Cacti are a pain in the butt



Go Heels!!!



Last weekend the IFSA students went to San Rafael in Mendoza province. You can think of it like a county in the USA. The whole province is naturally very arid and the only reason this is the wine capital of South America is because of the highly efficient irrigation system the Huarpes started before contact and the Spanish expanded later. Anyway when all is said and done it’s just gorgeous.

I love deserts. They have a certain beauty to them that is different from the pretty beach or the majestic mountains. I love the dry heat of a desert in summer and the shades of green you can get at sunset. There’s something about the wilderness of deserts that I really really like.

Water in deserts just might be one of my favorite things. Lakes, rivers, small small streams trickling along a dry old river bed… It seems like a promise; life continuing to advance through the harshest of circumstances. The glory of God manifest in creation. Desert streams make me think of Israel wandering in the wilderness and of the Lord’s provision for them. Throughout Scripture the people of God often go to into the wilderness to met with Him. And deserts like this one are almost exactly my picture of wilderness.

I think this has a lot to do with how much I loved where we were staying. A literal garden in the desert! The cabanas were nice in themselves but the landscape… Rose bushes and ponds, shallow swimming pools and weeping willows, green green grass and leading up to the visas of the desert. Amigos, if you ever find a place like this in the US, Go! It’s not enough to come to Argentina for by itself but if it were easier to get to I would so be back.

San Rafael reminded me of the deserts of Colorado and Utah, less spectacular but lovely and new. Never before have I encountered a truly sandy desert. Most of the hike was just like Colorado, low plants, loose rocks, great big mesas and small mountains. Then after the summit the tour guide said we were going to run back down. Wait, what? A turn in the bend and bam: Sand! The guide took off running and the students ran after. It was steep. It was fast. It was just about the most fun you could have on a desert hike.

All these ramblings about my love for deserts and I’m still calling cacti a pain in the you-know-where? Absolutely chicos! On Saturday several students had the splendid idea to scale of the hills around the cabanas in free time though we had been forbidden to do so. And having nothing better to do I joined in. Going up a very steep slope is pretty easy. You can use your hands to help you and your balance isn’t off. We were up high enough to be seen and get in trouble fairly quickly. Then it was time to go back down. Halfway there I simultaneously lost my balance and the rock I was standing on decided it was time to go vacation in the valley.

It was a lot of commotion but in the end it went like this: I had a fight with a cactus. I sat on it to squash it and I grabbed it to choke it but I still lost to those sharp little spines. The poor boy in front of me had to dodge a falling rock and catch a falling girl at the same time but luckily he managed it so I didn’t tumble down the mountain. All in all I think I pulled 20 spines out of my butt and 30 out of my right hand. It didn’t hurt that bad and I’ve been sore but now I am much improved and I have seen a nurse and I’m fine. Life experience, my friends, life experience!

Chocolate in Argentina and the horrors of kitchen culture shock

One thing I expected to be roughly the same the world over was chocolate. I mean, how could it be that all human beings do not love such dark deliciousness? But alas, no. So far the Argentines I have met do not enjoy chocolate as I do. I first encountered the disturbing difference when I baked brownies for my host sister’s birthday. They do not sell cocoa powder here. I was told to use Nesquick, the very same mix used for hot cocoa. Basically this added half a cup of sugar to my recipe while cutting out more than half the cocoa. My worst fears were realized when I bit into this “brownie” I had created…a moist mound of dark colored sugar. I was fortified and apologized to the family and promised to find the wal-mart and pay any price for Hersey’s. And then the unthinkable happened. They loved it! The first pan of brownies was gone within the day and my host sister had me teach her how to make them. The recipe (translated into Spanish) has even been taped to the frig. My host mom says she likes my brownies because other brownies have too much chocolate flavor. Call it culture shock but I can’t understand why anyone would want a less chocolaty brownie.

Among foods indigenous to Argentina, chocolate seems to come in second to Dulce de Leche (it’s like caramel if you need a reference point). Personally, I am of the opinion that all sweets should be used to compliment chocolate not the other way around. I am having a bit of trouble finding a good chocolate cookie even in the store bought packs. There were some knock off Oreos in the cupboard here but like all knock-off Oreos they were lacking in chocolate flavor and unsatisfactory. There were some vanilla cookies with chocolate cream too. These were reminiscent of those elf cookies in the US only with about 1/4^th of the fudge. Even the pure candy, Bon Bons that are so popular here consist of Dulce de Leche center, Vanilla wafer ball, and a minuscule chocolate shell.  

