from 6:15-7 every day, we had ridiculous amounts of free time to kill. To begin with, this city is gorgeous. The houses in our neighborhood are all painted different colors (pink, blue, yellow, green, red, everything) and it smells like flowers walking around. In our neighborhood, it was kind of sleepy, but super relaxed and really beautiful. Also, this is the neighborhood that Sarah's dad grew up in and it was really exciting for her to see their old house and obviously, to work in his old high school. We spent a lot of time walking around and exploring the areas between our neighborhood, the center of the city and out to the east by the bus and train stations and the markets. This is also one of the wine producing regions of Chile and we were hoping to do something like what we did in Mendoza. After e-mailing 3 wineries, only one replied to me. So we headed out to Viña Calina, a holding in the Kendall-Jackson wine corporation, for our own private tour and tasting. They normally hold English tours at 4, but we figured that would be too close to class, so I was able to arrange to go at noon. This place is gigantic, some 140 acres and a brand new building for the offices and the winery. The tour guide was really nice and walked us around the winery showing us their different processes. The process of making wine is pretty much exactly the same from place to place, and the difference in wines is in the details which are hardly covered in these tours. She was a little surprised by us since she said that she had never had visitors as young as us. Regardless, it was a nice tour of a beautiful facility. And then we finished with a tasting of their Carménére (a grape almost exclusive to Chile) and their Cabernet Sauvignon. It was a good introduction to Carménére since neither of us had tried that grape before and we bought a bottle of it for further research...
Tomorrow we might be going to another town about 15 minutes away from Talca that has a fair/market every Saturday with a lot of the local producers for some more tastings. And then after that, we will be hopping on the overnight bus for Puerto Montt in the south to fly even further south to Patagonia. I am really excited even if it means that we have to pull out that sweatshirt that has been in the bottom of the bag since we left Bolivia more than a month ago.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Los Godoys de Chile
We have arrived in Chile at last, the last country of our 5-month journey. It's crazy to be here, and I'm really glad that we have 2 months to spend here. We spent our first night in Santiago with some of the Godoys. It was definitely strange to meet family members I had only faintly heard of, but nice as well. My aunt's house is gorgeous and in a *very* nice suburb, so I definitely can't complain. Eben and I were off the next morning to take the train down to Talca. What a beautiful journey! It was great to see the Andes again. I think this was the first time that we saw huge snow-capped mountains (or at least this time there was a lot more snow than in other countries). Either way, it was very enjoyable.
Here in Talca we are staying with a family friend. It's been nice walking around this little city, as it's where my dad is from! He set us up with a week-long position teaching conversation English at his old high school. We were supposed to start yesterday, but the Vice Principal was a bit of a jerk when we went there and told us he had assumed we weren't coming (???) and that he had told the students there would be no English conversation. Where he came up with that idea, I have no clue. At any rate, we *should* be starting today. More news about that later (assuming the Vice Principal doesn't again magically think we have fled the city ).
Talca is about 3 hours south from Santiago. It's technically a city I suppose, but very tranquil and not too big. It has an authentic feel to it, and I'm pretty sure that Eben and I are the only foreigners in town. ¡Que lindo! Accordingly, we have been speaking LOTS of Spanish. Yay!
Not a very eventful post. Lalala.
Here in Talca we are staying with a family friend. It's been nice walking around this little city, as it's where my dad is from! He set us up with a week-long position teaching conversation English at his old high school. We were supposed to start yesterday, but the Vice Principal was a bit of a jerk when we went there and told us he had assumed we weren't coming (???) and that he had told the students there would be no English conversation. Where he came up with that idea, I have no clue. At any rate, we *should* be starting today. More news about that later (assuming the Vice Principal doesn't again magically think we have fled the city ).
Talca is about 3 hours south from Santiago. It's technically a city I suppose, but very tranquil and not too big. It has an authentic feel to it, and I'm pretty sure that Eben and I are the only foreigners in town. ¡Que lindo! Accordingly, we have been speaking LOTS of Spanish. Yay!
Not a very eventful post. Lalala.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Wine and Spanish
Alternative title: "It tastes like grape juice!"
We left Buenos Aires, as we planned, Sunday night. We finally got out of that individualistic, fashion centered city. Not to say that we did not enjoy some of our time there, but it was certainly time to leave. Thanks to Agustin, we had an excellent time our last night at Ña Serapia and then again on Sunday at the Rose Garden. We took the bus to Mendoza on what had to have been the best bus ride of the trip so far. Not only did the seats recline about 160 degrees (almost like a bed, we could have paid more to have 180 degree seats), but we also received dinner, a vegetarian option for Sarah, wine and a movie that was not too loud in case we wanted to go to sleep. It was awesome. It is a bummer that there are no buses like this in the US or else I would be doing it every time I travel from Vassar to Detroit.
Mendoza is awesome. Most of it was destroyed in an earthquake about 80 years ago, so there aren't any old buildings, but it is still a really quaint town and easy to navigate. The central plaza has a modern art and design museum underneath it and there are all sorts of different plazas, some of them really beautiful, all over the city. And most importantly, it is also the center for wine production in the country. We have been drinking a lot of Argentine wines and so we were very excited to see some of the vineyards and wineries. Our first day was spent exploring the city, so that was pretty low key. Our second day was awesome. We met up with Cindy, Sarah's friend from Women's Chorus and we went with her and two other people out to have lunch at a winery about 30 minutes outside of the city. Well, the winery should have been 30 minutes outside of the city but our taxi driver had no idea where he was going. We were really worried about getting there because we thought that we had a reservation for this winery, Ruca Malen. So, taking the scenic route (which was really beautiful), we end up at the winery only to find out that we did not actually have a reservation and that we could not have lunch there. We were sent down the road to another winery called Septima. This has the makings for a really bad day, but everything worked out. We get to Septima and after a little negotiation, we were let into the winery. The place was an interesting combination of modern architecture with variations on Inca walls. However, the best part was that we were looking at the snow-capped Andes in the background of the vineyard. It was truly a sight to behold. The lunch was fantastic, a four course meal during which we sampled their Malbec and their Tempranillo. Both wines were excellent and the chef was very creative in making Sarah a customized lunch. We followed lunch with a tour of the winery and got to see all of the equipment that goes into making the wine. I would have liked more detail on the process itself, but it was a good tour nonetheless.
Upon our return, we took a placement test at the Spanish school across the street so that we could begin private Spanish lessons the next day. Let me talk about dinner first. This whole day was an excercise in indulgence and it was awesome. We went to the restaurant in the Park Hyatt, overlooking the plaza. We decided that we would continue the wine tasting with different glasses with each course. So over the three courses we tried one white (Tapiz Chardonnay 2005), one red (Doña Paula Malbec 2005) and one dessert wine. This is what life should be like. We spent about 5 hours sitting at the table and loved every minute of it.
Back to Spanish. Since I need to improve and Sarah wanted to work on the subjunctive tense, we took three days of private lessons here. The teachers were really great and gave us both exactly what we asked for in the class. I spent mine working and vocabularly and comprehension while Sarah worked on her grammer. It was much better than the classes in Cuzco because the classes weren't too fast for me or too slow for Sarah. Private lessons are awesome and I learned a lot about the left in Argentina and the new President and the hope that leaders such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales provide Latin America. It was good conversation and at a pace I could understand.
