Tango Lesson

One of the only things I wanted to do while in Argentina was learn how to tango, so I was excited that we finally got to go to a lesson during our last week in Rosario. Our lesson was only for an hour and the girls outnumbered the guys, so I didn't get to dance for very long.

Practicing the tango

When Cain saw this he asked if he was really this much taller than me. Did you not notice from the first day we met?

Practicing the tango with one of the instructors

Learning to tango was a lot of fun, and I'm just hoping that I'll have the opportunity to show off my tango skills now that I'm home!

“Somos la Ciudad, Somos Rosario” Rosario Central Fútbol!

For some reason, I was under the impression that one of our planned excursions while in Argentina was to attend a fútbol (soccer) game. I’m not a huge soccer fan, but I was a little disappointed when I found out that we weren’t going to attend a game. Fortunately, Cain was a little more motivated than I was to make attending a fútbol game a reality. He looked into the schedules for the two soccer teams in Rosario, Newell’s Old Boys (NOB) and Rosario Central, and learned that our last weekend in Rosario was the start of Rosario Central’s season. I’ve been a little partial to NOB because their letters really speak to home, and I was hoping that we could make one of their games, but they weren’t playing this weekend. After figuring out who all wanted to attend the fútbol game and where to buy tickets, Cain and I set out for la cancha de Rosario Central (the stadium) on Friday afternoon. We were a little nervous that they wouldn’t let 2 of us buy 8 tickets, but the worst that could happen would be that everyone else would have to go on their own to see what tickets were left, so we took our chances.

La cancha de Rosario Central is on the far north side of town. As we took a taxi to la cancha, we could tell we were entering Central territory because all the graffiti along the sides of the road was blue and yellow. When the taxi driver dropped us off in front of the stadium, we were surprised that there were hardly any people around. Fortunately, there was one other person purchasing tickets at the same time, or we would have had no clue where to find the ticket office. The whole setup was very sketch. There was a sheet of paper in a plastic sleeve taped to the cinderblock wall listing the prices of tickets. A ticket cost 150 pesos for men and 125 pesos for women. We stepped up to the ticket window, which was a sheet of plywood with a few holes drilled in it, to talk to the voice coming from inside the office. Unable to see the man behind the window, we pooled 1050 pesos for 8 tickets and passed our stack of pesos under the plywood. After we received our tickets, Cain and I decided to walk around the stadium and its surrounding neighborhood. We discovered that Rosario Central is not just a fútbol team, but also an athletic club and community center. We also saw el Río Panara from a different view. There were a few beachy areas as well as tiki huts set up along the river, which seemed very out of place in the midst of a city. After walking around the neighborhood, we caught a taxi back to the site to distribute the tickets.

The other program was supposed to have their navegación on the river on Saturday afternoon, and since our trip was cancelled due to weather last weekend, we were invited to go this weekend. Unfortunately, there were thunderstorms in the forecast, even though it was sunny when we were supposed to go, and the navegación didn’t happen for the second weekend. We were supposed to meet at el Monumento de la Bandera when the boat tour was over, but since we were done an hour and a half before we were supposed to be, we ended up meeting at Plaza San Martin at 4pm for the 6:15pm game. We set out for la cancha, only get dropped off a few blocks away from the stadium because the police had blocked the street that runs in front of the stadium. While we waited for the students in the last taxi to arrive, we got to experience the fandom on the street. Everyone that walked past us was decked out in blue and yellow. Grills were set up on every corner, and Rosario Central clothing shops were set up along every block. City buses carrying fans were so crowded that people had climbed to the top of the bus and were dancing on the top like it was no big deal. What!?

Apparently, dancing on top of buses is totally normal.

The craziness only continued once we arrived at la cancha. We walked past a line of armed militants in order to get in. Once we arrived in our section, we found that our seat numbers were really only suggestions of where to sit, as our seats were occupied by boxes and boxes of paper shreds. As game time got closer, the drums from the fan section got louder and louder, mortars were shot off, and the stands filled with jumping, singing, flag-bearing blue-and-yellow clad fans. It was crazy. We were totally in the middle of it. Here’s a video (you will be in awe of my videoing skills):

The game itself was just as you’d expect any fútbol game to be. Fans cheered when Rosario Central did something well, and booed and shouted insults when the team messed up or the refs made a call they didn’t like. One section of fans, what I would compare to a student section, sang and beat drums through literally the entire match. I told Mary that I would convert to a Rosario Central fan if they won, but if they lost, my allegiance would stay with Newell’s. My allegiance didn’t change as Rosario Central lost 0-1. As the team walked off the field looking defeated, the fans in the stands around me all started shouting. At first, I thought they were showing their loyalty to their team, but then I realized they were shouting insults at the team for losing! I couldn’t believe it.

We knew that we weren’t going to get a taxi right outside la cancha, so we started following the masses of people down the street. We tried walking along side streets parallel to the main road to see if any taxis were hiding down there, but there were none to be found. Thanks to my ability to remember directions, we walked back the way that Cain and I went home in the taxi on Friday afternoon. This road would take us past Alto Rosario Shopping, and we figured we might have more luck catching a taxi down there. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea we did, so we just kept walking to try and find a less densely populated area to catch a taxi. One eventually passed us, so 4 people jumped in to go home. The rest of us ended up walking the entire way back to our neighborhood in Barrio Central. We had to have walked for at least an hour and a half, maybe closer to two hours, so we rewarded our hard work with ice cream.

Rosario Central fútbol was certainly a sporting experience unlike any I’ve been to in the United States. It would have been awesome if they had won, but just to feel the passion from the fans was incredible. It was also quite the experience walking through Rosario for hours trying to get home. I’m glad I spent my last night in Rosario at the fútbol match. As Cain and I were getting ready to leave the site on Friday to buy the tickets, one of the Spanish professors told us, “Fútbol no es un deporte. Es una religion!” (Soccer isn’t a sport. It’s a religion). After seeing the fans at the game on Saturday afternoon, I can definitely see why she’d say that.

Two School Visits in One Week

On Tuesday, August 7^th, we were scheduled to observe at Madre Teresa de Calcuta Comedor y Colegio. It was a rainy day, which I hadn’t realized when I woke up for class at 8am, so my flats were soaked by the time we arrived at the school across town. We were let into the building, and it reminded us strongly of a jail because of the narrow hallways and bars over all the windows, including the interior ones. We were shown into the directress’ office, where the secretary talked to us while the directress stood by. Carmen told us later that because the secretary was male, he technically held a higher rank than the directress, which is why he talked with us! Crazy! He told us about how the school is run basically as a charter school. Parents receive a salary to send their students to school there. On the surface, this sounds like a good way for low-income families to send their students to a private school, but Marcela (our Spanish teacher) had told us in class that parents often abuse this welfare system. Another thing that the secretary told us was that we could take pictures of the students for personal use, but we couldn’t post any pictures of the students online because many of them are in the school through the judicial system and we couldn’t risk revealing the students’ identities online.

When the secretary finished explaining everything in the office, he took us on a tour through each of the classrooms. The students mostly asked us the same questions over and over again, while other students just ignored that we were there. In one math classroom, a little girl named Guadalupe pointed at me across the room and waved me over to her. I wasn’t sure what she wanted, but I went over to her and knelt down by her desk. She said, “Tenés ojos lindos” (“You have beautiful eyes”) which was just so precious that she had even noticed from across the room. In the last room we visited as a group, which was second grade, I walked in first and headed toward the back of the room. As I was walking by, a little girl in the back row jumped out of her chair, blocking my path, and then jumped into my arms for a hug. Once she broke the ice, we were all flooded by hugs from the second graders. 

