Palm Trees Covered in Snow

Monday, I woke up and my room was freezing, as usual. I got dressed and made myself oatmeal. While I was heating the water to make the oatmeal I looked outside. I was somewhat, okay very, surprised at what I saw: snow flurries. I was under the impression that it didn’t really snow much in Mendoza, just in the mountains outside the city. On the way to class, my micro (bus) passed through the city park. The palm trees in the park were dusted with snow! It was weird to see palm trees, a symbol of summer and warm climates, with snow! Anyway, the snow only stuck to the grass, and it was really just a little flurry, but still very cool! The Argentines were really excited by it. So excited that only ½ the class showed up to anthro (usually about ¾ show up).

Painting in the desert

This past weekend, the COPA group took a trip to Lavalle, a desert and the poorest area of the Mendoza province. 19 American students took a bus to the city (really town) of Lavalle and picked up a guide. That only took about an hour. Then the guide and our leader, Amparo, talked to us about the Huarpe, indigenous people who live in Lavalle. Amparo is not my favorite part of COPA: she is supposed to be the volunteer work coordinator, but pretty much just sucks at her job. She didn’t find enough positions for teaching English after promising us she would and she pretty much treats us like children who, because we don’t speak Spanish as well as she does, are incapable of thinking for ourselves.

En route to San Miguel, Lavalle, we stopped at a park where we had cake for breakfast. Yes, cake. Our program director had sent a cake which was filled with dulce de leche and topped in meringue. I took some of the meringue off the sides and ate that part. Then the guide led us through a part of the part which was made up like a museum. There were wooden structures se up to show how the Huarpes used to live.

We finally arrived in San Miguel at 12:30 (4 hours after leaving Mendoza) and picked beds and unpacked. We ate lunch and then began to paint. We went to Lavalle to paint a school and learn about the Huarpe culture. The school was a boarding school, for about 80 children who lived too far to commute to school everyday. It’s a grammar school, so children enter at age 5 and study there until 8th grade. They go to school for nine days and go home for five.

Saturday we painted four classrooms with the students and played outside with them. It was very disorganized: the floors weren’t protected well and the rooms weren’t cleaned of the dust (Lavalle is a desert). In some rooms, the kids literally painted the floor. It was mostly challenging because we were painting brick which involves rolling paint onto the face of the brick and then using a brush to coat the grout. Also, most of us agreed that we really liked the brick that was there beforehand. We also took a walk in the “town” which was a small settlement of four houses. We saw some quirquincho (armadillo) being raised to be eaten, some wild boar (same story) and some baby goats. Playing with the baby goats was just like being at Basset’s Animal Farm and watching my little brother playing with the baby goats.

Some of us taught the girls how to do the cotton-eye-Joe (line dance I learned at various grammar school dances and Bat Mitzvahs). We also played soccer and climbed on monkey-bars with them. After eating dinner with the students we had a “cultural exchange.” The kids danced some traditional Argentine dances (not the tango) for us, which was really cool because they were 10 years old and really capable dancers. Then a group of girls did the cotton-eye-Joe (again) and the electric slide with the kids. I was part of a group that put on a puppet show; I was an ant. It was a big success, the kids loved watching and wanted us to perform again, but we hadn’t prepared anything else.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast and then some students asked us to explain the American Revolution. They were learning about the Argentine revolution and we compared the motives and similarities between the two movements. Then we went outside for 10 minutes to play soccer. It was freezing cold, so playing was necessary, if anything, to stay warm. I actually kicked the ball three times!, which is pretty amazing considering my athletic ability. After going back inside, Jerin, Anna and I answered their questions as best as we could, then they asked us about the war in Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. By this point Amparo was angry that we weren’t painting/cleaning and she came over to tell the children that we had to go. They still had questions for us regarding the state of the USA as the biggest world power and what we thought of that. It was amazing that they students (who were 11 and 12 years old) had the interest and knowledge to ask us questions like these. Especially because they live in a remote place with no internet and no telephones. They go to a school which is paid for by the state, but don’t have television, newspapers, or connection with their families for 2/3 of the year.

So, Anna, Jerin and I took over one classroom and cleaned the floor really well. Then it was time for lunch. The kids at my table went nuts over the empanadas. A 5-year-old girl ate 4.5 and a 10-year-old girl ate 5 (she had me ask for an extra to give to her). I ate two. The COPA students sung songs for the kids, gave then new soccer balls and lollypops and then lined up to kiss them goodbye. Argentines always touch cheeks when greeting or parting. Finally, the president of a Huarpe community came to talk to us about their problems as an indigenous group in Argentina, but it wasn’t much different from the information I had heard in my anthro class.