And the rest of the wineries: We had one ok day and one great day of wine tastings. On the first day, we rented bikes from our hostel with the ambitious plan to stop at four wineries all in one afternoon. This was thwarted however by the giant group of Israelis from our hostel also accompanying us (they took a long time to get ready to go) and construction at the meeting point. We all took the bus while the bikes were driven out to us. However, the man with the bikes could not figure out how to get to where we were and this was a problem. So while we planned to start biking at 12 or 12:30, we didn't actually start until 2, typical South America. Then we learned that Sarah, big bikes, South American roads and drivers are not a good combination. So the we were going quite slow. We did make it to our first stop, Tempus Alba, where we enjoyed six small glasses of their wines (merlot, tempranillo, syrah, malbec, cab sauv, and their reserve blend) along with some green olives grown on the premises.
The first three were not great but the last three were pretty good. Sarah made the brilliant wine tasting comments, "this tastes like Welch's grape juice," and "the aftertaste is kind of like jolly ranchers." Either way, the vineyard was beautiful, the wine decent and we ended up running into our friend Kelly who we saw Boca with back in Buenos Aires. We then went across the street to another winery called Viña El Cerno. We had to wait a long time for a tour and when we did it was half in English and half in Spanish. All of the English speakers were young while the Spanish speaking half of the group was quite old and grumpy about the fact that they had to share a group with us and that the winery was catering to non-Spanish speakers. One guy kept on complaining and Sarah turned around to indicate that she understood everything he was saying and if not him, then his wife was certainly embarrassed because she then said "stop it, they can understand you." It was a good tour and an ok tasting at the end. Neither of the wines, a malbec and a cab, were very special. So it was a long day and rough getting back. We had to walk part of the way because Sarah and her bike were not getting along. But we made it onto the bus just in time because a torrential downpour started on our way back. We spent the night eating our picnic that we packed and never ate and watching x-men movies with the little kids in the hostel.
The next day of tasting was a million times better. We hired a car and driver for about $65 for the day. First we went to a winery called LaGarde that makes a wine we drank a few times in Buenos Aires. It is exported to the US also and is called Altas Cumbres. We heard of it from a NY Times article and it is quite good for its price. Around $9 or $10 a bottle gets a good malbec or cab. This is their lowest end wine. We had a very good tour of the winery with emphasis on how they make their champagne, but they can't call it that because they aren't in Champagne, France. After the tour we had a tasting of their chardonnay and a better malbec. Then we got lunch with an Altas Cumbres white and a malbec. Lunch was very good and they did a cool variation on lasagna for Sarah with everything assembled in a bowl and then put in the oven, so they were made individually.
From there, we booked it to Achaval Ferrer which was absolutely incredible. We were with a family from Texas and the French winemaker. The winemaker walked us through everything, tasting all of the different malbecs that they make. They make three single vineyard malbecs, all with the same methods, to let the differences in the soil come out in the wine, terroir, very French. They also make a malbec blending the three vineyards that is not as good and finally a malbec-cab blend that was quite good. For the malbec-cab blend we were able to taste from the barrel and from the bottle to taste the maturation process. And with the single vineyard malbecs, we tasted all of those from the barrel because they make very few bottles every year. Finally, we were able to go down to the barrel room and taste their cab franc straight from the barrel. And all of this was free for Sarah and I, absolutely incredible. It also turns out that one of the Texans is a member of the Stolpman wine club, which is where I worked a harvest as an assistant winemaker before going to Vassar. So he and his wife have tried almost all of the wines that I helped make with the exception of the PiedraSassi which was a separate label started by the two winemakers there. So that was really cool and we talked a lot about the Santa Ynez valley and we know some of the same people because they have gone out there to taste, etc... That was an awesome end to the day of winetasting. I would have loved to buy some of the Archaval Ferrer bottles, but for the ones I wanted (the cab franc or the single vineyard malbecs) it ranged from $50 to $125 per bottle. I am not going to carry around a bottle that nice for two months from the heat in Mendoza to the cold of Patagonia, it would be a travesty. But they are exported, so maybe when we get back...
That was a great finish to our time in Argentina. We packed our stuff after the tastings and we left for Santiago the next morning (today). Brief plans: we go to Talca tomorrow to teach conversational English for a week at a high school. Then it is down to the bottom of the continent and back to the cold.
We left Buenos Aires, as we planned, Sunday night. We finally got out of that individualistic, fashion centered city. Not to say that we did not enjoy some of our time there, but it was certainly time to leave. Thanks to Agustin, we had an excellent time our last night at Ña Serapia and then again on Sunday at the Rose Garden. We took the bus to Mendoza on what had to have been the best bus ride of the trip so far. Not only did the seats recline about 160 degrees (almost like a bed, we could have paid more to have 180 degree seats), but we also received dinner, a vegetarian option for Sarah, wine and a movie that was not too loud in case we wanted to go to sleep. It was awesome. It is a bummer that there are no buses like this in the US or else I would be doing it every time I travel from Vassar to Detroit.
Mendoza is awesome. Most of it was destroyed in an earthquake about 80 years ago, so there aren't any old buildings, but it is still a really quaint town and easy to navigate. The central plaza has a modern art and design museum underneath it and there are all sorts of different plazas, some of them really beautiful, all over the city. And most importantly, it is also the center for wine production in the country. We have been drinking a lot of Argentine wines and so we were very excited to see some of the vineyards and wineries. Our first day was spent exploring the city, so that was pretty low key. Our second day was awesome. We met up with Cindy, Sarah's friend from Women's Chorus and we went with her and two other people out to have lunch at a winery about 30 minutes outside of the city. Well, the winery should have been 30 minutes outside of the city but our taxi driver had no idea where he was going. We were really worried about getting there because we thought that we had a reservation for this winery, Ruca Malen. So, taking the scenic route (which was really beautiful), we end up at the winery only to find out that we did not actually have a reservation and that we could not have lunch there. We were sent down the road to another winery called Septima. This has the makings for a really bad day, but everything worked out. We get to Septima and after a little negotiation, we were let into the winery. The place was an interesting combination of modern architecture with variations on Inca walls. However, the best part was that we were looking at the snow-capped Andes in the background of the vineyard. It was truly a sight to behold. The lunch was fantastic, a four course meal during which we sampled their Malbec and their Tempranillo. Both wines were excellent and the chef was very creative in making Sarah a customized lunch. We followed lunch with a tour of the winery and got to see all of the equipment that goes into making the wine. I would have liked more detail on the process itself, but it was a good tour nonetheless.
Upon our return, we took a placement test at the Spanish school across the street so that we could begin private Spanish lessons the next day. Let me talk about dinner first. This whole day was an excercise in indulgence and it was awesome. We went to the restaurant in the Park Hyatt, overlooking the plaza. We decided that we would continue the wine tasting with different glasses with each course. So over the three courses we tried one white (Tapiz Chardonnay 2005), one red (Doña Paula Malbec 2005) and one dessert wine. This is what life should be like. We spent about 5 hours sitting at the table and loved every minute of it.
Back to Spanish. Since I need to improve and Sarah wanted to work on the subjunctive tense, we took three days of private lessons here. The teachers were really great and gave us both exactly what we asked for in the class. I spent mine working and vocabularly and comprehension while Sarah worked on her grammer. It was much better than the classes in Cuzco because the classes weren't too fast for me or too slow for Sarah. Private lessons are awesome and I learned a lot about the left in Argentina and the new President and the hope that leaders such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales provide Latin America. It was good conversation and at a pace I could understand.