Dining Hall in Madre Teresa de Calcuta. One of the things that distinguishes this school from others in Argentina!

It was a cold, rainy day when we visited Madre Teresa de Calcuta.

After we stopped by all of the classrooms from 1^st through 7^th grade, the secretary asked which classes we wanted to visit again. Carmen pointed out that since I’m secondary ed, I should go to one of the older grades, even though I was perfectly content going back to one of the primary grades. Mary and I ended up back in a social studies classroom, where the students wanted very little to do with us. We tried to ask them questions about what they were studying (Cristobal Colón, or Christopher Columbus) but they weren’t very responsive. It was also very strange because they asked what our names were, and I told them Raquel because in all the other schools we’ve visited, when I say Rachel my name is usually corrected to Raquel, but these students just looked very confused. Later, we found out that they might have reacted negatively to my name because Raquel is not currently considered a name for young people. Ouch! Not a moment too soon, our visit was over, and I found myself walking home in the rain while the other students went to teach a lesson at another school. I could have gone to observe them, but I was tired, hungry, and figured I could work on my final Spanish presentation. Instead, I watched Whose Line is it Anyway episodes on YouTube. Good life choice.

Our final school visit was planned for Thursday afternoon. We had been hearing a lot about this visit for the last 3 weeks because Marcela teaches 13-year-olds at Maristas. When we walked to the school, I realized I had walked past it a few times when walking along Blvd Oroño. It’s a very pretty school, but the front of the building doesn’t do the school as a whole justice. It’s HUGE. The building is as long as an entire city block. After waiting in the lobby, we were escorted to the directress’ office. She served us soda and dulces and gave us some of the workbooks that the students were using to learn English. Soon after we arrived, she had to leave for another meeting, but she told us that we could go wherever we wanted to observe in the school. She asked what grade levels we wanted to observe, and I just assumed I would tag along with the others to observe the younger grades. Carmen pointed out that I was studying secondary ed (she seems to be really good at that), and the directress told me I would have to wait until 2:30 when the secondary school started. And just like that, I was left alone in the office with a bunch of teachers while the others from my program went to observe the primary grades.

This is Colegio Maristas from Oroño. The school expands behind this front office part!

After standing awkwardly in the office, the teacher I was supposed to go with asked if I first wanted to observe in Marcela’s classroom. I told her I would, especially since I wasn’t doing anything else, and she walked me to Marcela’s classroom. Marcela’s only been telling us in class how rowdy her students are, and I could definitely see that in class. Students were talking over Marcela, and I don’t think she ever had all of their attention at one time. A group of students presented on the Olympics in English, and even though I was sitting in the front row they were speaking so quietly and the other students in class were talking that I hardly heard any of their presentation. I felt bad, but there wasn’t really anything I could do. At 2:45, the first teacher came back to pick me up. As we walked to her classroom, she told me that she had 16-year-olds. She told me I could speak in English or Spanish to them, as they were really excited to practice their English with a native speaker.

There was a totally different feeling in this classroom than in Marcela’s. I sat in a circle with the students while they asked me questions about where I was from, if I liked Rosario, etc. It was really funny because I was explaining to them where Indiana is in the United States, and I started naming off the states around it. After I finished explaining, the teacher told me that they watch a lot of American films and that I speak just like the people in the movies! It made me laugh because I’ve never been told that before. She also asked me to speak in Spanish at one point, and when I was done the students all clapped for me. It was so presh! After we finished talking, the teacher asked me if I wanted to help her teach the lesson. I wasn’t really sure what she wanted, but I said “Why not?” and she opened her book so I could read it with her. The lesson was about writing articles for a school magazine or newspaper. As we read through the objectives for the lesson, the teacher said, “I have to use the toilet. Do you mind teaching the lesson until I get back?” And then she left me in charge of the classroom. I wasn’t really sure what to do, but I had two students read the article examples out loud. After reading, they gave me ideas of what things were good and what things were bad about each article, and I wrote their ideas on the board. Around that time, the teacher came back and added her own two cents about everything. She then announced that it was time for a break and time for me to leave, so I snapped a few pictures with the students before I left. Maristas was a very different school from those we’ve observed in previously. Although it wasn’t perfect and I didn’t get to see a lot of it, they were very excited to have us there and invited us to come back and teach next time we’re in Rosario. I’d be very interested in that opportunity!

These are the 16-year-olds that I taught! They were wonderful students :)

New Month, New Adventures in Argentina

I just looked back over my blog and the last time that I posted about my day to day activities in Rosario was almost a week ago. What!? So here's what I've been up to in the last week:

Wednesday, August 1st:

Apparently nothing happened this day, since I don't have anything written down in my agenda and I don't remember anything. Whoops.

Thursday, August 2nd:

This was the only day of the week that I didn't have morning class, and I had to wake up early to visit Colegio Soldados Argentinos. We've been on a little hiatus from visiting schools because they just had their 2 week winter break (it's strange: just like we get 2 weeks of a winter break around Christmas, they take a 2 week break in the middle of July). To top off having to wake up early, it was raining. This school was very different from the other public school that we visited. The directora offered us coffee and dulces in the office when we arrived, and we ended up having a good discussion about how standardized testing works in Argentina versus in the States and how this school was set up to have 3 different schools in 1 building. After talking with her, she escorted us to a English classroom, where we sat across from all the students and introduced ourselves. Then we broke up into groups to give all the students an opportunity to practice speaking in English. It was such a great experience to talk individually with these students, and we were glad that the teacher let us use the whole class period to interact with the students.

ESOL B and the students at Soldados Argentinos

Friday, August 3rd:

After class in the morning, we went on a walking tour of the city in the afternoon. I'll admit, I didn't pay very much attention to the tour. We walked all the way down Córdoba to the river, which is a long walk. We enjoyed the facade of the buildings and learned about how different types of architecture influenced the city over the years. Our tour ended at the Monumento de la Bandera. There is definitely a lot of symbolism in the Monumento that I wouldn't have realized without the guide. It definitely made me appreciate the Monumento that much more!

After our tour, the girls had to go back to class, and Cain and I went shopping. We were on a mission to find an alfajor shop that Cain had been told makes the best alfajores in Rosario. Alfajores are made by taking two cookies and placing some sort of filling in between, such as fruit jam or dulce de leche. Then, they are often dipped in a layer of chocolate, or sugar, or coconut (depending on what kind of alfajor you're getting). Alfajores are made differently in every region of Argentina, and the alfajores we tried at Havana were delicious! After we went home, I decided that I wanted to have a low-key evening to get caught up on some work I've been avoiding while abroad. I cleaned up my inbox and sent some Kappa Delta related emails. Then I went to bed at a decent hour. It was a great evening.

Saturday, August 4th:

We were scheduled to take a boat ride through el Río Paraná on Saturday afternoon at 2. The place where we were supposed to meet was all the way past the Monumento de la Bandera. It takes me about half an hour to get there if I'm keeping a good pace. I left my house 15 minutes before I was supposed to be there because I couldn't decide if I should wear my coat because I was trying to look like a hobo. I had to run a lot of the way there, but since I hadn't stretched or anything my shins hurt really badly. I'm pretty sure the time I made up while running was negated by how slowly I walked the rest of the time, because I thought my shins were about to burst (is that possible?). After I got all the way there, only 5-10 minutes late, I found out that we weren't going on the navegación because the wind had stirred up the river too much. Since we were all down by the Monumento, we decided that we would try and go to the top. After paying our 5 pesos each, we took the elevator to the top and saw the entire city from above. It was beautiful. When we came back down, we walked home along Córdoba, shopping and watching street performers.