On the bus ride back, we picked up people who were looking to get to Lavalle the town because very few cars pass on the dirt road. We got back to Mendoza and I took a shower, ate dinner, and went to bed.

I almost didn’t get into a boliche because I had a tampon in my bag

Any American woman (or female from the Western world) may be a little confused by that sentence. First off, a boliche is a night club – a place you go to dance. Anyway, the security at this place was major. Guys had to go through metal detectors and girls had a pat down process. During this process, the security lady found the tampon (and my allergy medicine, which she wasn’t pleased about either). I had to whine a lot (something I have perfected by watching the Argentines who want to get into someplace or accomplish something like change the date of a test) because she really did not want to let me in. She called over the male security guard to ask him what she should do about it. So I’m standing there while they are both looking at the plastic-wrapped yellow Tampax. Seeing as how I am completely free of shame, I begin to explain - in Spanish - about women and menstruation. The male security guard looks at the woman and tells her that I am a foreigner and to let me in. After all that, the club wasn’t that great (it was better than most, which only play electronic music); I’m not really much of a club person.

We also had a “cocina mendocina” (Mendoza kitchen) class. We made flan, alfajores (sandwich cookies), empanadas, tortitas (little rolls), and a veggie stew, which was the only thing I liked. The alfajores weren’t bad because they were non-traditional: usually they are super thick cookies with gobs of dulce de leche. These were thin like crackers and I made mine with marmalade. The empanadas had no flavor even though we put in a lot of spicy pepper. The tortitas were bread. Boring. Flan is disgusting to begin with; this was no different.

It was still fun to cook with some friends and we got to keep the aprons, which means that I can stay clean while cooking in my Sophia Gordon apartment!

My hout mom´s crazy family

We had a Sunday family lunch this past weekend. My host mom (Mariana) and I went to her sisters’ houses which are on the same piece of property. One sister had made this meat with mushroom gravy dish and roasted potatoes. We ate and then had tea and sat around reading the newspaper. Each sister has a COPA student staying with her. Kate lives with María-Elide and her daughters Agostina (17) and Antonela (15). Katie lives with Gaby her husband Ariel and kids Facundo (4) and Lucciana (2). So, all of these people were there along with Mariana’s father and his girl friend. Then, Mariana’s brother and his wife and one of there three children stopped by (I think this one is Juan Pedro, aged 5, or something). Kate, Katie and I decided to get out of Gaby’s house and go to the other one. We could no longer take the screaming and all had homework to do. At this point, Juan Pedro and Facundo were running around playing with a mask. Lucciana, the two-year-old, is still breast feeding. She climbs on to her mother’s lap, grabs her shirt and yanks at her bra. (We’re all sitting at the table experiencing her embarrassment for her). Kate, Katie and I discussed how age 2 probably is too old to be breast feeding and this child is horribly spoiled and never shuts up.

Katie went to take a nap, while Kate and I did more homework. As the afternoon progressed, the conversation seemed to move into the house we were in. Kate and I discussed how the family doesn’t have speaking voices. They all scream at each other. All the time. I am the luckiest student because I live with Mariana and its just the two of us. I thought Kate didn’t have it to bad living with the teenaged girls, but apparently they start screaming at 6 AM when they are getting ready for school. Kate’s room is downstairs and they go down to eat and yell up to their mother when they can’t find things. The girls also yell at their mom (and their aunts) when they are angry or don’t get what they want. Kate said they’ve even been rude to her. Apparently she’s had to yell just to be heard before. Anyway, so the family is nuts….all three generations yell at each other to be heard over all the noise they create and I’m the lucky one because I only live with one other person.

My Crazy Trip

I went home the other weekend. Home as in home home….New Jersey. I left my house in Mendoza on Friday April 27 at 4:30 PM. I went to what has to be the cutest airport ever. I mean, where else do they have grapes growing right along side the driveway? The immigration officer didn’t want to let me leave Argentina. See they have this asinine law that says Argentine residents, under 21 years of age, are not allowed to leave the country without the permission of a parent/guardian. I hold a year-long student visa, which makes me a temporary resident and I’m only 20. Thank goodness the other immigration officer was able to interject and say that in getting the visa, my parents granted me permission to travel freely. I have left Argentina 5 or 6 times, by bus, boat and plane, and no one has ever said anything to me. This just goes to prove that bureaucracy in this country is very screwed up.

