Fotos de Salta...INCREIBLE!

SO never got to those pictures of my last weeks in BA, but I think these ones of my last 3 days in Salta will make up for it...a little snipit of each thing I did.

View of the city of Salta from Cerro San Bernardo:



Cerro de Siete Colores (Hill of Seven Colors):





Quebrada de Humahuaca (Humahuaca Canyons):







Llamas... :



Llama. :



Las Salinas Grandes (Salt Flats):

yup, I tasted it, it´s salty...

Inca Ruins in Santa Rosa & Tilcara:

Humahuaca :

Tropic of Capricorn:

Una entrada...por fin!

Apologies... I have not been very good at keeping up with this blog for the last month or so. I think I've just been caught up in trying to be present here for my last month in Buenos Aires, and now I am down to 4 days left in this wonderful city! I can't believe it! The time has really flown- BUT it's not over yet! I'm leaving Friday to take a 3 week backpacking trip from Salta (Northern Argentina) all the way down south to El Calafate. Now, I'm really starting to get excited. I have heard that the rest of the country, outside BA, is absolutely spectacular. I will be sure to post pictures, but most likely not until after I come home. Sometime this week, however, I will make sure I post the pictures from my final weeks here in BA - so stay tuned!

My last month here has been really great. I decided to stay in BA an extra week because I wanted to take another week of Spanish class and also spend another week in the factory. I think it really has made a difference. Now I feel so much more comfortable in the factory and actually able to talk to people and understand. I will be doing interviews this week to finish everything up. It has really been a great experience. And like all good learning experiences, it has left me with more questions than answers and opened up more possibilities in the future for me to explore. One thing that it has really made me sure of is that I want to be fluent in Spanish. Speaking Spanish and English will be such an asset to me in the future, especially in terms of activism and organizing. I think I will be back to South America and maybe even back to Argentina sometime in the near future, to get more answers and even more questions. We'll see...

Since I didn't write for so long I can't do much justice to how I spent my last month here, so a brief summary will have to do. We'll start with the sad news...Carolina (Evi's Cat) died this past week while I was home alone with her and they were on vacation. It was a debacle to say the least, but definitely needed to happen sooner rather than later. The cat is 20 years old and has been dying since I arrived here. Since Evi and Roberto left for vacation, the cat didn't eat for 3 days, so Evi asked me to call the vet, and he was supposed to come over at midnight that night but Caro couldn't wait, and she died in my arms at 10pm...pobrecita... I was slightly traumatized by the event and the fact that I had to talk to Evi, the Vet and her son-in-law over the pohone in Spanish and tell them all this. But Evi was concerned for me and there was no blame to be had. Betsy came over and she came with me and Evi's son-in-law to bring the body to the vet's office. And that was that. SO the house is certainly a little more empty now and a little more somber.

In lighter news, I went to my first futbol game here this past weekend. It was really incredible to see how passionate people are about the sport. The colors, flags, songs, cheers, and taunts were much more overwhelming than in any Red Sox vs Yankees game. They literally don't let opposing sides sit on the same side of the stadium, the are separated by a wall with barbed wire and a line of police. And the field is sectioned off by a moat and barbed wire as well. Luckily, the game wasn't as rowdy as it could have been because the game ended in a tie 0 - 0. So needless to say, it was much more interesting watching the fans than it was watching the futbol game.

Per usual, I've been hanging out with friends on the weekends getting in my last nights of going to dinner and staying out at boliches (clubs) until the sun comes up. Liz will be leaving to go back to Australia this week as well, so there's definitely a theme of goodbyes. And I've been going to the ferias in San Telmo and yesterday to the Gaucho feria in Mataderos to buy Christmas gifts. I went to Konex with Betsy last Monday and will be going again tonight. Konex is a big drum circle show that they have every week from 8 - 10pm at this cultural center called. It's essentially filled with the same kind of hippy kids you could find at Earthfoods or hanging out in Central that come and watch and dance for two hours. You also have your occasional hippy-at-heart-in-a-business-suit who comes there right after work. It's a really cool mix of people and the drumming is amazing. It's definitely an experience.

This week I will pack up my room and pack my backpack with as little as possible. Thursday night I hope to spend my last night at a Luis Salinas concert, he's a really famous Argentinian musician and then off to Salta the next day. Hopefully we'll get the tickets.

I'll put pictures up before I leave on Friday! Chau for now!

Jill

Fotos por fin!

Hi all

These, pictures take an insanely long time to load, thus I couldn´t get them all up, but next time I have 2 hours to kill, I´ll put up some more...


Peninsula Valdes Part 1:

Peninsula de Valdes!