And the rest of the wineries: We had one ok day and one great day of wine tastings. On the first day, we rented bikes from our hostel with the ambitious plan to stop at four wineries all in one afternoon. This was thwarted however by the giant group of Israelis from our hostel also accompanying us (they took a long time to get ready to go) and construction at the meeting point. We all took the bus while the bikes were driven out to us. However, the man with the bikes could not figure out how to get to where we were and this was a problem. So while we planned to start biking at 12 or 12:30, we didn't actually start until 2, typical South America. Then we learned that Sarah, big bikes, South American roads and drivers are not a good combination. So the we were going quite slow. We did make it to our first stop, Tempus Alba, where we enjoyed six small glasses of their wines (merlot, tempranillo, syrah, malbec, cab sauv, and their reserve blend) along with some green olives grown on the premises.
The first three were not great but the last three were pretty good. Sarah made the brilliant wine tasting comments, "this tastes like Welch's grape juice," and "the aftertaste is kind of like jolly ranchers." Either way, the vineyard was beautiful, the wine decent and we ended up running into our friend Kelly who we saw Boca with back in Buenos Aires. We then went across the street to another winery called Viña El Cerno. We had to wait a long time for a tour and when we did it was half in English and half in Spanish. All of the English speakers were young while the Spanish speaking half of the group was quite old and grumpy about the fact that they had to share a group with us and that the winery was catering to non-Spanish speakers. One guy kept on complaining and Sarah turned around to indicate that she understood everything he was saying and if not him, then his wife was certainly embarrassed because she then said "stop it, they can understand you." It was a good tour and an ok tasting at the end. Neither of the wines, a malbec and a cab, were very special. So it was a long day and rough getting back. We had to walk part of the way because Sarah and her bike were not getting along. But we made it onto the bus just in time because a torrential downpour started on our way back. We spent the night eating our picnic that we packed and never ate and watching x-men movies with the little kids in the hostel.The next day of tasting was a million times better. We hired a car and driver for about $65 for the day. First we went to a winery called LaGarde that makes a wine we drank a few times in Buenos Aires. It is exported to the US also and is called Altas Cumbres. We heard of it from a NY Times article and it is quite good for its price. Around $9 or $10 a bottle gets a good malbec or cab. This is their lowest end wine. We had a very good tour of the winery with emphasis on how they make their champagne, but they can't call it that because they aren't in Champagne, France. After the tour we had a tasting of their chardonnay and a better malbec. Then we got lunch with an Altas Cumbres white and a malbec. Lunch was very good and they did a cool variation on lasagna for Sarah with everything assembled in a bowl and then put in the oven, so they were made individually.
From there, we booked it to Achaval Ferrer which was absolutely incredible. We were with a family from Texas and the French winemaker. The winemaker walked us through everything, tasting all of the different malbecs that they make. They make three single vineyard malbecs, all with the same methods, to let the differences in the soil come out in the wine, terroir, very French. They also make a malbec blending the three vineyards that is not as good and finally a malbec-cab blend that was quite good. For the malbec-cab blend we were able to taste from the barrel and from the bottle to taste the maturation process. And with the single vineyard malbecs, we tasted all of those from the barrel because they make very few bottles every year. Finally, we were able to go down to the barrel room and taste their cab franc straight from the barrel. And all of this was free for Sarah and I, absolutely incredible. It also turns out that one of the Texans is a member of the Stolpman wine club, which is where I worked a harvest as an assistant winemaker before going to Vassar. So he and his wife have tried almost all of the wines that I helped make with the exception of the PiedraSassi which was a separate label started by the two winemakers there. So that was really cool and we talked a lot about the Santa Ynez valley and we know some of the same people because they have gone out there to taste, etc... That was an awesome end to the day of winetasting. I would have loved to buy some of the Archaval Ferrer bottles, but for the ones I wanted (the cab franc or the single vineyard malbecs) it ranged from $50 to $125 per bottle. I am not going to carry around a bottle that nice for two months from the heat in Mendoza to the cold of Patagonia, it would be a travesty. But they are exported, so maybe when we get back...
That was a great finish to our time in Argentina. We packed our stuff after the tastings and we left for Santiago the next morning (today). Brief plans: we go to Talca tomorrow to teach conversational English for a week at a high school. Then it is down to the bottom of the continent and back to the cold.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Country hopping and the GRE!
Woo, the past few days have been very busy. We're now back in Buenos Aires but will hopefully leaving tomorrow night for Mendoza if we ever figure out how to buy bus tickets. I took my Psychology GRE this morning, and I am so relieved to be done!! The entire experience was a bit weird. I woke up insanely early this morning (my admission ticket said the test started at 8:30) so I could have time to flip through my review book one last time, eat a good breakfast, and get to the testing center (we had visited it yesterday to make sure I knew where it was) early, all that jazz. Well. Eben was nice enough to walk with me (mostly because I am a nervous wreck before standardized tests, and I probably would have mistakenly walked into a bus while reciting to myself the parts of the brain). So we're walking along, arrive at the testing center... and it's closed. Like completely locked up, the aluminum protective door thing has been drawn down, there is no sign of human life. Hmm. I started wondering if grad schools would still process my application without GRE scores on account of a closed testing center on Test Day. Thankfully the panic did not have too much time to set in because finally a security guard came and opened the building. Success!
So I'm sitting in the waiting room for someone to take me to the classroom... and I'm sitting... and sitting... watching more and more people my age trickle in for the GRE... By now it is well after 8:30, and while I'm not surprised that the test will not be administered on time (hello, we are in South America), my anxiety is slowly mounting. The nerd I am, I kept thinking of the Yerkes-Dodson law, which says that a certain amount of arousal leads to optimal performance, whereas too much or too little arousal is not so great for performance; in other words, being nervous is okay as long as you're not like crying and shaking (or conversely, completely unconcerned). So I kept reassuring myself that I could very well me at my optimal level of arousal/performance ability. Then I sat for some more. Finally at sometime after 9 am, a woman appears in the waiting area and says, "GRE? Come with me!" and the twenty or so of us scampered up the stairs. Then it took about another half hour to check everybody's IDs and registration numbers, put us in desks, read directions, fill out forms... the Argentine students had a great deal of trouble understanding the concept of a Scantron. You know how when filling out your name, social security number, etc. you have to write it in the assigned spot and then also fill out the corresponding bubbles underneath? They just didn't understand the bubbles. It took a while for the proctor to walk around the room and explain it to each and every one of them, and I just chuckled to myself-- who knew that a life of standardized testing could really come in handy? At least the Americans knew how to fill out the Scantron. :)
All in all, we didn't end up starting the test until about 10 am. There was a clock in the room that the proctor actually set back to read "9 am" when we finally started, which I thought was really weird. I was the first to leave, which always makes me nervous (am I too fast? the others too slow?), but I did double check my answers and go back to the hard questions. In the end, I'm still not sure how I did, but I think my review book helped quite a bit because a lot of practice test questions reappeared on the real test. And quite honestly, I don't care anymore because I am done with standardized tests!!!! CELEBRATION!!!!!
Now, back to other things. Uruguay rocked my socks, and Eben and I have agreed to go back at some point in the future and fully explore the country. We spent our second day in Colonia riding along the coast on a motorbike, which was fabulous. We explored the different beaches, saw the old Hippodrome (race track), and even the crumbling bull ring that is no longer in operation. What a rockin', bougy (bourgeois) place this must have been back in the day. Colonia is absolutely beautiful, the perfect hideaway. It's low tourist season now, so it really was just the perfect environment. I hope it's not chaotic in high tourist season because that would just ruin my pristine image of the town.