I don't wish to talk about Saturday night. We were supposed to go to the boliche but no one listened to me and we didn't go. I did not particularly enjoy the evening.

Sunday, August 5th:

I did not sleep well once I finally got to bed Sunday morning, which only fueled the bad mood I was in most of the day. I felt like I had wasted my day because I was supposed to go shopping along the river with Jessie, but by the time I got up the willpower to shower and look presentable, I didn't have much daylight left. I headed out to the river anyway, thinking that maybe it would clear my mood.

I knew the artisans set up shop along the river on Sundays, but I had no idea that the park would be as packed as it was. There were crowds of people everywhere, and I wasn't sure how I felt about the crowdedness as a way to clear my head. Once I started browsing the stands, listening to live bands play, and watching a traditional dance, I was amazed at how much my mood lightened. Seeing the joy in the people enjoying the parks and sharing their handiwork, whether through an aural, visual, or material form, made me very appreciative of the day. I wish I had had more time to shop, but I had to make my way back into town for church. I was glad that Mary, Melissa, and Cain joined me this week, and we went out for ice cream after. It was some of the best ice cream I've had here, and we eat a lot of ice cream. When I got home, I was really tired, so I put my iTunes on shuffle and wrote in my journal, turning in for the night early.

Monday, August 6th:

Going to bed early had its benefits. I was able to get out of bed over an hour before I was supposed to leave, and I was surprisingly happy for being awake before 8am. After class, Mary, Cain and I went to lunch, and when Mary had to leave for class, Cain and I ran around the city for a photo shoot. After the other girls got out of their afternoon class, we headed over to Manuel Tienda Leon to buy our bus tickets to Buenos Aires for our flights home. It was sad. Have I mentioned that I don't want to leave? Since we walked across town, Mary and I decided that we wanted to try a crepería we had seen near Starbucks a few weeks before. I had a delicious dulce de leche crepe, and Mary finally the Nutella crepe she's been talking about since we found the crepería. I thought the dulce de leche crepe was much better than the Nutella crepe. After enjoying our crepes, we practiced bidet ballet to Canon in D. Video to come soon. Then we walked around the city, feeding the stray dogs with the dog food Mary was carrying in her backpack and enjoying each others company. And now I'm here writing, one of my other favorite activities, so really this day can't get much better.

Although I'm slaving away over my studies abroad, I'm finding time for some fun. One thing we've all really enjoyed is the presence of the bidet, pronounced "boo-day." Almost every bathroom has one, but apparently no one uses them. In the last few days, I've come across two nontraditional uses for them...

...shelf for a hairdryer...this looks safe.

...Bidet Ballet!

Part 2 of 2: Mid Program Thoughts

Here's the second part of the post I started the other day. I've been wanting to write a mid program reflection since ESOL A ended, but obviously we're a little past midway now (more like midway through the second half of the program!). This post has taken me a long time to write because I have so many ideas I'm trying to wade through, so I hope you'll stick with me as I try and unpack this experience!

I had the opportunity to sit down at an heladeria (ice cream shop) with Mary and Emily last week. It was great to talk with them (over café con leche and medialunas, of course) about education, how this trip has affected each of us individually, as well as how we've grown together as a group. I really enjoyed our conversation for many reasons, but mostly because of the passion that drove our conversation. Have you ever had a conversation with people who are as passionate about a subject as you are? If you haven't, you probably should. It's exhilarating. I love that I can talk about education with anyone from the ESOL group and we'd never run out of things to talk about. It's very different from what I'm used to at home, and I'm loving how much I'm learning about the differences between education systems in public and private schools, as well as between countries and even between states.

One thing that I talked about with Mary and Emily was how I really feel like myself here in Argentina. I think it took removing myself from my friends, family, home culture, and the pressures that each of those embody for me to be able to look honestly at myself and where I am in my life. One friend from home that has known me since the sixth grade told me that she can see a new confidence in me since I've been living in Argentina (thanks El). While I would agree that I feel confident in a new way here, I don't think that this confidence happened just because I left the United States. I think it's been inside me the whole time,  just been looking for the right experience to give it an outlet.

Mary said something about how our ESOL group seems to mesh so well because besides a passion for education, we all have one thing in common: we were willing to leave what is comfortable behind and place ourselves completely into the unknown that is Argentina. This idea really resonated with me as I thought about how I ended up in Rosario.

Committing to spend 6 weeks of my summer in Argentina did not come easily to me. I was excited about the prospect of studying abroad while filling out the initial paperwork. The glee that came from getting accepted to my program subsided once I started to doubt if I could get on a plane by myself and leave everything and everyone I knew in the United States behind. I cried a LOT at inopportune moments and waited for someone to give me an excuse for why I shouldn't study abroad. The biggest hurdle came when I found out I had the opportunity to go to one of my favorite places in the world (I'm not sure world is the right word since my definition of the world has widened but I can't think of any other word to use), Bethlehem Farm.  I absolutely love the Farm and the four cornerstones of prayer, simplicity, community, and service that it embodies. I hadn't been to the Farm since the summer after graduating from high school, and I had an opportunity come up that would pretty much guarantee I could spend a week at the Farm this summer. Suddenly, I felt rushed to make a decision about whether to study abroad or go to B Farm because I had to reserve my spot on the B Farm trip or basically commit to studying abroad. If I decided not to take the opportunity to go to B Farm and backed out of studying abroad, I would be faced with spending the summer in Noblesville, which was the opposite of the adventure I promised myself I would go on after my sophomore year of college.

One day, I visited my linguistics professor, Dr. Stallings, during her office hours to ask for help with a project. At the beginning of the semester, Dr. Stallings helped me evaluate the courses I wanted to take abroad to see if they could transfer back to Ball State for ESOL credit, and she asked how my decision to study abroad was coming along (I bet she didn't see what door that question would open). I grew visibly more upset as I told her about feeling rushed to make a decision between B Farm and Argentina. She told me the first thing I had to decide was whether I was really making a decision between going on the mission trip and studying abroad, or if fear was holding me back from making a firm decision. She didn't ask me to give her an answer, but I knew as soon as she asked that I was just looking for an excuse to push Argentina away because B Farm would be the more comfortable trip for me to take this summer. This isn't to say that a trip to B Farm would be easy: I've learned so many important things at B Farm about service work and spirituality, and those things certainly push me to grow in ways that aren't always comfortable. But if I had gone to the Farm, I would be surrounded by members of my youth group with whom I would do almost anything. Instead, I chose to leave them behind, with promises to pray for the success of their trip, and jet set to a different hemisphere to be the only student from Indiana among a group of students from Oregon. And look at where I am now that I'm here: the confidence that often gets hidden behind fears of wanting to fit in and not wanting to be awkward (which I fail at daily...oh well) has allowed me to explore a side of myself that probably would have stayed hidden if I had stayed at home this summer.

I can't believe that I only have 10 days left in Argentina. I keep joking (kind of) about how I want to stay until my visa expires in another 47 days. There are so many things I'm enjoying here and would love to experience with more time, but there are some things I can't wait for when I get home, like my moccasin slippers and a central heating system and peanut butter. This post was a lot harder for me to write than I thought it would be. It took a long time as I jumped between ideas, trying to write down the ideas in my head as they came to me. It also took a long time for me to edit my ideas into a form that I would feel comfortable publishing because writing about a lot of these thoughts makes me feel very vulnerable. I'm not sure that these thoughts are in their final form, as some of these thoughts are so dense that if I wrote down everything I wanted to say about them, you would give up reading my post based on its length. This experience isn't over yet, and I can already tell that I won't be able to sum it up neatly when I get home. If there's one thing I've learned from my class on Culture and Community as well as my everyday interactions with the people around me, it's that complexity has to be embraced before it can be questioned, which is difficult for me to do as I like to have the answers to everything. With those thoughts before me, here's to my final week in Rosario! Thanks for all your support through prayers and reading my blog!