Holaaaa,

Just got back from another really great trip this weekend. I took and 18 hour bus ride with LB to Peninsula de Valdes on Friday night and then came back Tuesday morning. The whole peninsula is a nature reserve famous for the Southern Right Whales that come there to breed and nurse calves every Spring, and October is the best month to see them. So we took the bus overnight and then got there in the afternoon on Saturday and rented a car. We drove two hours more south to go to what the hostel owner said is "the most important penguin colony in the Americas." One problem, the car was a standard, and between me and Betsy, she was the only capable of driving it. I had tried it once before about a year ago, but the thought of driving a rental car while trying to learn stick shift on the highways of Argentina didn´t sound too appealing, so poor Bets drove there and back. It was definitely worth the drive, or at least for me was worth sitting in the passenger seat playing navigator for 6 hours, haha. (yes 6, there was a gravel road that took an hour for us to go down each way and we got pretttttty lost on the way home). There were penguins everywhere, all in their little holes sitting on their eggs. And there were wild horses, sheep, llamas, and maras (kinda like big jackrabbits). The ride was beautiful, especially on the way home with the sun setting when we were the only people on the road. As far as getting home, we had wanted to go and eat dinner at the Welsh settlements that were seemingly near penguin colony, but ended up getting miserably lost for over an hour. But finally we made it home...

The next day we drove out to the peninsula and took a boat out to see the whales. We were on a small boat, with less than 20 other people. It was very different from whale watches in the cape where you have to elbow your way through a crowd to get a glimpse of a whale. We spent most of our time watching 2 southern right whales, a mother and calf, RIGHT next to the boat. We saw a few more whales on the way back, they were just coming out of the water in every direction. Then came my turn to drive! All the roads on the peninsula were practically deserted if you don´t count the occasional llama, cow, sheep, mara, armadillo, horse crossing. And Betsy was understandably getting tired, so she turned the wheel over and coached me on how to drive. And I am now proud to say that I learned to drive stick shift on a deserted peninsula in Argentina. Wasn´t as hard as a I thought, but I think it helps to have a good (and patient) teacher- thanks Bets! So from there we drove to Punto Norte to see a sea lion and elephant seal colony. We were also told that that is the place to see Orcas (killer whales) hunt the sea loins by beaching themselves. Unfortunately, we hit the end of the season to see that and didn´t see any Orcas. But the sea lions were all over the beach, and the elephant ones were huuuuuge. From there we drove to another point further south in the peninsula to see a few more penguins and seals as the sun was setting. We were probably the only tourists on the peninsula at this point. I pulled over and turned the car lights off at one point to see the stars and it was beautiful, I don´t think I´ve ever been in such darkness outside. Then after about 3 seconds we both got the creeps and turned the lights back on. This is how a New Yorker and a Bostonian roll in Argentina...haha.

We took it easy on Monday morning, went out for lunch, took a walk and hung out at the beach straining our eyes in the sun to see a few more whales. We also watched the news in the morning to see that Christina Kirschner had won the presidential election- not good news. As far as we can tell, she is the most conservative of all the candidates, and Evi has been telling me that her election would mean that she and her husband, current president Nestor Kirschner would just alternate terms and it would turn into another dictatorship. That´s what she says anyway.

This week has gone by, just getting back into the swing of things with going to the internship, Spanish lessons, and the gym. Liz is moving out of our house verrrry soon. She´s leaving tomorrow to go to Uruguay for a week and then she´ll be back in BA for just a few more days before she flies back to the states just in time for thanksgiving. It´s making me realize how I´ll be home before I know it. I´ll miss having her around. And I have to say it has made me a little homesick seeing her getting ready to go back and see her family, friends and boyfriend. Definitely makes me miss everyone I have at home. But Evi had some wise words for me yesterday, she said that I will be home all too soon, so I should focus on being here now and be present. Kinda sounded a little bit like a UACT ground rule, but so true. Home is waiting for me, and will come too soon I´m sure. For now I´m going to enjoy my last 3 weeks in BA. 3 Weeks! That´s so crazy.

No, I won´t be home home in 3 weeks, but I´m leaving on November 23rd to travel around Argentina for 4 weeks before I fly home. I will be starting up in the Andean North in Salta with Betsy, then down to wine country in Mendoza where Mari will meet me, the Bariloche and the seven lake district to meet Kara, and then she and I will continue south through Patagonia and the glacial parks. After all this, Kara and I will come back to BA for two days so she can see the city and I can say my goodbyes. And then home. It´s going to be amazing, all of it.

Ok that´s it for now, I´m going to try to post my pictures from Peninsula de Valdes later today!

Fotos de Colonia en Uruguay...

The Old City, Beautiful...









Asado with a group of guys having a bachelor party at our hostel:



The beach we "found":









We rented motorbikes:



Sunset as we were leaving:



Sigh...

Dia de la Raza, Chilavert, Uruguay, Asados...