Montevideo was very different from Colonia. It's an actual city, though smaller and less hectic than Buenos Aires. It rained like whoa on our first day there, so we didn't get to do too much exploring until the second day. We did, however, see cool things like a gaucho museum and a crazy mausoleum in the center of town. We stumbled upon a big socialist party/rally the first night, which was pretty cool. There was lots of literature being passed around and even a big stage for musical performers. Eben went back to the rally to be a good leftist while I studied fun psychological things, so maybe he can write more about it in his next post. I did think it strange that there were so many police with drug dogs just randomly standing about, probably hoping to catch some hippie socialists smoking pot or something. OOH! Which reminds me, Eben and I saw two kids get patted down by police with two HUGE barking scary drug dogs on our second day. I don't really know how they caught, but they all of a sudden flung their hands to a wall with their feet spread, and one of the cops ordered them to empty their pockets. We don't know if they had been selling drugs or something, but it turns out they didn't have anything, so the police let them go. Kind of an intense experience, yet I found it very amusing. I don't know why. I really like the drug dogs and always want to pet them because they look like bears, but this probably jsut draws attention to myself. And one of the dogs might eat me.
Sorry this is such a scattered post. Next on our agenda is completing more grad applications (2 submitted, 982374 more to go!!), heading over to Argentine Wine Country, and then finally entering the last country of this journey-- Chile! My dad is awesome and has found us a possible volunteer stint at his old high school in Talca doing English conversation with the students. Nothing in confirmed yet, but hopefully Eben and I will be in Talca in about a week before going all the way down to Glacier and Penguin Land.
The moral of today's post is:
1. Be prepared to wait for a long time if taking the GRE outside of the United States. Other countries are not as time-obsessed as we are.
2. Applying to graduate school from outside of the U.S. is very frustrating and should be avoided if possible.
3. Both Argentinos and Urguayos speak with the same accent, but Uruguayos are cooler. Also, they drink way more mate and all times of the day.
4. Empanadas and good wine make life better.
¡Ciao!
So I'm sitting in the waiting room for someone to take me to the classroom... and I'm sitting... and sitting... watching more and more people my age trickle in for the GRE... By now it is well after 8:30, and while I'm not surprised that the test will not be administered on time (hello, we are in South America), my anxiety is slowly mounting. The nerd I am, I kept thinking of the Yerkes-Dodson law, which says that a certain amount of arousal leads to optimal performance, whereas too much or too little arousal is not so great for performance; in other words, being nervous is okay as long as you're not like crying and shaking (or conversely, completely unconcerned). So I kept reassuring myself that I could very well me at my optimal level of arousal/performance ability. Then I sat for some more. Finally at sometime after 9 am, a woman appears in the waiting area and says, "GRE? Come with me!" and the twenty or so of us scampered up the stairs. Then it took about another half hour to check everybody's IDs and registration numbers, put us in desks, read directions, fill out forms... the Argentine students had a great deal of trouble understanding the concept of a Scantron. You know how when filling out your name, social security number, etc. you have to write it in the assigned spot and then also fill out the corresponding bubbles underneath? They just didn't understand the bubbles. It took a while for the proctor to walk around the room and explain it to each and every one of them, and I just chuckled to myself-- who knew that a life of standardized testing could really come in handy? At least the Americans knew how to fill out the Scantron. :)
All in all, we didn't end up starting the test until about 10 am. There was a clock in the room that the proctor actually set back to read "9 am" when we finally started, which I thought was really weird. I was the first to leave, which always makes me nervous (am I too fast? the others too slow?), but I did double check my answers and go back to the hard questions. In the end, I'm still not sure how I did, but I think my review book helped quite a bit because a lot of practice test questions reappeared on the real test. And quite honestly, I don't care anymore because I am done with standardized tests!!!! CELEBRATION!!!!!
Now, back to other things. Uruguay rocked my socks, and Eben and I have agreed to go back at some point in the future and fully explore the country. We spent our second day in Colonia riding along the coast on a motorbike, which was fabulous. We explored the different beaches, saw the old Hippodrome (race track), and even the crumbling bull ring that is no longer in operation. What a rockin', bougy (bourgeois) place this must have been back in the day. Colonia is absolutely beautiful, the perfect hideaway. It's low tourist season now, so it really was just the perfect environment. I hope it's not chaotic in high tourist season because that would just ruin my pristine image of the town.
Montevideo was very different from Colonia. It's an actual city, though smaller and less hectic than Buenos Aires. It rained like whoa on our first day there, so we didn't get to do too much exploring until the second day. We did, however, see cool things like a gaucho museum and a crazy mausoleum in the center of town. We stumbled upon a big socialist party/rally the first night, which was pretty cool. There was lots of literature being passed around and even a big stage for musical performers. Eben went back to the rally to be a good leftist while I studied fun psychological things, so maybe he can write more about it in his next post. I did think it strange that there were so many police with drug dogs just randomly standing about, probably hoping to catch some hippie socialists smoking pot or something. OOH! Which reminds me, Eben and I saw two kids get patted down by police with two HUGE barking scary drug dogs on our second day. I don't really know how they caught, but they all of a sudden flung their hands to a wall with their feet spread, and one of the cops ordered them to empty their pockets. We don't know if they had been selling drugs or something, but it turns out they didn't have anything, so the police let them go. Kind of an intense experience, yet I found it very amusing. I don't know why. I really like the drug dogs and always want to pet them because they look like bears, but this probably jsut draws attention to myself. And one of the dogs might eat me.
Sorry this is such a scattered post. Next on our agenda is completing more grad applications (2 submitted, 982374 more to go!!), heading over to Argentine Wine Country, and then finally entering the last country of this journey-- Chile! My dad is awesome and has found us a possible volunteer stint at his old high school in Talca doing English conversation with the students. Nothing in confirmed yet, but hopefully Eben and I will be in Talca in about a week before going all the way down to Glacier and Penguin Land.
The moral of today's post is:
1. Be prepared to wait for a long time if taking the GRE outside of the United States. Other countries are not as time-obsessed as we are.
2. Applying to graduate school from outside of the U.S. is very frustrating and should be avoided if possible.
3. Both Argentinos and Urguayos speak with the same accent, but Uruguayos are cooler. Also, they drink way more mate and all times of the day.
4. Empanadas and good wine make life better.
¡Ciao!
Monday, October 29, 2007
Uruguay!
We are in Uruguay! Since it is so close to Buenos Aires, Eben and I decided that we needed to take the ferry over for a few days. Right now we are in Colonia, an amazing town that I could easily live in. It's pretty small and quiet, so while Eben and I were walking around town this afternoon, the only noise we heard besides our shoes on the cobblestone was the birds chirping. Amazing. Of course some areas have actual cars and noise, but for the most part it's just very serene. There are also lots of beautiful roses and other flowers, so everytime a breeze blows past you, you catch the wonderful scent of roses. With the cobblestone streets, seaside, crumbling old buildings, and rose gardens, this place is almost too good to be true.
I keep forgetting that it is the end of October because it is the middle of spring here, and it's been about 80 degrees every day. Today felt like the perfect summer day, not a cloud in the sky. We'll be in for quite a shock when we come back in January and are faced with the brutal New York cold! Until then, I'm enjoying every moment in the sun and eagerly await our next trip to the beach!
Tourists have the option of renting motorbikes, bicycles, or golf carts (yes, golf carts) to explore the town, but we've been enjoying walking. Maybe tomorrow will be a motorbike day. We originally were only going to stay for a day and then head over to Montevideo for a few days, but this place is too beautiful to leave. Sadly we have to be back in Buenos Aires by Friday, as I am taking the dreaded Psych GRE on Saturday morning in the city. Getting out of the city has made me realize that Buenos Aires, while beautiful and fun, is just not for me. I loved it at first, but once that wore off, I kind of decided that there are so many other places in South America that I would prefer to be in. I think our dislike for the family we were staying with may have had something to do with this desire to flee Buenos Aires, but honestly, I'm just happy to be in a new place. In a new country!
