Club ACORN

For the past few months I've been volunteering my time to a local community center based in La Boca and Barracas neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. It's funded by ACORN an American based non-profit whose mission is providing local communities with a safe and educational place. The idea is to help teach the children at the center concepts of communication, relationships, and respect for one another as well as their own self. At our actual center we offer English classes for the younger students and adults, dance, music, and art classes for the children, after-school tutoring, and literacy courses for the adults. Everything is volunteer based, so the more volunteers the more we can provide for these communities. We have plans to improve the adult classes and introduce an exercise program as well computation classes. In addition we are working on providing a free psychological service, as many of the children come from troubled back-rounds and could the extra guidance. We hope to provide the families of this community services that are currently unavailable to them in hopes that it will brighten their futures.

As of know we have a solid group of kids who come regularly throughout the week to partake in the variety of weekly activities. The above photos are from the other day when we took advantage of the nice weather and traveled all together to a nearby park to play a friendly game of soccer (an obvious favorite). In the background you can see the Boca soccer stadium, which is one of the more popular teams in Argentina, and for the people of this community their everything. Limited to the goal I waited for the perfect opportunity to show the boys that girls can play too. About 15 minutes into play one of the boys felt confident enough to pass the ball back to me in goal (Just so you know I was stopping shots like a wall up until this point...). I decided to leave my 6x6 box and advance forward with the ball. Schooling one little kid after the next and suffering blow after blow to the shins I made it to the other side. I took one look at the goalie...shot and made it! I retreated back to my box with cheers from my teammates, never to advance again. I wasn't proud of myself for schooling 12 year old boys, but I feel like I broke down the barrier of boys being better than girls...probably not forever, but at least for a second. I couldn't help myself.

Iguazu

Although I didn't go, I do think Iguazu in all of it's majesty, warrants a section of my blog. Hopefully I'll find myself there in the future.

A Glance at What I'm Missing

Salta la Linda

Although the city of Buenos Aires is an adventure in and of itself we set off for the Northwest of Argentina on May 26th. This extensive territory was home to Argentina's earliest settlers, and contains some of the country's most rugged landscape. The NW is in large part, colorful because mineral-rich mountains line the countrysides and the dry sunny climate has made it ideal for settlers over the past 10,000 years. This is the most traditional region of Argentina, and the influence of the indigenous population is still relatively considerable. Salta, known as "Salta la Linda: Salta the beautiful" is one of the most well-established and historically rich towns in the northwestern province of the Lerma Valley, and this is where we arrived on our first day.

Aside from a much tranquil atmosphere, one of the distinctions between Buenos Aires and Salta was the people. Where BsAs has many of its roots in European culture subsequently the people in the city come from European decent and lack a distinct look; however, in Salta many of the people still resemble their Indian ancestors of the past and many have a reddish tone to their skin and have dark hair and dark eyes. The beautiful people complimented the historic city of Salta, which was lined by small cobble-stoned streets and pre-colonial buildings. We passed the first day in the city of Salta visiting the historic sites, and the best view came from atop of the Ferrocaril (ski lift) that took you to the top of a mountain peak and looked down on the entire city. While in the city we took advantage of the typical cuisine, locro. Locro is a stew, which is made form a pumpkin and squash base that has corn (kernels the size of a quarter) sausage, and meat still on the bone. Great comfort food!

We decided to see the mountainside of this beautiful province up and close, so we opted for an "off-the beaten track" tour. Nothing says "off the beaten-track" better than cruising down dried out riverbeds and barely trampled paths in 4WD's. Our guides Nico and Facu made it their mission to show us the best of Salta's natural beauty from a perspective barely seen by tourists. The next two days were spent cruising through rivers alongside mountains layered with colors, hiking along Incan trails, spotting concords, rock climbing alongside a waterfall, and for the cultural part, an asado and mate next to a campfire.

In these two days we saw wild burros running through the hillsides, a real gaucho collecting wood, ate goat-cheese that came from a woman living on the side of the hill, photographed cacti alongside a mountain topped with snow, and chatted with the locals in Cachi. Walking away from this experience we left with more than what was promised. We didn't only see this province in all its beauty; we left with a respect for their culture. A special thanks to Niko and Facu for truly making this a memorable experience for me and my family, and especially for the great food, stories, songs, and mate shared by the fire.

