8K in BA

This morning Amanda and I ran an 8K in Puerto Madero at the Ecological Reserve. Emily's host family (actually just host mother) helped organize the event, which benefitted a hospital foundation. Even though it was rough to wake up at 7 with the intention of running 5 miles in a race, I'm glad I did it, and it was really fun!

I finished in 38:50, which is a good time for me! I was surprised I finished that quickly actually ... Amanda won her age group (unfortunately, with 20-hood, I passed into that older age group ....) with a time of 34:10 or something like that.

There were a couple funny parts of the morning that are quite representative of Argentines and their exercise. First of all, everyone had a cute race outfit. Even the slow and un-intense runners looked professional just because they were all dressed up in Nike workout outfits! When people started to run, then you could determine who truly deserves to wear those .... :-) They were selling Nike workout clothes at the race too, so in case you didn't have an outfit, you could buy one there!

Also - they didn't offer water/Gatorade/granola bars/bananas or anything like that. There was, however, a table of mate and alfajores. (Their tea-like drink and dulce de leche cookies). How healthy!

Likely the funniest part of the morning was the pre-race stretch, which was actually orchestrated by a fitness instructor on a stage with a microphone, and background music! They started blasting the music, and the guy called out stretch/warmup commands! It was essentially a group fitness class going on before the race. I wish we had gotten a picture of it, but unfortunately we'd ditched Amanda's camera just a bit before.

We got t-shirts for participating, and (one good part about fancy workout clothes here) the shirts they gave us are nice black synthetic shirts. No cotton to be found anywhere, here!

Anyway, overall fun morning! I'll post Amanda's pictures once she uploads them.

Typical Argentina..

Yesterday:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/29/argentina.strikes/index.html

The subway strikes are really annoying ... it is near impossible to catch a bus during a subway strike because there are just so many people! Better just start walking ....

New favorite snack.

Dried pineapple from this chain of health food stores called GranDiet. No added sugar! (Somewhat) economical! Tastes like candy!

I Took An Old-Person Bus Tour: Mendoza

This weekend Amanda, Emily, and I went to Mendoza for 3 days. Mendoza is a western province of Argentina in the Central Andes. It's where the majority of Argentinean wine is produced...almost the whole province is either vineyards or mountains.

The first afternoon we toured 2 different 'bodegas' or wineries/vineyards and an olive oil farm/factory. The first one, San Humberto was medium-sized, and the second one was called Familia Caccari or something like that, and was smaller and all organically grown. The wine tours were actually kind of boring, but if you're going to Mendoza you kind of have to tour wineries, or else your trip wouldn't really be complete. I did learn some things about wine: grapes grow best in dry weather (it's very dry in Mendoza), wine is aged in barrels of specific types of wood to affect taste, when you taste wine you should only hold the glass by the stem (to not affect temperature), and there are 2 different smells from wine (primary smell is the original unshaken scent, comes from the grapes, and the secondary smell is the smell after you swirl it a little, and that comes from the production process).

The second day we went west of the city to go white water rafting on the Rio Mendoza, which was really fun! I'd never been rafting before, so it was something new and fun to do. The rapids weren't that big, it was Class III and IV rapids, because the water level was low, but it was still really really fun. That afternoon they had a rappel set up, so we got to do a rappel, and then we went with a guide on a hike that afternoon.

Then on Sunday, we had signed up with our hostel for a day trip called "High Andes Adventure", which took you out to the Chilean border to see all the important sites in the mountains (Puente de la Inca, Aconcagua (highest peak in Western Hemisphere), and some little towns along the way). Anyway, by the title of the excursion, we were expecting some sort of exciting tour, likely some hiking, 'que sé yo!'. Well, we were very wrong .... it turned out to literally be an old person bus tour. Haha. Funny to think about in retrospect, but it was a pretty boring tour! We DID get to see the exciting parts of the Andes, but then again, it was from the inside of a bus filled with 50+ year olds! The most entertaining part of the trip was watching the interaction of the guide-woman, the driver, and the photographer. They were each quite strange, and didn't get along that well, haha. We did get some awesome pictures though, and I'll post them once my friends post theirs .... (no camera...)

Hostel Musings

1) Why are the showers at hostels all so horrible? Is it really that hard to get either a. hot water or b. water pressure or c. both? What is the common problem with hostel plumbing that makes the above unavailable?

2) The crowd they attract. Interesting, indeed. From old couples (cost cutting maybe?) to middle age single women traveling alone, to Chilean 24-year-olds looking to party all night long (literally until 7 am, when other hostel guests, namely us, wake up, or rather, get up after having listened to their party all night long!), European backpackers, and American study abroad kids.

3) How can a hostel get away with having non-functional Internet?

The 3 points above may make me seem bitter, but I like hostels! (This post is referring to the hostel I stayed in this weekend in Mendoza, btw) Well, I like paying only $9 a night for a place to store luggage, a bed, and breakfast and coffee in the morning! The rest...I can leave to only muse about after the trip.

Córdoba Trip!

Last weekend my two girlfriends and I went to Córdoba for a couple days. I really really loved the trip - it was a nice change of pace from life in BA, good to see some landscape that doesn't involve city streets, and we got to do really awesome things.