That's it for now, just wanted to profess my love for Colonia. :)
I keep forgetting that it is the end of October because it is the middle of spring here, and it's been about 80 degrees every day. Today felt like the perfect summer day, not a cloud in the sky. We'll be in for quite a shock when we come back in January and are faced with the brutal New York cold! Until then, I'm enjoying every moment in the sun and eagerly await our next trip to the beach!
Tourists have the option of renting motorbikes, bicycles, or golf carts (yes, golf carts) to explore the town, but we've been enjoying walking. Maybe tomorrow will be a motorbike day. We originally were only going to stay for a day and then head over to Montevideo for a few days, but this place is too beautiful to leave. Sadly we have to be back in Buenos Aires by Friday, as I am taking the dreaded Psych GRE on Saturday morning in the city. Getting out of the city has made me realize that Buenos Aires, while beautiful and fun, is just not for me. I loved it at first, but once that wore off, I kind of decided that there are so many other places in South America that I would prefer to be in. I think our dislike for the family we were staying with may have had something to do with this desire to flee Buenos Aires, but honestly, I'm just happy to be in a new place. In a new country!
That's it for now, just wanted to profess my love for Colonia. :)
Shakespeare in the Park
This should have been posted yesterday (Sunday), but the website was acting up and it didn't quite work.
A quick update about yesterday just because it was too cool. After a long day of walking around, buying fake adidas, finding the local skateboarding place outside of the post office, we decided to check out the botanical gardens. First of all, there are hundreds of cats here that, as we found out, respond to the sound of plastic bags. We think it is because they think we were carrying food. I had my purchases in a plastic bag and felt like the Pied Piper with cats following us and coming to me everywhere we went in the park. Really, as soon as they realized that we had no food, they scampered away. But it was cool to shake the bag and have 6 or 7 cats come out of nowhere, trotting toward us across the gardens. But what was really cool is that we stumbled upon some outdoor theater. It was A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Spanish, in the park. Even with the language barrier (for me at least), it was clearly recognizable since there were sleeping couples in the grass, a man with a donkey's head and there was no question who Puck was (he was a grunge, punk-rocker). It was interesting and fun, they solicited audience participation (or just grabbed people, dragged them over and gave them props/costumes) for the play within the play and it was quite funny. Who would have thought that we would get to see Shakespeare in the park, for free, in Spanish, in Buenos Aires. Certainly not me.
A quick update about yesterday just because it was too cool. After a long day of walking around, buying fake adidas, finding the local skateboarding place outside of the post office, we decided to check out the botanical gardens. First of all, there are hundreds of cats here that, as we found out, respond to the sound of plastic bags. We think it is because they think we were carrying food. I had my purchases in a plastic bag and felt like the Pied Piper with cats following us and coming to me everywhere we went in the park. Really, as soon as they realized that we had no food, they scampered away. But it was cool to shake the bag and have 6 or 7 cats come out of nowhere, trotting toward us across the gardens. But what was really cool is that we stumbled upon some outdoor theater. It was A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Spanish, in the park. Even with the language barrier (for me at least), it was clearly recognizable since there were sleeping couples in the grass, a man with a donkey's head and there was no question who Puck was (he was a grunge, punk-rocker). It was interesting and fun, they solicited audience participation (or just grabbed people, dragged them over and gave them props/costumes) for the play within the play and it was quite funny. Who would have thought that we would get to see Shakespeare in the park, for free, in Spanish, in Buenos Aires. Certainly not me.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Welcome to Argentina
In the last week, our, or at least my, opinion on our organization has changed drastically. I no longer like it and I believe that the problems it has may be and probably are problems shared by many internationally staffed NGOs. First of all, there is no consistency. For instance, out in El Jaguel, where we go to "teach English," LIFE runs their program two days a week. Only one person has been going there for an extended period of time and she only goes one day a week. Since she is the only one the kids actually know, she is the only one that they will really listen to. Kids are much smarter and craftier than we give them credit for. For them, we are like the substitute teacher that no one pays attention to. English teaching is a joke, I think I spend more time protecting myself because a kid named Gabi keeps trying to punch me in the balls. So while it is great to have so many volunteers being so enthusiastic about this, some consistency would really help so that the kids don't always see a rotatation of gringos who don't really have any authority. Second, the program is only two days a week. LIFE talks about trying to be positive role models for these kids. Again, it is a problem of consistency. How can you be a positive role model when you are with these kids for two hours, maybe two days a week, for two weeks and they see you as the substitute teacher? Third, they run four centers. When they can only devote two days a week to one of the centers, that tells me that resources are being spread too thin. I completely understand the desire to reach and "serve" more kids, but by spreading themselves out, they are partially creating the first two problems I spoke of. Finally and most importantly, it is all too obvious where their money is being spent. In Cuzco, Inti only had one center that contained the offices, the kitchen, the homework room, the workshops and all of the materials that the kids had access to. Here in Buenos Aires, LIFE rents a very nice office in one of the more expensive parts of town. Then, we go from there to the run-down, dilapidated soup kitchens that LIFE calls a community center for the afternoon with little or no supplies for the kids. We bring some worksheets, coloring sheets and some crayons. If we are lucky, we bring a ball to play with for the last 10 minutes of the afternoon. The birthday parties get more things, but it is only cake, balloons and small presents for the birthday kids (yes, it is much better than nothing). But what is frustrating is that Inti in Cuzco was an organization with far less funding and volunteers, yet they managed to provide far more in terms of supplies and art projects for their students. Inti was not without its problems, but at least it was right to supply things to keep kids busy rather than the same worksheets week after week, encouraging boredom and then acting up. I believe that the office here at LIFE is solely for the purpose of the volunteers, all of whom are international, and doesn't benefit at all the kids that they profess to help.
Other than that, Buenos Aires is a pretty awesome city. We have tried to do some siteseeing most mornings before work in the afternoon and have been fairly successful. We started on Monday morning at Recoleta Cemetary. It is a little strange to be doing cemetary tourism, but this place is pretty cool. It is all mausoleums built in every imaginable style.
Some are in very good condition while others obviously have no one who comes to check up on them. Buried there is Eva Peron, and she has the best kept family mausoleum, always adorned with roses left by visitors. There is also a large feline population that takes advantage of the quiet and the genorosity of the caretakers (bowls of food are out everywhere). On Tuesday, we took it easy but then went out that night for Cindy's birthday party. Cindy sang in Women's Chorus with Sarah and is here on a fellowship studying Spanish. We went out with her and all of her classmates and had an excellent dinner and drank some great wine. On Wednesday we went to one of the best museums we have seen so far. It is the MALBA, and it is all Latin American artists of the 20th century. It has a Frida Khalo, a Diego Rivera, lots of political art and just very good in general. It also has a very well stocked bookstore although quite expensive since most of the books in English were imported. On Thursday we went to the zoo. We had been warned that we might not like it because the animals were caged there. However, it was not as bad as we thought it might be. The spaces were a little smaller than the zoos at home like the Detroit or Bronx zoos. and some of them were covered in fencing, but they still had some really cool animals like the white Bengal tiger that was less than a foot away from us on the other side of a glass barrier. You could also feed all of the monkeys, llamas, camels, deer, goats, etc... While we were there, we caught in a torrential downpour that soaked us to the bone. Sarah was wearing flip-flops, so she couldn't run without losing her shoes. We gradually made it to the exit of the park through the rain, seeing the rhinos and the giraffes along the way. It took a while to get a cab home and the driver was not too happy that we got his backseat all wet. Yesterday (Friday) we went to the Holocaust Museum. It was a good display on Jewish life before, during and after the Holocaust and also examined (although not in too much depth) Argentina's role in both accepting refugees and harboring war criminals.