I sat around while we waited for the plane to arrive from Santiago and then left late. The flight is about 25-30 minutes and you don’t even really get above the clouds. The plane gets just high enough to cross without crashing into the Andes mountains. Its actually a really beautiful view: you look out the window and its like, “Hello, snow. Hello, mountain.” (wow, nice view!) After touching down in Santiago, I boarded a refurbished long-distance bus (and by refurbished, they took some seats out) to go from the plane to the terminal. I immediately went to security and entered the international terminal, which was practically like being in America. Hello, Starbucks! (and Dunkin’ Donuts and Ruby Tuesday). I resisted the Starbucks and got a strawberry colata and one munchin (ok, that cost all of the $1100 pesos I had; I actually couldn’t afford starbucks).

For my next flight, I had to go through the “special for people flying to America” security check, which was a hand search of everyone’s carry on luggage. The only problem was, I had taken a Tylenol PM before doing the boarding pass thing and getting to this check point. So, I was practically falling asleep as I assured the airport personal that no, I was not carrying liquids (I neglect to carry my over-the-regulation-sized bottle of benadryl as liquid). I actually only slept for 5 hours of the flight, which was full. Miami international airport is a delightful place to be at 5:30AM. I power walked to immigration so I could go right through. I was greeted by a southern accent from a way-too-chipper immigration officer who welcomed me home (the first time that has ever happened….they’re much bitchier in NY and NJ and in Boston they don’t even bother to stamp my passport, let alone welcome me home). After grabbing my bags, I went to pass customs and was selected for the “random search.” Its now 6:15AM and I have to deal with a customs agent going through my stuff and questioning me as to why I have been in South America (Peru! Bolivia!) for so long and what was I doing there. I am also carry two bottles of wine (I’m under 21…), which the moron managed to miss. They were wrapped in a Peruvian hammock and quite obviously glass bottles. I have a lot of newfound faith in the US Customs and Border Patrol (not.).

My next flight was delayed with a departure gate change, which meant I got to New York ½ an hour later than scheduled and found my parents waiting for me at the exit of the terminal. We got my bag and went home. I was in HP from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday afternoon. In that time I had sushi for dinner, whitefish salad for lunch and went to my grandfather’s wake and funeral. For my return flight, we went back to La Guardia where I flew to Texas. The only problem was, we sat on the runway in New York an extra half hour before taking off and therefore, got to Texas late. I had to hurry through the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, which was actually quite nice. The monorail was quick and the international terminal had a million restaurants and stores. Before getting on the plane, I bought myself one last meal in America: a bottle of Aquafina, tortilla soup from a Tex/Mex place, and Ben and Jerry’s strawberry kiwi sorbet. Ben and Jerry’s was actually closing/closed, but the guys gave me a scoop for free (I tipped them).

The flight to Santiago was practically empty except for a group of men going to look for copper…I’m not entirely sure who they worked for or what exactly they were doing, but one was really excited because he had just found a copper penny at the airport. I still didn’t have my boarding pass for the Santiago flight, so I asked the woman at the desk at the gate (in English). She had just been speaking English with another person, but decided to respond to my questions in Spanish. I don’t know why. Then, I took two Nyquil and got on the plane. I woke up off and on during the 9 hour flight and then finally woke up and realized that I only had about 35 minutes before my next plane left.

When I got off the plane, a man was waiting with a clipboard. I gave him my name and he told me to run down the hall to the security check. I still didn’t have a boarding pass, so I stopped at the check-in area, where another guy escorted me through security and up the stairs to the Lan question desk. There, I was handed my boarding pass and told to rush to the gate. I got to the gate with 5 minutes to spare. The 25 minute flight was really nice, just like the first one and Mariana met me at the airport. I went home and went to bed.

Salir-ing to the max….or “who needs sleep?” (because I sure haven’t had any in a while).

For the non-Spanish speaking contingency, salir means “to leave” or “to go out.” It is used not only for leaving a place, but also for going out at night. It is also used for dating, but I am not referring to that use in this, my latest blog entry….

Lets go back to Thursday night….because Thursday is the night of the weekend in the US….well at least at Tufts.

Thursday I had literature for three hours, which is always an experience. During hour number one, about 15 (out of 45) students showed up to listen to the professor talk about a poet from northwestern Argentina. At the beginning of hour two, nearly 15 more entered the room to listen to the student presentations which went on for two hours. Two groups discussed the books they had to read that none of us had read because the teachers don’t bother assigning reading and when we ask what to read they tell us nothing. (We Americans are still working this out with them….). Anyway, the first group talked forever and overdid the presentation, while the second group barely talked about the book…

I went home and met up with Anna who had been at UCong for a class. We went to the movies (free!) to see Bienvenidos al Paraíso/Vers au Sur (Welcome to Paradise, which may or may not have been the title in the US). It was a French movie about women who vacation in Haiti for the sole purpose of having sex with Haitian men. Afterwards, I returned home to find my host “mom” with three of her friends drining fernet and listening to music. Fernet is the disgusting national drink of Argentina (apparently they drink shots of it in Italy). It was described to me as a herb-based alcohol, which is horribly bitter and mixed with coke (which I hate to begin with….so fernet and coke is really gross). Anyway, we stayed up until 5 AM talking about movies and music. It was really fun and reminded me of nights in Carmie with my friends: sitting around and talking as the hours fly by.