Part 1 of 2: The Last Few Days

I wanted to write a two-part post about both what's been going on for the last few days in Rosario and also giving a brief update of how I'm feeling about the experience as a whole. My plan was to write about both of these topics in one blog post, but since I wanted to get something published tonight, I decided to break one long post into two shorter posts. So below is part 1: a summary of the last few days in Rosario:

After coordinating plans via email to turn the final version of Mi Aventura in to Karie (since I couldn't email it to her because the file was too big) and meet Mary at Starbucks, both of these plans were realized Saturday afternoon. Starbucks was quite an experience. I felt obnoxiously American when I walked in because I was supporting an American company while in Rosario (when I told Eugenia I was going to Starbucks, which is maybe 6 blocks down our street, she asked me what Starbucks was. I almost died. That might be an exaggeration. I'm not obsessed with Starbucks.), wearing letters, and carrying Vera Bradley. When we went to order, the man working the counter spoke in English, so we placed our order for alto (tall) dulce de leche frappuccinos. After ordering, he said he didn't have any cups in that size, and would it be okay if he gave us a larger size (it would be easier for him to give us change that way too)? He was holding up a cup for a warm drink, which should have been my first hint that we weren't getting our frappuccinos. When they called our names, we were surprised to find not alto dulce de leche frappuccinos, but venti dulce de leche lattes! You could tell I was mad about it by the way I drank the entire venti latte. After Starbucks I went home briefly, only to walk back to Starbucks about 2 hours later to meet the gang for our evening activity.

Even though Karie's class ended a week ago, she's been hanging out and going to events with us. Saturday was her last night in Rosario, and we wanted to spend the evening with her. We had found a bowling alley while shopping on Friday, and we thought that would be something fun and low-key for all of us to do. After meeting at Starbucks, we made our way to a different bowling alley around 9:30, and the place was dead. We still had fun, and when our game was finished Karie went home to rest up for her day of travel and Mary, Melissa and I headed to an Irish pub. We sat at the bar because there were no tables available. After we had been sitting at the bar for a while, the bartender told us that the bar was cerrado (closed) and that they would get a table for us if we wanted to stay. We then looked around at the rest of the people sitting at the bar, only to find that we were the only women sitting there. There were also 3 men standing by the door behind us, and it looked like we were getting kicked off the bar in order for these men to sit there! We were a little confused about why we were asked to leave, but then we found out that in Argentina people only sit at the bar while they're waiting for a table. Instead of taking the table, we decided we'd have an early night so we could get up the next morning at a normal time.

I had told the group that I went to church last Sunday, and everyone talked about how they wanted to go with me this Sunday, even though no one else is Catholic. We found a church that's much closer to home than the Catedral, and it ended up being just me, Mary, and Melissa that went to Mass. When we arrived, we were approached by who I suppose was the Mass Coordinator, and she told us that since we were young and there were three of us, would we mind taking the gifts to the altar during the preparation of the gifts? After some confusion about our nationality, I told the Mass Coordinator that we would do it, ignoring the fact that neither Mary nor Melissa are Catholic nor familiar with the Mass and its rituals. With some guidance from the Mass Coordinator, we presented those gifts like we knew what we were doing the whole time.

Sunday evening ended with many games of solitaire played on my phone and a research project/presentation over the differences between Argentinean public and private schools. After class on Monday and lunch at Zona, I was off to do some shopping on my own! I'd been dying for a pair of boots, and Karie had left me with a list of recommended boot stores around Rosario. I set off on my own, peering at boots through windows, wishing that the cute boots I kept finding weren't $699 (pesos, not dollars. But still expensive!). I went back to the bookstore that Cain, Mary and I had found on Friday and bought a book called Te Invito a Creer (I Invite You to Believe). I read the introduction on Friday, and the author, Maunel Lozano, writes eloquently yet simply enough that I could understand. It looked like a fascinating book about the different realities that Manuel encounters while traveling around Argentina, and I'm really excited to start reading it! (Manuel also has this really cool TED Talks video where he discusses why he became interested in learning about different realities in Argentina, which you can watch here. You"ll have to turn on the captions since it's in Spanish, but if you have 20 minutes his story is really inspiring). I'm excited to have this piece of literature that was written and produced in Argentina so that I'll have a tangible memento of the language to bring home with me to practice reading in Spanish.

I also witnessed an attempted theft while at the bookstore! This guy came into the bookstore while I was checking out, and was just loitering near the front of the store. I could only see him out of the corner of my eye, but he was giving me the heebie jeebies. As I was finishing paying, he walked up to the woman working and tried to hand her some little cards, but she told him to stop loitering and get lost. So as he tried to leave the store, the alarm starts going off, and the woman working runs over and stops him. He pulls a book out of his bag, mumbling something about "how did that get in there?" and I didn't know what to do but I had already paid so I just kind of walked past them and left. As I was leaving, the worker yelled "Ladrón!" (thief!) and the guy came running out the door behind me, and I was afraid he was going to try and steal my bag out of my hand or something, but he didn't. It was just really creepy and definitely not the way that situation would have been handled in the United States!

After I had checked out all the recommended shoe stores once, there were a few I thought had some promising boots, but I was tired and didn't feel like walking back into the same stores that I had visited already. So I made plans to go back Tuesday after classes. I decided to go on a walk for exercise, so I decided to eat the equivalent to Oreos for energy and left for my walk. I walked along the river and ended up in the Catedral de Nuestra Sra del Rosario, where I took some pictures of the catedral and shopped in the gift store. The lady working in the shop asked me what I was doing in Rosario, and when I told her I was studying Spanish in the university, she told me that I spoke Spanish very well! On my way home, I decided to take pictures along Tucumán, the street I live on, and I came across a shoe outlet where I found 2 pairs of boots that I really liked. I didn't have any more money on me and I needed to think about which boots I wanted, so I promised I would return and went home.

Today started out as a not so good day (only because I had class at 8am and it was freezing outside. Otherwise everything was fine). After class, Mary and I had plans to go to Starbucks for Frappuccino Happy Hour! We found out this weekend that Happy Hour had been going on for the last week and that today was the last day, so even though today was one of the coldest days we've had in Rosario, we made our way to Starbucks. On our way we stopped in the boot outlet I found yesterday and I bought a super cute pair of boots WITH A 25% DISCOUNT. Then we walked across the street and got grande dulce de leche frappuccinos for half price! In that moment I might have been enjoying the happiest day of my life! (that might also be an exaggeration. But it was seriously pretty happy.)

I didn't have any classes after lunch but I hung around the site and journaled while sitting by a warm fire and talking with the students from the other summer program. The day ended with a movie called Victoria, a documentary about a girl born in captivity during the Dirty War trying to find information on her biological parents. I finished my Spanish homework while at the site, so I had time for blogging AND going to bed early so I can get up round 2 of 8am class tomorrow. Unfortunately I don't have time to finish part 2 of this blog post tonight because I want to go to bed, but my mid(ish) program reflections will be posted soon!

Truths I May Have Exaggerated...