Oh for a Lenoir Vegan Brownie or a Hersey Bar!

La Vendimina

So the first week in Mendoza just happened to be the week of La Vendimia (wine harvest festival).  This isn’t your average state fair either. Every town elects a Reina (think Miss America) and the elite of the province vote for the Reina Nacional de la Vendimia. There were parades and concerts and an espectaculo that was supposed to run for three nights. Here’s how it went down…

My second night here I went to a concert in the Plaza Independencia (like central park) with my host mom and our neighbors who also have an IFSA kid with them. I love being in parks at night. With those ornate white streetlamps that just make everything deep green and navy, perfecto. It was a happy family atmosphere. One thing I really like about Argentina is that even families with small children tend to go out and about together even if it is late. It produces a lot of babies asleep on daddy’s shoulders but I like that the families spend time together. The fireworks afterwards where spectacular but there must have been a million health and safety violations (US violations…I’m sure everything goes here).  We were so close that it looked like some of the fireworks were going off on the ground in front of us and during the show it started raining ashes and bits of charred paper. In a desert full of trees it’s a miracle that everything didn’t catch fire or maybe it’s just the acequias.

I have an extended host family here. Marcela, the daughter of my host mom, her husband Pablo, and their 3 year old Mia, came with us to the next night’s Festa en Piazza (Italian heritage festival). The pizza here is a bit different. I’m not entirely sure I like it. Think Chicago deep dish bread and strong, thick cheese, some grease, and almost no sauce. Popular toppings include a mountain of onions or green olives. Playing with Mia was fun. What she calls dancing most US kids call flying or spinning. You know, when you pick up a kid by the hands and spin them around so that they’re feet are off the ground. I think I’m going to try to get into some volunteering that involves kids here. I miss working with the kids at my daycare a bit.

The most impressive Vendimia display I saw was the Via Blanca which roughly translates to “white path”.  It’s a parade at night where the floats are so bright they make the street like daytime…in real life it’s not that intense but it was really awesome all the same. All the Reinas have floats and they throw the fruits of their towns to the crowds: grapes, apples, pears, melons (and they’re not so small), bottles of water (Mendoza is also the source of bottled spring water for Argentina) and even a very few bottles of wine. One float, without a Reina, was throwing meat from a giant asado cooking right there on the truck! I myself caught one grape.

In the morning the whole Via Blanca parade repeats and that name changes to Carrusel. My host family and I went to watch it and it was just as impressive. The Gauchos, Argentine cowboys, made an appearance in this parade. There were probably 100 or more horses and even some buggies. Several of the gauchos were riding with little babies in one arm. Looks a lot less tough but it was about the cutest thing ever. The Reinas threw even more fruit and the meat truck was back. Most unexpected were the bagpipes. There are a bunch of welsh immigrants in Argentina but it still threw me off.

The last and most important part of the Vendimia is the Espectaculo. Its 2 hours of dance from folkloric, to something that looked like American show tones to tango.  There are famous musicians and the Reina Nacional is elected. I watched it with my host sister and Nicky, a visiting student from the US, in a café while we ate French fries and drank Fanta. The next night the IFSA group got together to go to watch the repeat of the Espectaculo. At the door they gave us red wine in juice boxes (!!!) and an apple. We sat for three hours of very latino stalling and then the announcers seemed to give up. They turned on party music and told the people to dance. It was raining and about a 1/5 of the people were getting up to leave anyway. You better believe a group of 40 American college students turned those bleachers into a dance floor. Granted many of the locals danced too. The show was obviously supposed to have started and we all attributed it to the rain but some of the crowd was rather grumpy and actually throw their apple cores onto the stage. I couldn’t really believe it at first. Finally the music and the lights were turned off and the IFSA staff told us to go to the buses. Turns out the dancers had decided to go on strike…oh Argentina.

Chao!

Mendoza, first impressions

I’ve now been in Mendoza for about a week. It has been a week of extremely limited internet access and that on my host sister’s computer. Apparently only the brother in the family knows the security code for the internet here and he is off somewhere in the Middle East so it took a while to get a hold of it.

This is my room!