Of course, I didn’t think it was such a great night at 8.30 AM when my alarm went off telling me to get my ass out of bed and get ready for Argentine Foreign Policy. (My alarm clock actually does talk, in Spanish, and tell me to wake up – it is absolutely fantastic and I would be lost without it). After class, lunch and half of Bridget Jones’s Diary, I took a nap. Anna woke me up several times with text messages, but I didn’t really wake up until 8PM (oops…). I had dinner and watched TV, then we went to a bar (for about 7 minutes) to meet up with half our program who were there celebrating Adriana’s birthday. We got taxis and went to GEO, a boliche (club). It was ok…I am so sick of techno/electronic music, so we left “early” aka 3.45AM.

Saturday I was awoken by Mariana’s lovely two-year-old niece who makes me never ever want to have children. Actually, I think her mother woke me. Whoever it was, they were yelling at 9.45 in the morning and it was delightful. Yelling might not be the right word because these women don’t have any kind of volume control. There is one level and it is loud. I put my headphones on to John Mayer’s new album and dosed for a while. That afternoon, Anna, Mariana, her sister María Elide, her daughter Antonela, 2-year-old Luciana, and I went to a wine bodega 80 km south of the city. It was really nice – a brand new facility with art everywhere and we got to see the wine-making process at work. The drive was nice too because we were riding along side the mountains. Anna got to experience my crazy/loud family and she swears she had a good time (except for the entire half hour of Luciana screaming on the car ride home). After the bodega, we went to dinner at a nice restaurant in the city.

Saturday night I met Anna and some people at a restaurant for some wine (its Mendoza…). Then we went in search of the gay boliche, which wasn’t really a boliche when we got there. They had a show going on and then they were going to clear the place for people who wanted to dance (aka Anna). So we walked around a little and found this other boliche, which we had never heard of. We waiting in line (eww) and then had to pay (double eww) to get in. The music was amazing. Every boliche in Mendoza plays techno and nothing else until 5AM when they switch to rock nacional (Argentine rock music) for the final ½ hour of the night. This place was playing regeton, jock jams, 50s music and other stuff we loved….it was a musical schmorgass-board (that is soooo spelled wrong and MS word isn’t helping me out). We had a great time dancing and wound up staying until 5.30, when the lights came on and the place closed.

Sunday morning I woke up at 10.30 (before Mariana who had gone to bed when I left at 12.30 AM). We got ready and packed the car to go to her farm for an asado (barbeque), which was really at the Bolivian neighbor’s house because they don’t have any building on the property of the family farm. Its really just some land with cucumbers, olive trees, chard, tomatoes, parsley, and some other stuff growing. We picked veggies and olives and spent the day walking around and being outside. Her family was there and it was a lot of fun. We also made empanadas and ate grilled chicken (I think that was the best part of the meal….I had no meat, which is generally the focus of an asado). It was also interesting to see how these people live. Most of the farms in the area are tended to by Bolivian immigrants, who are not as poor as I thought they would be. I mean, there is definitely a lack of money: small, run down house, toilet doesn’t having a flush function (you throw new water into it). However, at the same time, the kids were playing playstation (it may have been Sega) for a while. We returned at 8PM with fresh veggies, plants, flowers, 30 fresh eggs (we’re two people) and an invitation to another asado next week.

MY WEEKEND WITH CLASSMATES (this title would sound better in spanish....mi fin de semana con mis compañeros de clase....)

Friday I went to the house of a classmate from Anthropology to study and have lunch. Her house was in Godoy Cruz, which is the town bordering Mendoza to the south. I took the trolé to get there. The trolé is a bus which runs on electric cables that are strung from telephone poll to telephone poll. We have the same system in Cambridge, MA (not for the 96). Anyway, I got onto the trolé and it was packed because it was lunchtime aka the beginning of nap time (siesta hours). All the students were returning home for lunch and so were a million business people and luckily I found a spot to hold on. A guy was yelling at the bus driver about how it’s a problem that the company doesn’t run enough buses and the driver shouldn’t let more people on and so on and so on. I meet my friends and we went to Ceci’s house. She had cooked a piece of meat with roasted potatoes and yams. we ate and worked on our homework assignments for a few hours. her house was in a quiet neighborhood, on a curvy street, very American.