On Friday afternoon, we were already on the train, waiting to go out to El Jaguel when another train pulled into the station and there was a flash of light and a small explosion. Nobody has any idea what was going on, but they stopped all trains going in and out of the station. So we were waiting around for a while, asking people what happened trying to figure out if we would make it out to the kids that day. One guy who one of our volunteers had been talking to in Spanish suddenly breaks into English and very succinctly says with a shrug of the shoulders, "Welcome to Argentina!" The train station is one of the few places in this city that we feel like we are in South America and that phrase I guess summed up experiences traveling through here. We have had a few situations like this in various countries (long airport delay in Quito because some plane blew a tire landing, bus strikes in Potosi, etc...). I think that the lesson is to be flexible and realize that things like this happen and thus, plans must change.
We will be leaving this city for Uruguay on Monday. We will do some more siteseeing today and tomorrow to catch some things that we missed. Also, there is the presidential elections tomorrow, so no alcohol is sold today or tomorrow in the whole country. They have mandatory voting and they don't want any drunk votes after a night of partying. Anyway, off to the market and then to the modern art museum. And we will update in Uruguay.
Other than that, Buenos Aires is a pretty awesome city. We have tried to do some siteseeing most mornings before work in the afternoon and have been fairly successful. We started on Monday morning at Recoleta Cemetary. It is a little strange to be doing cemetary tourism, but this place is pretty cool. It is all mausoleums built in every imaginable style.
Some are in very good condition while others obviously have no one who comes to check up on them. Buried there is Eva Peron, and she has the best kept family mausoleum, always adorned with roses left by visitors. There is also a large feline population that takes advantage of the quiet and the genorosity of the caretakers (bowls of food are out everywhere). On Tuesday, we took it easy but then went out that night for Cindy's birthday party. Cindy sang in Women's Chorus with Sarah and is here on a fellowship studying Spanish. We went out with her and all of her classmates and had an excellent dinner and drank some great wine. On Wednesday we went to one of the best museums we have seen so far. It is the MALBA, and it is all Latin American artists of the 20th century. It has a Frida Khalo, a Diego Rivera, lots of political art and just very good in general. It also has a very well stocked bookstore although quite expensive since most of the books in English were imported. On Thursday we went to the zoo. We had been warned that we might not like it because the animals were caged there. However, it was not as bad as we thought it might be. The spaces were a little smaller than the zoos at home like the Detroit or Bronx zoos. and some of them were covered in fencing, but they still had some really cool animals like the white Bengal tiger that was less than a foot away from us on the other side of a glass barrier. You could also feed all of the monkeys, llamas, camels, deer, goats, etc... While we were there, we caught in a torrential downpour that soaked us to the bone. Sarah was wearing flip-flops, so she couldn't run without losing her shoes. We gradually made it to the exit of the park through the rain, seeing the rhinos and the giraffes along the way. It took a while to get a cab home and the driver was not too happy that we got his backseat all wet. Yesterday (Friday) we went to the Holocaust Museum. It was a good display on Jewish life before, during and after the Holocaust and also examined (although not in too much depth) Argentina's role in both accepting refugees and harboring war criminals.
On Friday afternoon, we were already on the train, waiting to go out to El Jaguel when another train pulled into the station and there was a flash of light and a small explosion. Nobody has any idea what was going on, but they stopped all trains going in and out of the station. So we were waiting around for a while, asking people what happened trying to figure out if we would make it out to the kids that day. One guy who one of our volunteers had been talking to in Spanish suddenly breaks into English and very succinctly says with a shrug of the shoulders, "Welcome to Argentina!" The train station is one of the few places in this city that we feel like we are in South America and that phrase I guess summed up experiences traveling through here. We have had a few situations like this in various countries (long airport delay in Quito because some plane blew a tire landing, bus strikes in Potosi, etc...). I think that the lesson is to be flexible and realize that things like this happen and thus, plans must change.
We will be leaving this city for Uruguay on Monday. We will do some more siteseeing today and tomorrow to catch some things that we missed. Also, there is the presidential elections tomorrow, so no alcohol is sold today or tomorrow in the whole country. They have mandatory voting and they don't want any drunk votes after a night of partying. Anyway, off to the market and then to the modern art museum. And we will update in Uruguay.
Pictures!
We've done it! All of our pictures are uploaded! You can go to htttp://sagodoy.myphotoalbum.com to see everything from Peru and Bolivia, and what we have done so far in Argentina.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Buenos Aires
Well, Buenos Aires is definitely different from anywhere we've been so far in South America-- except it is just like home. This city has a definite Manhattan feel, with bits of Paris being very clear as well. There are lots of Upper East Side-esque buildings, beautiful gardens, and plenty of open spaces. It's a bit overwhelming at times because there is so much to see just within the city that I really think it's impossible to cram everything in when we're working during the week. The people here have a cosmopolitan (and snobbish) attitude unlike other Latin American cities. Argentines are notorious for saying they are more European than Latin American, yet they are extremely proud to be Argentine. Walking down the street, everyone is dressed in their finest, and I'll admit that I feel compelled to dress well even if we're just doing some sightseeing. It's frustrating because I didn't come here to feel competitive about fashion, yet it's just the type of city that makes you like that. At first it's a bit overwhelming, but I'm comfortable enough now to not care as much.
Eben and I will be here for about 2 weeks, mostly doing volunteer work. We are working with a wonderful organization called LIFE Argentina (www.lifeargentina.org). This group is so different from Inti. First of all, the LIFE office is very clean and nice and located in a rather wealthy neighborhood. The organization has regular staff members, usually people around our age, as well as lots of volunteers. The volunteers are free to stay for as long as they want and pick which days they want to work. Some people are students studying abroad, and others are just passing through like us. There's usually a set schedule for the week's activities, and we can pick what we want to do each day. For example, on Monday we could do Juegoteca (recreational activities) or English/computer classes, on Tuesday we could do school support/computer classes or teach English, and so on. The volunteers gather at the office beforehand and then travel together to one of four slums outside of Buenos Aires where LIFE has a community center. While the area of Cusco where we were working was definitely not very nice, the slums where we work are a bit more dangerous. When we go to work, we have to wear LIFE t-shirts (slightly cheesy, but also pretty rock star) so that the neighborhood people know who we are and don't think we are silly lost tourists that they can mug. This rests on the assumption that they value the work we do with their kids, but so far so good, right? El Jaguel, the slum where we have been teaching English on Tuesdays and Fridays, is kind of amusing because it is set up just like a Long Island suburb (designated wide streets, blocks of houses), but all of the houses are made up concrete slabs and sheets of aluminum.
There is also the occasional house that resembles more than just a shack, and they look like they could be decently nice inside. Eben said that the slums in South Africa are like this too and not too unusual, but I guess I just don't have much of a comparison to really know. It's nice to actually go into these communities and spend a few productive hours with the kids on their own turf, and it definitely is a HUGE contrast to what we see in Buenos Aires.