 Truths I May Have Exaggerated to the Other Students in My Study Abroad Program:

• There is only corn in Indiana: This came up in Spanish class because I was asked to talk about what Indiana is like since the other students in my program are all from Oregon. No one has ever asked me that and I quickly realized that my Spanish vocabulary was limited to maiz, so I might have just said that's all there is there. When they asked me to tell them more about Indiana in English I couldn't think of anything else to add to my description. I did finally tell them that paved roads run between the cornfields so that's a step up, right?
• I am afraid of camp: This came up because some of the students from Oregon are camp counselors. One day, they were talking about the kids that wake up in the middle of the night crying and I told them that I would be that kid. I cried at day camp because I disliked the whole experience so much (and I'm sure it only would have been worse at overnight camp, thank goodness Linda and Dan had the sense to never send me). In Spanish one day, I was asked if I had any fears and I said no (because I couldn't think of any in the moment). Then, it came up in a later activity that I didn't like camp so then they just assumed that because I didn't like it I'm afraid of it. Which is not how it is at all.
• I can't live without Starbucks: If you had a Starbucks rewards card, you wouldn't leave it at home to miss out on drink rewards, would you? Sorry I brought my card for a company known around the world to a different country. I'm rather enjoying my cafe con leches in the quaint cafés here, and I'm surviving just fine without my frappucinos, thank you very much. I found the Starbucks last weekend (it's only like 5 blocks away from my apartment!) but it's super expensive. 27 pesos for a coffee? I still want to go to say I've been there, and I think Mary and I are planning an excursion there this weekend.
• I only do the 'sorority lean' in pictures: I just really like putting my hand on my hip when I have one arm free in pictures. Otherwise, what am I supposed to do with my hand? Let it hang awkwardly (although we all know how much I love awkward things)? Cain initially asked if I would teach him the sorority lean, but now it has caught on and we need to tone it down a little - our sorority leans are getting a little out of control. Karie looked through the photos I brought with me from home and said that the lean is the pose I do the most. When I went back and reviewed the 25 pictures, only 5 contain the lean in some form, 3 contain the sorority squat, and the rest are semi-normal. Since the majority are semi-normal can you really say that I do the sorority lean in every picture?
• I am afraid of elevators. I have two irrational fears that come up every time I have to ride in an elevator: that the cable supporting the elevator is going to snap while I'm riding in the elevator, and that the elevator is going to get stuck with me inside. I don't know where these fears originated, especially because I'm not claustrophobic and neither of these horrendous scenarios have ever happened to me. Because of these irrational fears, I usually try and take the stairs when I have that as an option. Not only are stairs safer than elevators, but they also promote wellness by improving my cardiorespiratory endurance. Anywho, so the elevators in Argentina are sketchier than elevators in the United States. There are no doors that open automatically when the elevator arrives at a floor: you must first open what looks like a regular door in order to enter the elevator, shut the door behind you, then move the grate across the doorway to keep you inside. The elevators take off and come to a stop with a halt, which continues to freak me out even though I know it's coming every time. Also, the elevators are TINY. I can barely fit myself, my backpack, my suitcase, and one other person in an elevator at one time. Now that the other students know about my fear, every time that we take an elevator, they apologize for making me take the elevator. It's totally unnecessary because a) I've never made a big deal about taking the elevator instead of the stairs, and b) elevators don't freak me out enough to not take them. Although maybe the elevators in Bracken Library should make me reconsider - they seem to be broken every time I go to the library, which is a lot. I guess maybe I should say that instead of being afraid of elevators, I simply distrust them because of their sketchiness and ability to break down often. That would probably be more truthful.

The Beginning of ESOL B

On Saturday, July 21:

• We walked around the city in the early afternoon, looking for food and the little shops that Karie and Terry told us set up along the river on the weekends. We couldn't find the shops.
• Once we finally stopped for lunch, I ate a dressingless salad at Ojo al Bife. Toward the end of our meal, an entire professional soccer team filed off their bus, stopping traffic outside (which was a big deal - traffic stops for no one in Argentina) and filled up the restaurant. Then we found out that we had been locked in the restaurant once we tried to leave, and one of the waiters had to let us out. Kind of embarrassing.
• In the evening, we went to a bar and a boliche (dance club). Might not have returned home until the wee hours of the morning. It was fantastic.

On Sunday, July 22:

• I woke up after very little sleep and went to Mass at Nuestra Señora del Rosario, the cathedral in Rosario (fun fact: Rosario means Rosary). Because we were in a gigantic cathedral it was really hard for me to make out the words to the prayers, but it was beautiful to find the familiarity in the Mass, even though it was in a different language. The only thing that really threw me off was when the priest kissed the people that brought the gifts to the altar during the preparation of the gifts. While it is customary in Argentina to greet one another with a kiss on the cheek, I wasn't expecting to see that same gesture used in the Mass.
• After Mass, I walked home through the parks along the river. It was sunny and beautiful and there were people everywhere. I finally had my camera with me and was able to take pictures in the parks.
• At 7pm, I went to the Ariston Hotel for the reception for our two new ESOL B students, Jessie and Monica! It was crazy to see how tired and overwhelmed they were by everything, and how much my perspective on Argentina has changed since I was in their position only 3 short weeks ago.

On Monday, July 23:

• ESOL B classes began. I'm only taking one class this session, which is Spanish for educators. It's already very nice to only have one class to worry about. 
• We ate lunch at Zona with our new ESOL friends after class, and then I spent the 2.5 hours that the other students were in class uploading pictures to Facebook and killing my computer battery. 
• When their class was done, Mary, Emily, Jessie, Monica and I went to get café con leche at our favorite cafe. When Jessie and Monica had to go back to school for their placement test, Mary, Emily and I had a great conversation about education and what this experience has done for us (so far). I love being around people who are as passionate about education and making the most of this experience as I am! The ideas we talked about will have to be summed up in another blog post.
• I spent the evening hoping people would get on Skype so I would have something to do. Had a great conversation with Ellen :)

On Tuesday, July 24:

• We went to a Gaucho Party! We took a bus for an hour over the Rosario-Victoria bridge and through the swampy Entre Rios province, finally arriving at the ranch. Some students rode the horses, but the horses had some attitude so I didn't ride. I enjoyed sitting in the sun and talking with the other people from the program. We ate lunch and watched a traditional gaucho dance, and the dancers were intense. Quote of the day came from Karie, who at the beginning of the show said, "I don't know what's going on, but there's going to be a fight. He has a knife." (the gaucho ended up pulling his knife and stabbing the ground with it, but then we found out it wasn't really very sharp) After the show, we ate a traditional dessert of bread pudding and scrambled eggs that were flavored with lemon and sugar. Very good, but very sweet. After dessert we went home.
• When I got home I watched a 45 minute video of Whose Line is it Anyway bloopers on YouTube.

On Wednesday, July 25:

• Spanish class started at 8am. I wrote a poem to express how I felt about early morning class:

This morning, I woke up before the sun.

Early mornings are no fun.