I am living with a host family in the southern part of the city very near the huge, Parque General San Martin and the study abroad program offices. I have a host mother, Carlina, who is a widow and a host sister, Maria Victoria, who just turned 21. They have been hosting international students for eight years straight. Both my host mom and sister are very kind and very patient with my Spanish. They are very helpful in helping me adjust to life here: buying a phone, finding the bus, warning me about dangerous parts of the city (Carlina is a bit paranoid). At the same time, they seem to know the drill a bit too well. My second name is Nicky, after the girl who was here last semester. J



An Acequia in the Park



The city itself is beautiful. Mendoza is in the middle of a very arid area but, through a great feat of engineering in the colonial era, the acequias bring water from the mountains down into the city. All the streets are lined with big shady trees and there are several more parks within the city in addition to the mammoth man-made garden San Martin. Mendoza has more green-space than I have ever seen in a US city and it’s a desert. I can’t get over how awesome that is. The acequias are about 2 feet deep and open air. There are little bridges every couple of yards on the street but one does have to take care with the “gringo traps”. 



Parque General San Martin



The Micros (city buses) are perhaps my least favorite part of Mendoza. If I could get my hands on a bus schedule everything would be dandy but I just can’t seem to get one. I’m did a lot of getting lost this first week which is not my favorite thing but I do at least know my stop on two bus routes. Once classes start I’ll need to improve my relationship with the micros.

Adventures to come soon.

Chao Chicos!

The tango is not awkward. I am awkward.

(2-25-11...finally have internet)

The orientation in Buenos Aires has come to an end. I am writing for the tarmac of the BA regional airport. After being delayed two hours, the control tower systems collapsed so we can’t take off. Welcome to Latin America, Chicos!

Yesterday though was the fun stuff. Last night was our chance to explore the nightlife of Buenos Aires. I’m not one to go out late and party so I was nervous about getting dragged into something scary or worse…sitting alone in the hotel. Neither happened, thanks be to God.

Three other IFSA girls and I decided to go to a 9pm tango lesson and then join three more for dinner. Argentines go out late so  the lesson was well before when real porteros go out to dance (or to dinner for that matter). Our class was on the second story of a beautiful old tango hall. There were about 12 beginners altogether and 4 or 5 teachers/experienced dancers to help us.

Now, I have always thought the tango looked beautiful but would be serious awkward to dance. It’s not, at least for your basic lesson. I learned that I am always nervous about dancing because I am afraid to mess up and consequently mess up the other person. I learned that I lack coordination and have a really hard time remembering which step comes next. Basically, the tango is a lot of fun and a really lovely dance but I am neither a fun nor a graceful dancer. The old gentlemen who were teaching us tango kept telling me to relax and let the energy of the dance flow. I had no idea how to do that so I tried harder to get the steps right. That’s the opposite isn’t it? I think I need to take the tango class at the university here if I want to learn this. That and practice the basic steps for hours until I don’t trip over number 5 anymore.

Other adventures in the tango hall: There were more women than men (I am starting to think science as it wrong and this is the case in the whole world.) so I ended up with some down time between dances. I went to get my camera but my purse was gone. The pieces started coming together. Only American beginners, cheap cover charge, no petition for a drink order…It was a gringo trap! They distracted us and stole our bags. I walked all around the hall and told one of the other girls. We both spoke to an employee but didn’t find anything.  Starting to really think we’d been robbed we called over one of the other girls to tell her. She laughed and told us she had to move all our stuff across the hall because the table we had set it down on was reserved. (And she hid it under a jacket all piled up too). Well, crisis averted but I at least felt like I was robbed in my first days in South America.

At 11pm, seven of us IFSA girls went to dinner. Our concierge gave us a business card that got us free champagne (Gracias Franco!).  We felt like real Argentines going out to dinner at such an unheard of hour. It was fun, even if my pasta tasted rather similar to Kraft Mac-n-cheese. I got to order wine in a restaurant for the first time (well, we got a bottle for the table but same thingJ). It was only 12:30 when we went back to the hotel to sleep. As they say here: La noche esta en penales…the night is in diapers. Still, it had been a long day and today was even longer. After all we need some sleep before we meet our host familes.

Speaking of which, I am still sitting on this tarmac wondering I really will be in Mendoza tonight.

Chao.

Argentine airlines have complementary wine.

The group flight arrived in Buenos Aires today at 7:40am local time (that’s 5:40am EST). It was a long night since I learned to sleep on planes. But I must say that Argentine airlines had style. Two meals, coffee, drinks: all free. There was even free wine! The food cart must have gone by 5 times during our 7 hour flight. It was impressive.