Saturday morning, I left the house at 10 AM to go to the bus terminal. There, I met Mateo and Ametista (from my program) along with Luciana, Andrea, and Rosana (mendocinas from my argentine lit class). we took a bus to the house/farm of another classmate, ana maria. we arrived at the house and walked the grounds a little. she has cala lilies growing, along with a grapefruit tree, a quince (membrilla) tree, almond trees, beets, tomatoes, radishes, and grapes growing on her property. we picked some radishes and almonds (not me) and went into the house. her great-grandparents had built the house at the turn of the century when the immigrated from Spain. the house doesn’t have heat (the thick mud walls insulate it) and the bathroom is attached, but outside. we started by helping her mother make empanadas, which was really fun. she had even made the dough herself. after assembling the empanadas, we set the table and got the fire going for the barbeque. the empanadas were cooked in a clay oven and the meat was all cooked over an open flame. we cut radishes and tomatoes to have some veggies with our dead cow.

after eating way to much with ana maria’s family (husband and two kids), we went for a walk through the tomato patch and picked some to take home. We had some mate (which is sort of like super strong tea) and sat around talking. I didn’t get back to the city until 10.30 PM.

Sunday, I literally did nothing. I spent the day watching television and drinking tea (ok, and doing homework). I watched ER, Law and Order and two hours of extreme makeover home edition. it was such a lazy day and reminded me of all the lazy Sundays I spent in carmie.

Monday, I went to my anthro class and we had a debate/discussion with some indigenous students on how the indigenous populations of argentina are viewed. Without notice, the profe asked me to comment on the American Indian population and I had to speak in front of the entire class (120 people). Then, a news tv crew (ok, two guys) was there and wanted me to comment on camera, in Spanish, about discrimination and racism from an American perspective. So, I gave a TV interview, but I’ll never see the thing because it won’t air until September.

My profe invited me to go with him, another profe and some students to cut cacti that afternoon. they are doing this project where they grow cacti near the university and if you cut the branches (round parts) of the cacti you can grow another one (you don’t even have to plant it really, they multiply like rabbits). so, we went and cut cacti and then brought them to another place to store them before bringing them to Lavalle, a poor area where a lot of indigenous people live. it was really fun and I had nothing else to do yesterday.

Today, we had a “public class” for anthro. we went to the legislative building which is on the pedestrian street right near the main plaza (aka a few blocks from my house). we started over an hour after we were going to (which means two hours after the class was scheduled to start). the entire class consisted of the professor and two students reading an article on the incorporation of Native American groups into Latin American society.

public classes were started as a way for students and teachers to protest together. the university is located on a hill, in the park. this puts it away from the center of the city where all the people are and, therefore, university protests on campus don’t call attention to anything. (although, they can piss people off, like last week when students blocked the entrance to the university, aka no bus access). while we weren’t really protesting, merely informing the public, it was still really interesting. reporters were there, as well as a group from the church and another group representing farmers without land (they weren’t really part of our class/protest/thing….our teacher hadn’t invited them; they came to do their own protest).

I finally found out about the food coupons. I had seen people in the food store paying for their groceries with coupons which look like food stamps. They come in booklets; each coupons is worth 5 pesos (1.65 USD). People use them to pay for their food and then pay the rest in cash. Our teacher sent me and another girl to buy thread (we were going to hang posters, but never bothered). He gave us the coupon book and some cash (not all places accept the coupons). I was finally able to ask someone what the coupons were. She told me that public employees (ie: our teacher and other state university teachers) receive a salary that comes in two parts: one in cash/money and the other in consumption coupons. When I asked her why this was, she told me that there just isn’t enough money in the country for the government to pay everyone in pesos. She said that the coupons became especially popular after the 2001 economic crash and now there is inflation (that was obvious to me) and they seem to be using them more and more. As far as the inflation goes, every day things are costing more and more. I think I wrote about the coffee/pastry inflation that happened on my block a few weeks ago. at the same time two cafes raised their “special” rate for coffee. A kiosk raised its price from $1 to $1.20 (coffee and bread) and a café went from $4 to $4.50 (coffee, tiny juice, and two croissants). While this doesn’t seem like much, its happening across the country. Today on the news they reported that fruit and vege prices may rise as much as 40% over the next few weeks. In September, all plane ticket prices went up 10%, all bus companies quickly followed suit and raised their prices by 10% as well.