26 June 2007
8:15 p.m.
Hola!
Well, my time in Villa Maria has officially come to an end. The first two and a half weeks of my stay in Argentina (minus
four days in the hills of Cordoba) have been spent here in the small
city of Villa Maria, which is located in the province of Cordoba.
Argentina has 23 provinces and Cordoba lies at the center of the
country, much I have been told as Kansas lies at the center of our
country. In any case, this missive covers the past week and a half,
which began with a short road trip.
This trip, which later became known as the trip from hell, began promisingly enough. We
all boarded a bus at 8 a.m. to travel to the city of Cordoba, about a
three hour bus ride (not too long when compared to our previous 12-hour
bus ride from Buenos Aires). We went on a tour of the
city, visited a shopping mall (why on earth when visiting a city in a
foreign country these people would choose to visit a shopping mall, I
have no idea, but that's where we ended up for lunch and to do some
shopping I couldn't even find a bookstore in this so-called mall, so I generally considered that trip to be a complete waste.)
Eventually we left the mall and found a bookstore, where I promptly bought a trashy romance novel in Spanish (hey, you never know when the words "sexy" and "biceps" might come in handy), and a children's novel I recognized (Artemis Fowl). Trust me, if you had to settle for reading books in a foreign language, you wouldn’t buy Lord of the Rings either.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up the extent of the trip that was reasonable or enjoyable. We returned to our hotel room, by which point I was not feeling so great and promptly went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I had no voice. And we had to travel. And so I packed, loaded the FREEZING COLD bus and we hit the road.
We went to an Estancia (a Jesuit plantation) where we saw very cool things and beautiful scenery that I could not appreciate because I was too busy freezing my buttooockus off and hacking up a lung. Eventually we got back into the freezing cold bus and headed to Ascochinga where we checked into the hotel from HELL.
The original plan was to visit a second estancia, go to dinner and check into the hotel later that night, but because I was obviously miserable, we went to the hotel first and everyone unloaded their luggage, took a restroom break then left me at the hotel while they headed off to visit some other estancia.
I feel it necessary to insert in here that I use the term "hotel" loosely.
Perhaps if I had been feeling better, I might rhapsodize here about the beautiful scenery surrounding the gorgeous cabin in the woods, the rustic feel to the cabin, the wonderfully authentic feel of it all.
- The temperature outside the cabin was approximately 2 degrees. The temperature inside the cabin was approximately 20 below zero. The management had failed to turn on the heat before we arrived and so the cabin was ice cold upon arrival. After 24 hours of solid heating (and again, I use this vocabulary term loosely), the temperature in the cabin had not risen at all. I would simply like it noted that central heating should in no way refer to scary-looking radiators that put off enough heat to burn you if you got too close but not enough heat to raise the temperature of the room more than 2.9 degrees.
- The first time I attempted to use the toilet was a disaster. First, finding the handle to flush a toilet in Latin America can often be an adventure. Handles as we know them do not exist in Argentina. Instead, there are usually buttons (very well-hidden) or occasionally a cord hanging above one's head. It took me a while to find the cord, but find it I did. Sadly, when I pulled it, the damn thing broke apart in my hand. This necessitated standing upon the bedet to reach above my head to re-attach the damn thing. After many excruciating moments of reaching above my head trying to tie the two pieces of the cord back together again so that I could flush the damn toilet, I finally met with success. The stupid thing was back together. Sadly, the damn toilet would not flush, so I had to climb back up on the bedet and manually flush the stupid thing, which was practically impossible to do without pitching headfirst into the toilet. I promptly decided the next time I needed to use the toilet I would use one from someone else's room. Sadly, upon exploration later in the day, I discovered everyone had locked their doors. The closest restroom necessitated a hike.
- The first time I took a shower, the water sprayed me in the face with the sting of a thousand ice blades. There were only two settings in the shower: scalding hot and freezing cold. I chose scalding hot because I froze the rest of the time.
- It was freezing.
- The damn toilet didn't work.
- I had a headache and I couldn't breathe, I was hacking up two lungs, and it was FREEZING.
- The damn toilet didn't work.
This
was pretty much my life for the next two days, as everyone else went
off to climb mountains of mammoth proportions, leaving me behind to
fight the toilet and shiver under a mountain of covers (I raided other
people's beds while they were out mountain climbing so that when they
came home, they usually found a sheet and that was all).
Eventually
after a day of misery, Samuel (the leader of our humble group) brought
me some antibiotics he purchased over-the-counter (it's a different
world down here) and I spent the next seven days downing pills the size
of a horse.
My fellow teachers trooped in on the second night covered in mud and fairly exhausted. They told tales of scaling mountains the size of Everest and falling down giant slopes into muddy water. They
scoffed at Sammy's leadership abilities, rolling their eyes at the
stories of him "leading" them to a point of no return where they had
to continue forward even when this would leave them wet and exhausted
and ready to mutiny.
By our final night in this Argentine igloo, the majority of our group had dragged their "mattresses" (or what we might commonly refer to as giant flimsy pillows) into the hallway, where they huddled around various radiators, desperately seeking warmth.