We left on Wednesday night from the Retiro bus station .... this time we paid less for bus tickets (100 pesos each way), which came with unfortunately a downgrade in seat-comfort. I still slept Wednesday night, but it was definitely really uncomfortable and cramped. Also, no meal service. :-( I sat next to this high school boy who helped me translate a lot of words for the reading I was doing though, so that was nice!

On Thursday, we went to La Cumbre - a little village 2 hours north of Córdoba city (where we based ourselves in a hostel). I really love La Cumbre, it is so peaceful, the people were incredibly friendly and helpful, everyone seemed to know each other ... it was great! We got there, did a short hike up to a lookout over the town and the Sierras, and then called up a paragliding instructor to take us paragliding! La Cumbre is famous for its paragliding ... there is a take-off spot 8 km out of the town called Cuchi Corral that hosted some World Paragliding Championships a couple years ago, and since then it's gotten a lot of news for its paragliders. Anyway, we called the instructors, met them in town, and had a coffee with them for awhile while we waited for the wind to calm down. They then took us up to Cuchi Corral where we again waited for the wind to calm down/change direction ..... it was a really pretty day out, and the view from Cuchi Corral is beautiful, so it wasn't a painful wait at all. Unfortunatley, the wind never changed and it wasn't possible for us to take off that afternoon.... but they offered to take us the next day instead. Since paragliding was pretty high on our list of things to do in Córdoba, we agreed to come back to Cumbre the next morning.

We left Córdoba (the capital, where we stayed overnight) at 7 the next morning, to get back to Cumbre at 9 and meet the instructors again. This time, the wind was perfect! Paragliding was really amazing - not scary at all, absolutely no work for you, and we got some really awesome views! I'm really glad I went - definitely recommend it as a thrilling, but not scary or overwhelming activity.

After paragliding, we spent more time hanging out in La Cumbre and then took the 2 hr bus back again to Córdoba. That night we actually had a bit of a fiasco with hostels .... I booked a reservation online through a 3rd party, and it turns out it didn't translate into the hostels reservation log. The weekend was incredibly popular for visitors because it was the last weekend of Oktoberfest, so literally every single hostel in the area (not even just the capital!) was booked. We ended up paying more for a hotel room ... which was actually (in my opinion) worth it ... the breakfast the next morning was likely the best continental breakfast I've ever gotten at a hotel! It was nice to have our own room too, instead of sleep with other random people in a hostel.

On Saturday we woke up and went 2 hours south of Córdoba Capital to Villa General Belgrano - where the Oktoberfest festival is held every year. It is kind of strange going into Villa Gral. Belgrano....it is a little German enclave in the middle of the mountains. Signs are in German, the buildings look German, and they serve all this German food year-round. Kind of strange, but interesting. I think it may have originally been a Nazi escape community? Not sure about the history of that one, but I heard a couple times something to do with Nazis, maybe a sunken ship, not sure. Anyway, Oktoberfest was a lot of fun too - we met a lot of people from all over the country, not just Buenos Aires or even Córdoba. It was interesting to hear all the different accents ... the accent I'm now used to is just specific to Buenos Aires, so most people's accents sounded strange to me!

We came back to Córdoba that night from Villa Gral. Belgrano and immediately got on our long bus back to BA ... we had intended to stay another day actually, but didn't want to split another hotel room and we'd already had a really amazing weekend. Also, I had a midterm on Wednesday that still required quite a bit of studying .... (which turned out okay, by the way!)

I'll post my pictures on this post once my friend uploads her. Unfortunately, I may have left my camera on one of the million buses we took last weekend ... :-(

Counterfeit Money

This weekend I lost 50 pesos in counterfeit money, which was really annoying. I think there's a real problem of counterfeiting here, so everyone is always really careful about checking. (Except me, apparently). It had a 'watermark' (that I guess was not really a watermark at all) so I was convinced it was real even though 2 stores wouldn't accept it. I eventually went to a bank to ask, and they (after a minute or two of scrutiny, I guess it was a good counterfeit) confirmed. That now brings my total up to 90 pesos lost in counterfeit money! Ugh. Oh well.

On a happier note - my two girlfriends and I are planning a trip to Córdoba for this weekend, leaving Wednesday night on an overnight bus and coming home on a Sunday night overnight bus. I'm looking forward to it!

Duke vs. di Tella #1

I've been trying to think about the differences in US universities and the Argentine universities, and believe me, there are a LOT - but most of what I've thought of so far has only dealt with organizational aspects (free printing versus going to a photocopy store, class times, general chaos here in class scheduling and registration, etc.). But I got an email today that really made me realize a more subtle difference in class dynamics that I always kind of knew existed but was hard to concretely see: American college students are a lot more competitive than those down here!

I have a midterm next week in my International Economic History class at di Tella (which is the university that is definitely the most similar to the US) - and the whole class (50 people?) has an email thread going where everyone sends notes and summaries to the entire rest of the class. Tonight, someone emailed out a full first-half-of-the-semester study guide he had gotten from last year. Wow! That would never happen in one of my classes ... not like I would outright NOT give a study guide to other people in the class, but I certainly wouldn't mail it out to every single other student! I guess we're just too concerned with beating curves? Maybe it's just my school? Either way, I do get a more whole-class effort vibe here than I would at a similar class at Duke!