• After class, Mary and I went to the heladeria for café con leche in the hour between when class got done and when we could eat lunch. I think Mary meant to do her homework but we ended up talking. 
• After lunch, we went to el Pozo, which is the part of the Plaza Civica where political activists were sequestered during the Dirty War. There's no real way to describe the experience. I can't describe how it felt to stand in a room and have our tour guide tell us that in that same room 30 years ago, people were tortured through electric shocks (the use of electricity as a form of torture was invented in Argentina). I can't describe how it felt to see the detainment center in the basement, where the tour guide's own mother was held with 20 other women in 1 room, sharing 2 mattresses among themselves. I can't describe how it felt to see how close we were to the center of Rosario and to know that people outside could hear the screams of the people being tortured inside and couldn't do anything to stop it. It's a hard experience to unpack. The tour guide herself was jailed for 3 years, starting in Rosario and ending up in a concentration camp in Buenos Aires, for her involvement in a student union in high school. It was hard for me to piece together both the military history of the country and the history of the detainment center, but it was amazing to see how important this history is to the tour guide, which is why she has committed her life to educating others about what happened.
• After our experience in el Pozo, all the ESOL B students except for Cain and me were off to their ESOL class on biliteracy. Cain, Karie and I took a tour around la Parque de la Independencia, which involved wearing just about all the clothes I brought to Rosario to keep warm, dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller, and modeling for Karie's photos (one of which involved sitting in the same place where Ernesto Guevara's first picture was taken as a child...that seemed like a bit of a stretch of a tourist location to me).

Now that I'm only taking 1 class I have what feels like lots of free time, but with free time comes time to realize how tired I am. I have a lot more that I want to write, both for personal reflection as well as for this blog, but since I don't have Spanish until tomorrow afternoon I'm planning on getting a full night of sleep tonight so hopefully I'll feel a little better tomorrow. But I have some ideas for my next few blog posts, including mid-program reflections and truths I may have exaggerated to the other students in my study abroad program...so hopefully I'll have time to get those written in the next few days so Dan can continue to live vicariously through my blog. :)

In case you haven't seen the newest additions to my pictures, here are the links to my Facebook albums:
Bienvenidos a Rosario
Excursión a Córdoba

16/07/12-20/07/12: A Brief Synopsis

Here is a list of my adventures from this last week:

• We visited la Isla de los Inventos on Tuesday. It's in the old Rosario train station by the river and is filled with various learning stations where kids can engage in different hands-on activities. It was very cool because it encouraged kids to think outside of the box in order to complete the activities. It also encouraged collaboration because at many stations, you would start your own project and then leave it for someone else to finish while you finished the project someone else started. It gave us as future teachers some very good practices for culturally relevant teaching!
• Karie and Terry threw us a pizza party Wednesday evening. It consisted of us eating pizza, telling Ella stories about what not to do in high school, playing LCR, giving Terry and Karie love notes and chocolate, and teaching the 'sorority lean.' The pictures (and Terry's captions) can be seen here: http://cultureandcommunity.weebly.com/pizza-party.html
• I aced my Spanish final Thursday morning.
• Thursday afternoon consisted of a trip to al Museo de la Memoria. We pass this museum every day since it sits on the opposite corner of Córdoba and Moreno from Prats. The building was one of the military headquarters during the Dirty War in late 1970's. This museum displays artistic renditions of the breaking of human rights, and it was really sad to learn more about what happened during the Dirty War and how those acts of violence were present in Rosario.
• I stayed up late Thursday night trying to finish my Mi Aventura project, which is an ethnographic project for my Culture and Community class written in both English and Spanish. Eugenia helped edit my Spanish paragraphs (and modeled for one of my pictures).
• I presented Mi Aventura Friday morning and got a lot of great feedback on it. I still have a little bit left to finish but it will be done soon!
• We watched, laughed at, and quoted YouTube videos (or really just one over and over again).
• We made empanadas, a traditional Argentine appetizer, with Annie and Emily during our Spanish class on Friday. They were delicious and super easy to make.
• I found Starbucks! (but didn't buy anything)
• We had a "goodbye" dinner Friday night at Cívico, a restaurant/art gallery/museum, to mark the end of ESOL A and to have an official goodbye party for Annie :( 
• Friday was also Día del Amigo, or friendship day. Argentines celebrate this holiday by bringing their friends gifts and drinking copious amounts of alcohol until the wee hours of the morning. Since it would be super lame to spend Día del Amigo alone, all of us from ESOL A decided to take a walk to the Monumento de la Bandera after dinner. The monument was beautiful at night.
• Eugenia was hosting Día del Amigo festivities at the apartment when I got home from the monument. It was CRAZY. And all I wanted to do was go to bed.  

Design Possible and Impossible Objects - Isla de Los Inventos

Puzzle pieces depicting the children born but not yet recovered during the Dirty War - Museo de la Memoria

Enjoying our homemade empanadas

Mastering the 'sorority lean' - I'm so proud!

Rule #5: Don't Burn Down Any Places of Historical Significance...

We had a busy weekend on our first school-planned excursion to the province of Córdoba! Friday night we were supposed to go out with Terry so we would have something to do while waiting for our bus at 3 am. We hit the town HARD - aka we all fell asleep in Karie and Terry's living room while watching Evita (a musical with Madonna and Antonio Banderas as a creepy waiter). It wasn't very good sleep since we were curled into armchairs, but it was probably better than trying to go out before our excursion. Around 2:30 am we woke up and started our trek across town to the gas station, where we met up with the students from the Language and Justice program and our guides for the weekend, Karina and Fernanda. At 3 am we all boarded the bus, which we assumed would have nice seats like the bus we took to Iguazú - no such luck. The seats were very close together, and you couldn't lay your seat back without ending up in the lap of the person behind you. Needless to say, the sleep Beba promised us didn't happen.

Around 9 am, we arrived in Villa Carlos Paz, a town in Córdoba. We ate breakfast of pasteries and café con leche, which made me slightly happier because bread is my favorite and there was chocolate on this bread and it was so good. After breakfast we had our tour of Villa Carlos Paz, which we assumed would be a walking tour like every other tour we've been on. No such luck - we were back on the crowded bus with our tour guide Mariana to tackle the 100 curves and sierras chicas (small hills) of Villa Carlos Paz. Carlos Paz is one of the most important touristic cities in Argentina because of the lake and its mild temperatures that create the ideal climate for people with health issues. We drove down by the lake and got off the bus to to look at a dam that provides most of the electricity and energy for the city. Then we were back onto the bus to drive around more, and I ended up falling asleep because I was really tired and there was a good length of time when Mariana wasn't guiding us at all. Needless to say, at this point I wasn't too thrilled by our excursion to Córdoba. We were jolted awake when Mariana told us we were entering downtown Carlos Paz, where the world's largest cuckoo clock is located. We made it to the clock right before 12, and we were ushered off the bus and ran down the street to watch the cuckoo make its appearance at the top of the hour. Unfortunately, the cuckoo was stolen last week (I remember seeing this on the news) and had just been returned, so it wasn't functioning as it should be. The whole thing was slightly anticlimactic.

On the corner by the cuckoo clock was a chocolate shop called La Quinta. They gave us a sample of alfajores, which are these delicious candies with dulce de leche in the middle, and watched them make candy in the back of the store. Then we were back on the bus, headed for lunch. We drove through what looked like a neighborhood where we stopped at what looked like a cross between a dude ranch and Bethlehem Farm. It ended up being a restaurant called Shangri-La, which had a gaucho themed interior and we got to eat carne asada - BBQ! The meat was good but very fatty, and we had oranges for dessert. I never thought I'd see the day when I looked forward to having fruit for dessert, but this fruit was long overdue and was very tasty.