Enjoy the photos and below is the website of our tour guides for anyone who may be interested in visiting this amazing part of Argentina.

www.pumaexpeditions.com.ar

Friends and Family Share in the Experience

On May 23 my parents and my aunt and uncle walked wearily through the airport gates of Buenos Aires after 15 hours of traveling. Being as they were my first visitors, this was my first opportunity to share my experience with someone. Finally all the stories shared over the Internet through emails and phone calls suddenly had texture as my family got to see with their own eyes the city of Buenos Aires. Of course the first lesson learned was watch out for traffic, and subsequently Spanish words like "vamos" (let's go), "rapido" (quickly), and "cuidado" (careful) were learned instantly. The following two weeks would be filled with lots of city walking, sight seeing, and trips to the mountains of Salta and the waterfall filled jungles of Iguazu.

As the days went by checking out sights and trying new foods, my family was learning more and more about where is was that I was living and a newfound appreciation for my Rotary experience grew. We saw many incredible things, shared many stories, and even created new memories, but what I enjoyed sharing the most with them weren't empanadas or the tango, but rather it was introducing them to the friends that I've made. As my very own experience has been molded around the people I've met and the friends I've made, obviously it meant a lot to have both my worlds come together and meet.

Naturally the best way to meet friends is having a good old BBQ or Asado as they call it here. Christina, a rotary scholar from Florida, was celebrating her birthday and an asado was made in her honor. Friends, classmates, rotary scholars, rotary advisors, and both Christina's family and mine were all in attendance. Faces were put to names as my parents were introduced to my friends and good food was shared by all (Thanks to Christina's advisor Hernan who manned the grill making sure no meat was served cold because cold meat is a sin here.). A special thanks to Christina's family for hosting us all and to everyone who helped in making that evening a special one for everyone, and an especially good one for the birthday girl.

After meeting my friends it was time for my family to meet my family here, my Rotary family that is. Coming on the last evening on the trip my parents were introduced to Willie, Liliana and Humberto, another Rotary club member who has been very influential in my life. Thanks to Humberto's English and my Spanish, stories were shared despite language barriers. However, language isn't necessary to express a parent's gratefulness in caring for their child. Willie and Humberto have been coined my argentine fathers for a reason, and on that night my parents had the chance to thank them for all they've done, and for Humberto and Willie to thank them for sharing me with them. Three hours went by filled with smiles, stories, tears, and of course me blushing as all the important people in my life came together over that dinner. For me this was the most memorable part of the trip!!!!!

Quick Soccer Update

The Ladies of Belgrano are currently in first place with a record of 3-0-1. We beat UBA (La Universidad de Buenos Aires), which was considered the favorites going into the season, 5-1. As of now we are two games out from tournament time and things are looking up!

Never a Dull Moment

Why does Buenos Aires look like London on a really foggy day? Good question, however that's not fog that's smoke! North of the city there was an illegal crop burning that got out of control and thanks to the weather Gods, the smoke made it's way to the city and stayed for over a week. The cold weather currents from the south and the warm winds from the north were enough to keep the smoke or "el humo" compressed in the city skies. Although my tone is joking, this was a serious problem, which caused quite a few accidents due to the low visibility. Above all it made breathing a bit difficult and burned at our eyes and our throats. Those who were responsible have been condemned, and all is back to "normal" here. Every once in a while I'll catch a whiff of the lingering campfire smell.

What could possibly be all that yellow on the highway? But of course it's 2 tons of lemons that fell off a truck and onto the high way below. Fortunately no one was driving by when the top-heavy truck took the turn a little fast and lost his lemon load on none other but the busiest street in the center. Naturally traffic was backed up for hours as they cleaned the lemons off the road. The biggest problem they had wasn't cleaning up the mess of lemons and boxes, but dealing with the people who were running across the high way to steal a few of the precious lemons.

The spontaneous occurrences have made for great stories and memorable experiences so thank you BsAs for never having a dull moment!