Finally, it was time to move on, so, hacking and coughing, I packed up my things, dragged my weary body to the bus, and huddled under my blankets as we ventured down the road to the next town. We visited another estancia (their third, my second, and I must admit, having already seen one, I sighed at the thought of enduring another). However, despite not feeling well, I have to admit the scenery was quite beautiful.
We then went to Che Guevara's childhood home. It was very interesting learning of his early life. I had to wonder how a child who grew up so privileged managed to develop such a strong sense of injustice. It's interesting because in some ways, though his methods for protesting injustice were vastly different from those of Martin Luther King, Che is as great a hero for many Latin American citizens as Martin Luther King is for North American ones.
Eventually we arrived back in Villa Maria, where we settled back in with our host families and continued our rounds to elementary and secondary schools. We had a chance to observe the Argentine flag ceremony at various schools on June 20 and participate in a few folkloric dancing lessons (I don't think these people understand that I have no rhythm).
I had a chance to observe in several elementary school classrooms on Friday, both by myself and with another teacher named Tom. Tom's wife is pregnant and due in August, AND was accepted to participate in this program but chose not to come due to the pregnancy, so I'm thinking he was very brave to come on this program (I know if I were married and my husband abandoned me, he'd probably never survive the trip home, which would probably be one of the many reasons I never plan to marry!) In any case, we had a lot of fun with the students, quizzing them in English and giving them prizes if they could answer appropriately (prizes were from Kansas like a bookmark, pencil, that sort of thing).
The most bizarre thing I've seen in a school so far though has to be the video shown as part of a sixth grade presentation. It involved very loud and ominous music, incomprehensible words (even if they had been in English, they still would have been incomprehensible), fleeting war-like images, etc. They took us through the history of the man who created the Argentine flag (his name escapes me at the moment) and his very important role in history, but in such a bizarre, disturbing fashion I'm surprised the children didn't all have nightmares. If I showed something like that to my students, I'd undoubtedly get fired (though this was presented by sixth graders, all primary students attended the presentation, so yes, there were 1st and 2nd graders there).
Our last Sunday in Villa Maria, we had a dinner / talent show for the families. By talent show, I really mean a non-talent show. My contribution was to put together a slide show of a collection of our photographs to share with the families. I even inserted background music (all appropriate Spanish songs) and everything. It was lovely, except for the whole non-working sound system which meant the Spanish songs I slaved over were barely audible. Then, and don't ask me how this happened, I got roped into singing Yankee Doodle Dandy (like I even know the words) and Home on the Range.
THEN, as if things weren't already bad enough, we danced the Cha Cha Slide and the Chicken Dance, all to practically non-existent music, at which point, we decided we'd shown enough non-talent, and ended with a giant bonfire and S'Mores, which were a big hit (thank god - we needed something to redeem us from tripping over each other while doing the reverse during the cha-cha slide). Overall, it went well, and hopefully those video tapes of me singing and dancing will meet some unfortunate and tragic end.
We ended our school visits in Villa Maria at Escuela Granja, a school that specializes in teaching boys who have been working in the streets of Villa Maria. Each of us brought activities to do with these boys and we had a wonderful time, drawing, painting, sewing, playing dodgeball and cooking S'Mores. The kids LOVED the activities, and the S'Mores were a big hit, once again, with both staff and students. Note to self: when traveling to a foreign country, ingredients for S'Mores are a must-have. With these in hand, I am guaranteed to be loved and remembered for all the days of my long and graceless life.
One
of the things I noticed the most in traveling from school to school is
that it really didn't matter whether we were in a private school,
public school or some combination of the two, heating was non-existent. Students
and teachers alike were bundled in layers, completing their work and
teaching while draped in scarves, hats, gloves and heavy outerwear. At
some of the poorer schools, like La Granja and a school that served the
children of migrant workers from Bolivia, children also came to school
dressed in the same outfits day after day, and were often covered in
dirt and sweat. Many children worked at home or in the fields or at some other place of employment before arriving at school. A
number of boys were seen washing windows and completing other odd jobs
around town, while still more were reported to work at a brickyard
completing masonry work. These boys ranged in age from 9 to 15. Every last one of them broke my heart and filled me with a bittersweet hope for their future. With
so much going on in their lives, the fact that these children still
make it to school on a fairly regular basis is an amazing
accomplishment, and is a tribute to the teachers who work so hard to
make sure these students know that they are missed when they do not show
up for school. The dedication of these teachers becomes
even more apparent when one learns that an average teacher's salary
here is typically 900 pesos (or 300 U.S. dollars) a month.I suppose that sums up our Villa Maria experiences: families, friends, schools, teachers, students and real moments filled with real teaching and real life. Ultimately, we had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs, plus a few embarrassing moments as well (like when a fellow unnamed, and no it wasn't me, teacher mentioned at a school, in front of a number of teachers, the principal and 20 high school students, that the U.S. might actually beat Argentina in the soccer match since it was on our home turf and stranger things have happened, only instead of saying home turf which is "cancha" she said "concha" which is slang for pussy). Yeah, things have definitely been interesting.
And it's time for me to wrap things up here for I'm leaving my host family's home in a few moments to catch a bus north. We're heading into the foothills of the Andes next. Life is definitely on fire right about now.
More later!
Amy
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