Hola,

I´ve been meaning to sit down and write in this thing for the past few days, and finally have the chance because today is a feriado (holiday) por el Dia de la Raza, which actually translates into "Race Day". It´s been explained to me as an awful holiday pretty similar to our Columbus day in that it is supposed to signify when the indigenous people of South America were "discovered" by Europeans. SO it´s similar to Columbus day in that all the school children are taught that it is about celebrating diversity, when in fact is is, as my mom put it, a celebration of the beginning of the end for indigenous people here. So yeah, that´s why I have a little time to write, because indigenous people were exploited by Europeans a couple hundred years ago...sound familiar?

ANYWAYS, it has been quite a week for me! Let me start at the beginning...I started my internship at Chilavert on Monday and went three days last week. It was really good. I was pretty intimidated at first about the Spanish and about coming into the factory as an outsider, but as soon as I walked into the factory I realized there was nothing to be intimidated by. LB and I met Ernesto, Candido, and Placido- a few men from the factory. They invited us to eat lunch with them everyday, after they first asked if we were vegetarians, since there´s meat for a meal everyday. When I wasn´t eating lunch or chatting with the workers, I spent most of my time in the archive they have there. Chilavert is known as an "open door factory" because it is an open community space for events and night classes. It is also open to student groups and people who are interested in learning about the movement. The archive is the one place where all the research that has been done (in a few different languages) on el Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas. There are a few students from UBA who work there as well. We´re from all over the place, US, Italy, France, Canada, Argentina and the common language to use with each other is Spanish. So it´s been good practice to sit and talk with the other students working in the archive. But it certainly takes a really long time to get through research in Spanish, especially when there´s so many people to talk to! BUT I did get through a few articles about how Chilavert "took" the factory and started to run it as a cooperative. I´ll try to find some info in English to post here, because it´s a long but important story to tell. SO that sums up my first week there, I hope to go there 4 days next week and start working on the floor.

I also finished my Spanish classes at UBA on Thursday, took an oral and written final exam. I´ve decided to start taking private Spanish lessons here at a language institute, because my Spanish really needs to be better. It costs pretty much the same to do that, and I think I will learn a lot more one on one with a professor, two hours a day , 5 days a week. UBA gave me a good review of Spanish and I met some people, but now that I really only have two months left I really want to be doing everything I can to speak Spanish fluently.

On another note, I went to Uruguay this weekend with Mari. The whole adventure was very last minute, we just went to the boat terminal on Friday evening and put our names on a waiting list for tickets, and then there was a 2 hour delay with the boats so we had to wait, not even knowing if we would actually get on. But once we finally got on the boat the trip went perfectly! We obviously hadn´t booked a hostel, but the first place we walked into had rooms. We dropped our bags and found a bar and met these two Uruguayan guys who brought us to another bar where we met more people. And then we just danced the night away. It was so great to go and talk to interesting people and just dance, dance, dance. I like dancing here so much better than at home! The next day we got up and rented motorbikes (so much fun!) and found a deserted beach and just hung out there for a while. And then there was a group of men at the hostel for a bachelor party and they invited us to an asado (BBQ) so we ate and drank, and then walked around the old city. It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. So much calmer than the city. I took lots of pictures, so hopefully I can post them soon. SO our one night escape from Bs As was spectacular. AND I got my passport stamped so that I have another 90 day visa for the rest of my stay in Argentina. Perfecto!

And then last night, I went to a party where I only really knew one person (with the encouragement of Ana Lua...haha) with Alyza. I was invited by Rhiannon, the Canadian student who works in the archive - and I´m so glad that I went! The people there were so nice and welcoming. There were so many strange coincidences. I met a woman there, Vanessa, who graduated from Mount Holyoke this past year. And not only is she from the Valley, but also used to work at Nuestras Raices in Holyoke. She knows all about Nueva Esperanza and YouthBuild. It was so so so nice to talk to someone about my work in Holyoke, because I miss it so much. And attention ASB alumni: she confirmed that everyone who has ever worked at Nuestras Raices has a crush on Eric- haha, ASB alum know alllll about that. Also, Rhiannon knew another UMass student that did the same program as me, Caleb, and so we had a lot of commonalities there as well. All in all, it was great and we partied until 7am today. It just proves that being abroad you have to take risks and make yourself uncomfortable to meet people and have new experiences. Thanks Ali and Lua ;)

And nowwwww....I´m going to an asado at Rhiannon´s house and perhaps the movies later with Banu. And then tomorrow the week starts again, with Spanish lessons and Chilavert and hopefully back to the gym! Vamos a ver!

ALSO! It´s so nice to get comments from everyone, thanks for keeping up with me while I´m away. It´s really nice to hear from friends and family. And Uncle Tom and David, don´t worry, I was already planning on going to Marcho del Orgullo in november! I´ll take lotssss of pictures!

Love,

Jill

Demasiadas cosas...

Heyyyy all,

Busy week this week, classes are ending at UBA and my internship is starting. Which entails me running between both places while trying to study for my final exams and also comprehend the written and spoken spanish required of me at my internship. I will write a full entry soon, most likely when the week is over. But I´m doing well!

;)