My archery-pirate getup

After lunch at Shangri-La, we were off to Complejo Aerosilla, which was a park for archery and zip-lining! We had to take a chair lift to the top of the mountain to reach the park, which was really neat (I've never been on a chair lift that shows views of a city below). At the top, we were divided into two groups, and my group was off to archery first. At this point, I wasn't sure how things were going to go. I told my friends stories about how the last time I tried archery at Conner Prairie day camp, all my arrows ended on the ground about 5 feet in front of me, and I wasn't sure that I could do much better this time. After watching the group in front of me practice and seeing how their arrows actually made it to the targets by the end, I figured I could do it as well. What I didn't expect was that I would have to become a pirate in order to practice archery. If you know me at all, you probably know that I can't wink, and I look like an idiot when I try. In order to shoot a bow and arrow, you have to close one eye in order to shoot at the target. Since I couldn't wink, they gave me an eye patch to wear to keep my eye closed, which was super embarrassing. Even with the eye patch, I didn't manage to shoot my target once. I was, however, quite successful at hitting Mary's target in the lane next to me. At the end, they gave us our target sheets with our scores on it. I don't know how I managed to score a 9 - I'm pretty sure they were pity points. I threw my target sheet away so no one else would feel inferior by my awesome score. Needless to say, my dream of becoming Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games was officially crushed.

After archery, my group headed off to the zip-line! It was pretty fun to fly between the two mountains, and it was especially cool to see the other people who were really afraid of heights give the zip-line a go. I didn't actually make it all the way to either side: I slowed down too much (I'm still not sure how) and on the way in, had to have the guy working slide out to catch me. On the way back, I got close enough that the man let me pull myself in hand over hand, and the people who were watching said I did it like a pro :) When we finished zip-lining, we took the chair lift back down the mountain to hike el Cerro de la Cruz. What this path ended up being was a 30 minute hike up one of the mountains following the Stations of the Cross. I didn't realize that the walk was of the Stations until we started, and it ended up being a great reflection as I walked up and down the mountain. The path was all rocks and was probably one of the most realistic depictions of the Stations I've ever seen. It was an unexpected place to find God on this trip, but it was definitely appreciated and worth the trek up and down the mountain to the cross at the top.

Villa Carlos Paz from the chair lift

When we all arrived safely back at the bottom of the mountain, we checked into the hotel and freshened up for dinner. We ate dinner in the hotel's restaurant, where I was so tired that I just kept talking and talking (Mary told me I was being as open and honest as a drunk person) and I felt like a small child when Mary sent me to bed after dinner. Some of the other students wanted to hang out, but I was so tired that I fell into bed and slept very well after hardly sleeping Friday night. Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and ate breakfast, then boarded the bus for Alta Gracia, another town in Córdoba. This town is significant because it's the town where Che Guevara moved to when he was young. We toured Estancia Jesuítica, which was a Jesuit monastery when the Jesuits originally tried to evangelize Córdoba. It was neat, but parts of the place looked like it was part of a house and I was confused because our guide could only speak Spanish and didn't take us to each room to explain what everything was. When everyone finished touring the Estancia Jesuítica, we were off to Che's childhood home. It was really cool to see the house, and a lot of the things in the house had to do with the things we saw in Diarios de Motocicleta. Seeing the things that came out of Che's involvement in the Cuban Revolution made me want to learn more about Che's involvement because the brief history we heard didn't tell me a lot since I don't know much about the Cuban Revolution. While we were touring Che's house it started hailing, and Karina and Fernanda told us that they never see hail here so everyone was getting really excited. Then we went to eat at this pizza place that kept bringing us pizzas even though we were all so full, and then we were off to our final destination of the day: the house of Manuel de Falla, a composer from Spain that died in Argentina. Basically this house was like a shrine to the man because it wasn't a house that he had built or anything - it was a house that he rented in Córdoba to help improve his health and ability to write music. One of the first things that happened when we walked in the house was that a burning log from the fireplace suddenly fell onto the floor! It was totally scary because some students were standing right in front of the fire trying to keep warm and the log fell out behind them, but the caretakers of the museum acted like it was no big deal and just threw the burning log back into the fire. We quickly left Manuel de Falla's house and were back on the road to Rosario, where I had a good conversation with Emily about the need for education and what patriotism means and explained to Emily, Annie, and Melissa what being a member of Kappa Delta is like (since they have no Greek life at Western, my experience was the only reference they had to base their knowledge of Greek life on besides what they've seen in movies, which we all know is exaggerated). Then at one point the bus pulled over to the side of the highway and jumped outside to check something, then came back in and revved the engine, then left again. We were all worried about was going on, and some students started asking who we would eat first if we were stuck on the side of the road forever. Fortunately we were able to take off and made it back to Rosario only stopping one more time, but the bus was definitely on the struggle bus.

ESOL A at the childhood home of Che

Although I was initially not thrilled by our trip to Córdoba, we ended up having a fun weekend full of meeting new friends from the Language and Justice program, unexpected Godly references, breathing in mountain air, and not sleeping. I'm still tired going into this week, which is not good since this is our last week of classes for ESOL A and I have a lot of projects to finish in a very short amount of time. I can't believe that we're almost halfway through this program, and I'm so glad that I decided to come for the full 6 week program. I can't imagine going home yet - there are so many things I still want to do here!

Thursday, Friday, and Weekend Plans

On Thursday afternoon, Cain, Mary and I went with the Language and Justice group (the other international students in Rosario through AHA) to view the Museo de Ciudad (Museum of the City). I didn't really know what we were going to get ourselves into, as Karie signed us all up to go and then left the three of us to go on our own. I walked to the park with Essence, who is the only other student from Ball State here, and we got to catch up on how our trips have been. Even though we both use the same building for our classes, we usually only wave hello in passing, so it was nice to finally talk to her about everything we've been going through here. To find the museum, we walked through Parque de la Independencia (Independence Park), which was beautiful and is definitely a place I want to visit again,. A tour guide met us outside the museum (which is in the center of the park) and showed us pictures of what the park looked like when it was first created 100ish years ago. Then we went inside and she explained the rest of the pictures and showed us a pharmacy they have preserved. The museum was neat but also a lot to take in all at once, and the tour guide told us that the point of the museum is that you will go through it once with a guide and then return to explore it on your own. I thought it was interesting that Parque de la Independencia was initially a gated park for only the elite of Rosario. When we walked through it, there were people from all walks of life enjoying the afternoon, and it was neat to compare the social and political changes of Rosario in the same physical setting.

Today we had our Culture and Community class in the morning, then went to Spanish to watch Diarios de Motocicleta (Motorcycle Diaries). This movie is about a motorcycle road trip that Ernesto Guevara (later known as Che Guevara, a revolutionary of the Cuban Revolution) and his friend Alberto Granado took in 1952 from Buenos Aires to Venezuela. Guevara was studying to be a doctor, but seeing the injustice of the world on his trip eventually led him to become a revolutionary...well I kind of extrapolated a bit based on my limited knowledge of Che's life and since the movie ends while he's still young. It was really powerful to see how much the injustice of the world affected Guevara and led him to fight actively against it, even at the age of 24. Since I don't know much about Che's activism (and apparently Che isn't a topic you should bring up in casual conversation in Argentina because people feel so strongly about him and his actions) the movie didn't change my views of him politically, but I thought it provided a neat anecdote for how pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone helps you to see the world differently and change your actions to reflect your newfound awareness. Maybe I picked this out because I feel like I'm currently having that kind of experience myself, but I really liked the movie and its message (Padre, I fully expect that you will go look this movie up on Netflix now).

