Lo mejor dia

Today was the best day I've had in a long time. I went with Marcos (I don't really know what to call the people hosting me.. "host brother" sounds weird, but that's essentially what he is) and his fiance Ale to the villa (un barrio pobre/poor neighborhood) near his house. They typically go there on Saturdays and spend time with this one family that's got 9 children in it (and one on the way). But we ended up seeing three of the kids and their mom elsewhere and went with them to a birthday party.

We spent the whole afternoon and evening at the birthday party. Everyone was hanging out in this garage and there was a bounce house and foosball table on the street, and there were kids and adults of all ages running around and playing together for hours. Potato sack races (with real sacks), musical chairs, pinatas, music, laughter, babies to hold. There were plenty of people, so no one had to be burdened with talking to me really slowly for too long, and I felt super welcome and normal.

I love that 4 year olds are the same no matter what country they're in. Being thrown in the air makes them laugh, whether you speak their language or not. And kids that want your love will receive it even if you can't communicate coherently. Hugs translate so well. So does kicking butt at foosball.

At one point, three teenagers surrounded me and spent twenty minutes grilling me with all sorts of questions about how to say things in English and what kinds of things are different from Argentina in the United States. Since they were all talking super fast, and all at the same time, I had to ask them to repeat everything they said about 12 times, but somehow we managed to understand each other.

It was the best, longest, and most laid back birthday party I've ever been to. The whole day reminded me so much of the best days of Mission Year. So much joy.

At the end of the day, I was so happy to be exhausted and crammed into the tiny back seat of a car with a sleeping child on my lap, a pregnant mom, and two older children. I think we're all going to sleep well tonight.

Joy. Joy. Joy. So much joy.

Amigos Nuevos

This is Hans. We are friends. 

Zapatos y Pesos y Tormentas, Oh My!

Yesterday was a solid day. En la mañana, I went into the center of Cordoba with the familia. They own a pharmacy there, so while they were working, I walked around the city and explored lots of shops and saw all sorts of people. I found the language school I’ll be attending next week, and I took a test that will place me in the right class. Walking around for hours, I learned that Argentines really like shoes. Just about every other tienda was solely dedicated to shoes. So. Many. Shoes.

I spent my siesta researching exchange rates and how they work and why the Argentine peso has depreciated in value so quickly. A year ago, 1 dollar = 5 pesos. As of today, 1 dollar = 8 pesos. And in the black market, 1 dollar = 13 pesos. Es loco! 

 

I think I have been more up to date on Argentine news in the past three days than I have been up to date on US news in the past year. Other people’s news is so much more interesting. 

Last night, algunas parientes (some relatives) de la familia came over to swim and drink mate. There were three nenas (little girls). Las nenas weren’t sure what to make of me at first – I don’t think they’d ever met anyone that couldn’t speak Spanish. But I didn’t know what to make of them either. It was the first time in my life that I couldn’t have a conversation with a five-year-old because their vocabulary was too wide. 

Anyway, tuvimos una tormenta anoche (we had a big storm last night), and everything cooled down significantly. Hopefully the warmth that left here will find its way to all of you.

Los fotos

Some quality Chilean culture, brought to you by the Santiago airport:

And some pretty mountains (the Andes):

Grados de Celcios

Today I learned that 43 degrees Celsius equals 109 degrees Fahrenheit. Take comfort, mis amigos norteamericanos. Argentines are in solidarity with your extreme weather problems right now.

I also am continually learning and forgetting vocabulario nuevo. I decided to try writing down, before I go to bed, the vocab words I remember from the day. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully I'll eventually get to the point of having too many to make it worth it. Last night I only remembered three. =P I'm aiming to do better today.

Also, verb conjugation and I are not friends. 

Estoy aca! (I am here)

Snowy goodbyes in Syracuse,

Monster airplanes, 

Two dinners (because I didn’t know my flight would feed me delicious meals for free),

Patient and talkative Chilean seatmates, 

Excellent Latino movies (except for that one where I couldn’t figure out why the main characters were upset and had to break up),

Free wine, blankets, and those stylish looking eye mask sleep-aid thingers,

Several 5 minute naps,

A wee bit of confusion and mix up as to which country I needed to meet my host family in,

Breaking (and fixing!) part of the bathroom stall in Cordoba’s airport while trying to shove myself,  my violin, and my giant suitcase out of it,

Four security checkpoints,

A quick hop from winter to summer,

An embarrassing moment where I tried telling two people that they looked really familiar to me, but then they didn’t speak English and everything I tried to explain in Spanish just made me seem weird and creepy,

Lots of lost games of spider solitaire,

A host family that’s taught me about a billion words already that I’ve probably mostly forgotten (I feel bad for the amount of patience they’re going to have to expend on me)

And 33 horas later, Estoy aca!

Hasta Luego, Norteamericanos!

Alright, world. I'm heading to Cordoba, Argentina for three months, and several of you have asked for updates and pictures. Since my primary goal is to learn Spanish pretty well, telling stories repeatedly over English-speaking skype dates wouldn't really help me out a ton, so instead I've decided to breath some life back into my blog and use it to share some my aventuras in Cordoba. I'm not sure that my reasons for being in Argentina make for riveting blogging material, but hopefully I'll get into some share-worthy healthy mischief along the way. Stay tuned.

Encouraging Things Actually Happen

My browser has been full of tabs lately, and half of them are devoted to finals week nonsense, but the other half are full of encouraging things happening in the world. I thought I would share:

1. People are celebrating Nelson Mandela. This is to be expected. But the exciting part is that not only are people celebrating him, but many people are not watering him down in the process. I've seen a lot of people posting things like this, that remember Mandela for some of the controversial and unpopular things he spent his life fighting for. I hope those challenging and transformative kinds of things can be what we continue to remember and share. 

2. Especially lately, I've been empowered by thinking outside of the box when it comes to my own life, and so seeing other people realizing they have the power to step outside the normal ways of doing things and be creative to address a problem gives me a lot of joy. 

3. Police, as an aggregate, are really hard for me to respect sometimes, because of the way they are tied to some really corrupt systems. But these police in Thailand give me a lot of hope.