Besides volunteering, Eben and I have been relaxing and having a good time. The night life in Buenos Aires is INSANE. People eat dinner sometime after 9 pm and don't go out to the bars and clubs until 3 am. Then you are expected to stay out until about 7 am, sleep well into the afternoon, and do it all over again. Since I've had a cold all week, we have only done this once so far, but to be honest, this just isn't for me. I can't imagine doing it on a regular basis. I enjoy waking up before noon! Oh well. We've done other fun things like exploring the city and, most recently, meeting up with Cindy, one of the girls from Vassar Women's Chorus who is here on a language fellowship!
It'll be nice to see more of her and have a fellow Vassar person to hang out with. Today we also met up with one of the LIFE volunteers, Kellee, and headed down to La Boca to go to the futbol game. La Boca was such a cool neighborhood. I was feeling a bit stifled by Buenos Aires because practically everyone here is white, and it can really feel like this city is devoid of the sort of funkiness that I love about NYC. La Boca, while still very very shite, is a bit of a rougher neighborhood with a few tourist-friendly streets. These streets are colorfully painted, there are lots of markets, and it's just so fun to walk around. We did that all afternoon before the futbol game, and it was just perfect. The game itself (Boca Juniors v. Estudiantes-- we cheered Boca of course) was lots of fun, though Boca definitely did not play as well as we had hoped. This stadium was a lot larger than the one in Quito, and with actual seats instead of benches! In addition, they cannot sell alcohol in the stadium because, as one vendor laughed at us when we inquired, "otherwise everyone would kill each other." Passions run high at these games. The police wouldn't even allow us to walk in one area outside the stadium because the visitors' entrance was there, and since we were all wearing the Boca colors, it just wasn't safe. Definitely a bit different from the games I've been to, but that's life I suppose. Futbol without beer is very sad indeed, but at least it saves lives?
In other news, we are slowly progressing with uploading our photos online! We've got most of Peru online, so feel free to go to sagodoy.myphotoalbum.com to see them. Hopefully we'll get up to date soon!
Eben and I will be here for about 2 weeks, mostly doing volunteer work. We are working with a wonderful organization called LIFE Argentina (www.lifeargentina.org). This group is so different from Inti. First of all, the LIFE office is very clean and nice and located in a rather wealthy neighborhood. The organization has regular staff members, usually people around our age, as well as lots of volunteers. The volunteers are free to stay for as long as they want and pick which days they want to work. Some people are students studying abroad, and others are just passing through like us. There's usually a set schedule for the week's activities, and we can pick what we want to do each day. For example, on Monday we could do Juegoteca (recreational activities) or English/computer classes, on Tuesday we could do school support/computer classes or teach English, and so on. The volunteers gather at the office beforehand and then travel together to one of four slums outside of Buenos Aires where LIFE has a community center. While the area of Cusco where we were working was definitely not very nice, the slums where we work are a bit more dangerous. When we go to work, we have to wear LIFE t-shirts (slightly cheesy, but also pretty rock star) so that the neighborhood people know who we are and don't think we are silly lost tourists that they can mug. This rests on the assumption that they value the work we do with their kids, but so far so good, right? El Jaguel, the slum where we have been teaching English on Tuesdays and Fridays, is kind of amusing because it is set up just like a Long Island suburb (designated wide streets, blocks of houses), but all of the houses are made up concrete slabs and sheets of aluminum.
There is also the occasional house that resembles more than just a shack, and they look like they could be decently nice inside. Eben said that the slums in South Africa are like this too and not too unusual, but I guess I just don't have much of a comparison to really know. It's nice to actually go into these communities and spend a few productive hours with the kids on their own turf, and it definitely is a HUGE contrast to what we see in Buenos Aires. Besides volunteering, Eben and I have been relaxing and having a good time. The night life in Buenos Aires is INSANE. People eat dinner sometime after 9 pm and don't go out to the bars and clubs until 3 am. Then you are expected to stay out until about 7 am, sleep well into the afternoon, and do it all over again. Since I've had a cold all week, we have only done this once so far, but to be honest, this just isn't for me. I can't imagine doing it on a regular basis. I enjoy waking up before noon! Oh well. We've done other fun things like exploring the city and, most recently, meeting up with Cindy, one of the girls from Vassar Women's Chorus who is here on a language fellowship!
It'll be nice to see more of her and have a fellow Vassar person to hang out with. Today we also met up with one of the LIFE volunteers, Kellee, and headed down to La Boca to go to the futbol game. La Boca was such a cool neighborhood. I was feeling a bit stifled by Buenos Aires because practically everyone here is white, and it can really feel like this city is devoid of the sort of funkiness that I love about NYC. La Boca, while still very very shite, is a bit of a rougher neighborhood with a few tourist-friendly streets. These streets are colorfully painted, there are lots of markets, and it's just so fun to walk around. We did that all afternoon before the futbol game, and it was just perfect. The game itself (Boca Juniors v. Estudiantes-- we cheered Boca of course) was lots of fun, though Boca definitely did not play as well as we had hoped. This stadium was a lot larger than the one in Quito, and with actual seats instead of benches! In addition, they cannot sell alcohol in the stadium because, as one vendor laughed at us when we inquired, "otherwise everyone would kill each other." Passions run high at these games. The police wouldn't even allow us to walk in one area outside the stadium because the visitors' entrance was there, and since we were all wearing the Boca colors, it just wasn't safe. Definitely a bit different from the games I've been to, but that's life I suppose. Futbol without beer is very sad indeed, but at least it saves lives?In other news, we are slowly progressing with uploading our photos online! We've got most of Peru online, so feel free to go to sagodoy.myphotoalbum.com to see them. Hopefully we'll get up to date soon!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
A Little Bit Gay
As Sarah left off, the bus ride to Argentina did not rock. To begin with, we left at 1 PM to arrive at 4:30 PM the next day. First we went from Sucre to Potosi, not bad, only 3 hours. Then waited for 4 hours until our bus left for the border. The road was unpaved, someone had their window open and it was about -15 F in the bus and we made some unnecessary late stops in the middle of nowhere during which the lights would turn back on immediately waking me up from the sleep I had only just begun. Then we arrived at the border at about 4:30 AM and the border doesn't open until 6 and it was still freezing outside. While we were half asleep, some touts for a bus company try to convince us to by our tickets for the bus in Argentina on the Bolivian side, swearing on God, their mothers and their families graves that the prices are no different across the border. Right we were to be skeptical and walk across the border ourselves to buy the tickets because they were half the price on the other side. The border on the Argentine side didn't open right away so we were in line for quite a while in no man's land waiting for things to get moving. Finally we made it onto a bus at 9 for 7 more hours of traveling. But, we finally made it to Salta and at the bus station was a guy who worked for the hostel that we were going to check out. So we got a free cab ride and a slightly discounted price for the beds at a pretty nice place.
Argentina was so different than Bolivia, it was shocking at first. Salta is a really beautiful colonial city but it is also very commercial and it was crazy seeing shop after shop of designer clothes for the first time since being at home. We went to the archaeological museum first to see the mummies that they have retrieved from the mountain tops on the border with Peru. They were very similar to Juanita in Arequipa, Peru, but possibly better preserved. This whole museum was about the mountain top rituals of the Incas and they had all of the artifacts that were also buried with the human sacrifices. Due to the extreme cold, these mummies have been frozen since they were left for dead and are in perfect condition: teeth, hair, skin, everything. We then went to Cathedral which was one of the more beautiful churches that we have seen in South America. It was not necessarily ornate, but it was grand. At the bowls of holy water, it also advised that use of holy water for the purposes of witchcraft is strictly forbidden.