This weekend, we're going on our first school-planned excursion to the province of Córdoba, which is the province to the west of Santa Fe and home to the second largest city in Argentina. I don't believe we're actually going to the city, but we're going to tour Che's home and go trekking (I'm pretty sure Beba told us there's a zip line and I'm super excited). It wouldn't be a real adventure if there wasn't something sketch involved, so we're leaving from a GAS STATION at 3 in the MORNING (this is a SCHOOL-ORGANIZED excursion, let's not forget). So that we don't all have to walk across the city alone at 3 am, Terry and Karie are hosting a movie night for all of us, followed by (as Karie put it) bar-hopping with "Terry [who is] committed to hitting the town." Terry and Ella aren't going on this excursion with us, so Karie is sending Terry out with us so that she can sleep before our bus ride. The rest of us will just have to sleep on our significantly-shorter-than-any-bus-ride-to-an-excursion-that-I've-been-on-in-Argentina bus ride, which is what Beba initially recommended for us all to do (it's not like she knows we're a bunch of college students or something). I'll let you know when we get back how our excursion to Córdoba was (and which boots Terry decided to wear tonight). Next week will be a little busy since it's our last week of classes for ESOL A (I can't believe how quickly this program has flown by!) but I'm already looking forward to having a low-key weekend in Rosario while we wait for ESOL B to start.

The Beauty of the City

The last couple of days have been filled with some unexpected surprises. Yesterday's classes were pretty low-key. We were in the middle of Spanish class when the power went out in the Fundación Prats, and the caretaker Sylvia (I think that's her name) ran in and opened the windows so we could continue with class. Turns out, the power outage was city-wide, but they had power back up and running within a half an hour. We also had an interesting conversation about our barrios (neighborhoods). I said that I needed to explore my barrio more, and my Spanish teacher Sole told me that I live in a good location - very close to both the river and the center of the city. When classes finished at 4, I felt inspired by our discussion about my barrio and decided that I would go on a walk to find the river. I also felt like I needed to get some exercise, since Eugenia keeps telling me that she is going to make me fat by the time I leave (which is not going to happen).

The last few days have been very cold in Rosario, so I put on my layers of clothing and walked the 5 blocks to the river.  The street I walked down opened to the Parque de las Colectividades, which was very open and green but covered in graffiti. I started walking to the right because I knew there were more parks to walk through, and I wanted to find the Monumento de la Bandera (Monument of the Flag) which is a tall structure that is lit up with the colors of the Argentinian flag at night. I walked through the first park and past some restaurants along the river bank, past an indoor bike track and came up on a gigantic set of stairs, which marked the entrance into the Parque de España. There was a HUGE skate park there, and there were people everywhere - riding bikes, skateboarding, practicing tricks on roller skates - and it was neat to watch them display their talents through that medium. At that point, I wasn't sure how much further I should walk, but I could see what I thought was the Monumento de la Bandera not too far ahead of me and I decided to see if I could get there. As I got closer, it was starting to get darker, and when I finally reached the Monumento, the lights turned on and it started to glow a light blue. On my way back, there was a park with a swing set that gave me a clear view of the Monumento, and I was overcome with the desire to swing. I got a few stares from the weird people sitting in the park, but it gave me both such a rush and such a feeling of peace to be swinging, watching the Monumento light up in front of me. After a few minutes of swinging, I walked back through the parks through which I had come and got to see the city unfold in front of me. Before living in Rosario, I don't think I would have called an urban city 'beautiful,' but seeing the tall apartment buildings lining the avenue on my left and seeing the parks and river to my right made me begin to appreciate this urban beauty as well. And now I've found a great place where I can go run and work out and not worry about getting fat, so I know I'll definitely be going back and will be able to take pictures.

When I got back home, I figured I was in for the night, so I settled on the couch in my mismatched workout clothes to read for Culture and Community. Around that time, Eugenia got home from work and got dressed up. She had told me on Monday night that she was going to eat dinner with a friend Tuesday night, but I didn't understand that I was going to dinner with her! I quickly threw my nicer clothes back on and we walked down the street to Norma's. I had met Norma on my first day here, as she picked me up with Eugenia from the hotel and drove us home. I didn't know she had an 18-year-old daughter, Julieta, so Eugenia introduced me as soon as we arrived at the apartment. Julieta told me that I could speak to her in English if I wanted to (I must have really been struggling) but I told her that I wanted to practice my Spanish so that I would get better at speaking. Eugenia has been telling me that my Spanish has definitely improved since I've been here, and that I'm able to understand everything she says (kind of not really true) and that I write perfectly (I know I definitely write better than I speak). While Julieta was very patient with me and spoke slowly, she spoke so quietly that I still had a hard time understanding what she was asking me! Then during dinner, Eugenia and Norma got into a heated discussion so they spoke even quieter and faster, and I might have completely zoned out because I was so tired and overwhelmed. I gave Julieta my phone number because I guess she's at home during the afternoons when I get home from school and Eugenia wants us to hang out so that we don't have to be alone. I'm excited to hopefully hang out with her again because talking with her is only going to help improve my ability to comprehend Spanish. I think I was just caught a little off-guard going over to Norma's last night that I wasn't able to comprehend at my highest ability.

This morning, the ESOL group had to get up early to go observe at our second school, Colegio Mariano Moreno N°60. This was a public school, meaning it is free for students to attend, and we could sense the differences as soon as we walked in the door. The principal greeted us and asked what activities we had planned to do with the children. We told her we were just there to observe, and half the group went to observe a class of little kids and the rest of us were off to observe the middle school students. The principal didn't have a classroom of older students set up for us to observe in, so she just barged into a couple of classrooms to ask if we could observe, completely interrupting the teaching going on. We were placed in a social studies classroom, where it seemed that only some of the students were paying attention to the reading from the textbook. After a short time, the bell rang for recess, and we followed the students outside. We were swarmed by students that asked us really random questions. A group of girls asked if I was on Facebook, and then asked what my last name was so we could be Facebook friends. Fortunately, I was saved by the bell (literally), because I didn't want to give them my name and I didn't know what to tell the girls! We weren't sure if we were supposed to go back to the classroom we had been in, so Terry asked the students who their favorite teacher was and they pointed to a man who was walking around with a guitar in hand. So we followed a different group of students to music class, where most of the class didn't even try and engage in the exercises the teacher led them in. I recognized a lot of the exercises from my music classes, and it was neat for me to see that music really is a universal language. Then he asked us to sing a song, and we had no clue what we were supposed to do. Cain, Annie and Ella ended up singing a camp song about a donut that I didn't know, and the students just looked so confused. When they finished singing, Terry thought we were supposed to be back downstairs, so we left the class and waited downstairs for the rest of our group to show up. The principal came out of her office and asked if we wanted to see one other group, and she took us to a 4th grade classroom. The teacher would give each student a subject and verb tense, and the student would have to conjugate the verb to match the given parameters. I understood what was going on, even though it was all in Spanish, but if I was one of those students I would have been so intimidated by her teaching style! We left class about halfway through and went to a café as a group to debrief our experience in this school. As we walked back to the Site, I talked with Karie about bilingual education and why it isn't more widely supported. We don't have a bilingual teaching license program at Ball State, but I really wish we did - from my understanding, there are so many benefits to that kind of teaching style that most importantly allow students to maintain their first language while learning English.

After our Spanish class in the afternoon, the ESOL group had a movie night at the Site. We watched Cautiva, an Argentinian film about a girl who discovered that she had been living under a false identity for year and that her parents "disappeared" during the Dirty War. Have you ever heard of the Dirty War? I hadn't until this movie, but it happened in the late 1970s and had to do with the military regime making those people politically involved with the communists "disappear" into concentration camps. It's definitely a topic that I plan to study more while I'm here. Although the story in Cautiva was fictional, it was really sad to see how the events of the Dirty War still impact Argentina.

On that note, I'm going to bed, since I'm still wiped out from Iguazú and waking up at 7:30 every morning is a challenge! I'm not sure why I chose teaching as my future profession since I'm definitely not a morning princess...