We had an excellent dinner that night to treat ourselves after a long bus ride and a dinner of crackers and Fanta the night before. Then we left the next day for our flight to Buenos Aires at 1 in the afternoon. It is a bummer that we did not get to spend more time in Salta since it seemed like a really nice city and there were some more things both inside and outside of the city that would have been cool to see. But I suppose that there is always next time.
Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, we were picked up and brought to the apartment we are staying in. It is the apartment of the director of the program and her two kids. This place is quite nice, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and an awesome living room with a balcony. It is also in one of the trendier neighborhoods in the city. We were shown around and then told that there was going to be a birthday party later (starting at 12 or 12:30) and that we would all go out around 3. This nightlife is ridiculous, I don't know why things are so late, but if you can sleep all day then by all means it is awesome.
The birthday party was pretty fun, awkward for a while and then we started talking to a couple of guys. One person that we met is the perfect example of Argentina, or more precisely, Buenos Aires. Argentina was playing South Africa the next day in the semi-finals of the rugby world cup. At least one person at the party was wearing an Argentina rugby jersey. This kid is wearing the South Africa jersey. We were talking for a while and then I ask him why and he replies with a shrug, "It matches my shoes, I'm a little bit gay." Brilliant. We ended up going to a club around 3 and staying there until sometime after 5 at which point Sarah and I left early leaving everyone else there.
Sunday was a day of recovery, with a little food shopping and watching rugby and that is about it. We found a great bar the day before that is a brewery, so we went back there for the rugby game which Argentina lost and we wandered home for a ridiculously long nap that ended around 12:30. Since Monday was a holiday, our hosts went out but we stayed in and watched tv until going to bed, super exciting.
We finally got out to do some sightseeing on Monday only to find most things closed because of the holiday. But we walked from our house all the way into the center of town to the Plaza de Mayo in about 2 hours. Along the way, more random encounters! We ran into the couple that we did our Machu Picchu tour with and had a little chat with them. It is strange that even though we take different routes, we can still run into the same people weeks after first meeting.
We checked out the Cathedral on the north side of the plaza first. To begin with, it looks like the Pantheon with the very shallow triangular roof and pillars out in front. Inside is very beautiful though and very well preserved and taken care of. Inside is the tomb of Jose de San Martin, a general that helped win Argentina's independence. His grave is guarded by soldiers like those outside Buckingham Palace, the ones that don't move but look pretty cool. Like Salta, the church was not too ornate (with the exception of the altar of solid silver) but very grand. All that walking is quite tiring and the weather wasn't great, so we went back home until dinner.
Tuesday was our first day of work here. We had to go into the office a little early for our entrance interview, just to know a little about us and what our interests our and how we can best help the organization. There are a lot of foreigners volunteering there and you can sign up for whatever activities you want to volunteer for each week. It is a pretty cool system. We opted for English tutoring our first day. We went out to El Jagual, a slum on the outskirts of the city, to a little building (it is a stretch to call it a community center) for our English classes. The kids are all between about 5 and 12, so it is not actual English lessons. We had the older kids go over animals using word searches and then quizzing them while the younger kids pretty much just sat there drawing or playing with Sarah's earrings or the tiny puppy that one kid brought in. In the end, we just ended up playing a game outside with a ball that the coordinator brought with her. It was a lot of fun and we will be going back there on Friday to work again.
I am going to leave off here because it is a pretty long post and Sarah will continue soon.
Argentina was so different than Bolivia, it was shocking at first. Salta is a really beautiful colonial city but it is also very commercial and it was crazy seeing shop after shop of designer clothes for the first time since being at home. We went to the archaeological museum first to see the mummies that they have retrieved from the mountain tops on the border with Peru. They were very similar to Juanita in Arequipa, Peru, but possibly better preserved. This whole museum was about the mountain top rituals of the Incas and they had all of the artifacts that were also buried with the human sacrifices. Due to the extreme cold, these mummies have been frozen since they were left for dead and are in perfect condition: teeth, hair, skin, everything. We then went to Cathedral which was one of the more beautiful churches that we have seen in South America. It was not necessarily ornate, but it was grand. At the bowls of holy water, it also advised that use of holy water for the purposes of witchcraft is strictly forbidden.
We had an excellent dinner that night to treat ourselves after a long bus ride and a dinner of crackers and Fanta the night before. Then we left the next day for our flight to Buenos Aires at 1 in the afternoon. It is a bummer that we did not get to spend more time in Salta since it seemed like a really nice city and there were some more things both inside and outside of the city that would have been cool to see. But I suppose that there is always next time.
Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, we were picked up and brought to the apartment we are staying in. It is the apartment of the director of the program and her two kids. This place is quite nice, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and an awesome living room with a balcony. It is also in one of the trendier neighborhoods in the city. We were shown around and then told that there was going to be a birthday party later (starting at 12 or 12:30) and that we would all go out around 3. This nightlife is ridiculous, I don't know why things are so late, but if you can sleep all day then by all means it is awesome.
The birthday party was pretty fun, awkward for a while and then we started talking to a couple of guys. One person that we met is the perfect example of Argentina, or more precisely, Buenos Aires. Argentina was playing South Africa the next day in the semi-finals of the rugby world cup. At least one person at the party was wearing an Argentina rugby jersey. This kid is wearing the South Africa jersey. We were talking for a while and then I ask him why and he replies with a shrug, "It matches my shoes, I'm a little bit gay." Brilliant. We ended up going to a club around 3 and staying there until sometime after 5 at which point Sarah and I left early leaving everyone else there.
Sunday was a day of recovery, with a little food shopping and watching rugby and that is about it. We found a great bar the day before that is a brewery, so we went back there for the rugby game which Argentina lost and we wandered home for a ridiculously long nap that ended around 12:30. Since Monday was a holiday, our hosts went out but we stayed in and watched tv until going to bed, super exciting.
We finally got out to do some sightseeing on Monday only to find most things closed because of the holiday. But we walked from our house all the way into the center of town to the Plaza de Mayo in about 2 hours. Along the way, more random encounters! We ran into the couple that we did our Machu Picchu tour with and had a little chat with them. It is strange that even though we take different routes, we can still run into the same people weeks after first meeting.
We checked out the Cathedral on the north side of the plaza first. To begin with, it looks like the Pantheon with the very shallow triangular roof and pillars out in front. Inside is very beautiful though and very well preserved and taken care of. Inside is the tomb of Jose de San Martin, a general that helped win Argentina's independence. His grave is guarded by soldiers like those outside Buckingham Palace, the ones that don't move but look pretty cool. Like Salta, the church was not too ornate (with the exception of the altar of solid silver) but very grand. All that walking is quite tiring and the weather wasn't great, so we went back home until dinner.
Tuesday was our first day of work here. We had to go into the office a little early for our entrance interview, just to know a little about us and what our interests our and how we can best help the organization. There are a lot of foreigners volunteering there and you can sign up for whatever activities you want to volunteer for each week. It is a pretty cool system. We opted for English tutoring our first day. We went out to El Jagual, a slum on the outskirts of the city, to a little building (it is a stretch to call it a community center) for our English classes. The kids are all between about 5 and 12, so it is not actual English lessons. We had the older kids go over animals using word searches and then quizzing them while the younger kids pretty much just sat there drawing or playing with Sarah's earrings or the tiny puppy that one kid brought in. In the end, we just ended up playing a game outside with a ball that the coordinator brought with her. It was a lot of fun and we will be going back there on Friday to work again.
I am going to leave off here because it is a pretty long post and Sarah will continue soon.
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