Cooking Class

Last Monday I took an empanada cooking class with Amanda and Emily (birthday present courtesy of Mom!), which was really fun - something a little different, out of the city, and of course a delicious lunch too.

Here is where Mom found the cooking class - this woman (Teresita) runs a bunch of different classes just out of her house in a suburb of Buenos Aires. The town, called Adrogué, is to the south of the city, about half an hour away by train. I knew Adrogué would be a nice town

because my host mom was raving about it (muy lindo! ayy que lindo es!), and she has very distinguishing taste - preferring exclusively the swanky neighborhoods of Recoleta or Puerto Madero or (parts of) Palermo. Anyway, the point is, Adrogué was really pretty and quiet. To the right is a picture of the street Teresita lived on.

We made two different types of empanadas, carne (meat) and humita (corn) - the two most typical Argentine types. We started by cutting all the vegetables and preparing the filling, which had to chill before you stuffed the empanadas. Basically what goes in the carne empanadas is: onion, raisins, green olives, hard boiled egg, and green onions, pepper, cumin, and of course beef. The humita empanadas have: onions, bell pepper, crushed red pepper, and of course corn.

While the fillings were chilling, we had a mini wine tasting where she told us what wines pair well with the two types. I basically no nothing about wine, but apparently a Torrontes goes well and of course Malbecs (which is the famous Argentine type).

We had to make the dough ourselves next and then knead it and make it into flat circles. This part was kind of annoying, and I think I would be tempted to buy premade dough if I made empanadas regularly. Basically you mush lard, brine, and flour together and it turns into the dough. Once we had the flattened circles, you put a clump of filling on them and then seal them. She was trying to have us seal them a fancy way, with rolled fancy edges, but we weren't so good at that part.. Anyway, half of the empanadas we fried (you just dump them in for a couple seconds) and sprinkled sugar on, and then the other half were baked.

Once they were all done, we had a picnic lunch in her backyard garden, which was really pretty, and it was also fortunately a beautiful day out. My favorite combination was surprisingly the fried corn ones ... I thought the fried would be too much, but it was really delicious, especially with the little sugar on the top. We had made about 4 dozen empanadas, and there were only 4 of us to eat them, so we eat got to take home the leftovers too!

The other woman that was taking the class with us, Leslie, was American, but she had been living in BA since last December. Her Argentine husband owns "estancias" (basically big cow farms) all over the country and they export beef to the US. She was living quite the life...in BA for 2 years with no real things to do except take cooking classes and take her kids to their swanky private school every day. Oh, well, she actually just accompanies the kids, they have a full time driver. She travels around the country whenever she can, and her family goes to their "ranch" in the North every 2 weeks. It was quite the extravagant life! I really liked her though, she had some good stories, and an interesting perspective on Argentine life. She took the train home with us (her driver was getting the kids), and it was her first time riding BA public transportation. Haha. The train was enough for her though, when we got back in to the train station in BA, she turned down the last leg of the journey on subway and we took a taxi back into Recoleta with her.

Now, if I can just reproduce these when I get back home!

My first actual graded assignment....

...was a success!

I wrote a 2 page summary of a reading we had to do for my International Economic History class at di Tella two weeks ago, and I got a 9/10! Yay! I only had 3 grammatical errors, which is basically nothing!

Also for the class, I have to give an oral presentation to the class on some reading sometime in the semester. Not looking forward to that one. In English, no big deal, but nervous Spanish? Oh well.

Cataratas de Iguazú

I was trying to wait to post this until I got my computer back and could upload my own pictures, but it´s still not ready, and I´m just going to keep falling behind. Every time I call them, they tell me ¨tomorrow, tomorrow¨. So it´s supposed to be ready tomorrow night, but who knows. I´ve really been moderately okay without it, the thing I miss most is being able to update my iPod with new music and podcasts.

But last weekend was really really fun - the waterfalls are really impressive. The first 17 hr bus ride was actually pretty tolerable ... the first couple hours were fun because it was something new, they gave us meal service (which was disappointing, but it was still meal service!), and we brought snacks (which were all eaten in the first couple hours). Then I slept for probably 10 hours (the seats are comfortable!), and then the last couple were tolerable because we were close. So overall, 17 bus ride went well!

Friday afternoon we went on a horseback ride through the jungle to visit an indigenous village. We weren´t sure what we had time for, s

ince we got into Puerto Iguazú at like 3:00,

but we luckily had just enough time to fit that in.

It was really random and unexpected, but I´m glad we went, it was really in

teresting. Our guide explained a bunch of things about the jungle and about the indigenous people...I think their name was the G

uyaní or something like that. He said t

hat they used to be nomads, but now that modern culture is kind of infiltrating their little villages, their c

ulture is totally changing and they´re likely not going to move anymore. Also, a lot of them are alcoholics. (Kind of random and strange)

We stayed at this surprisingly nice hostel on Friday night ... it wa

s 30 pesos, relatively clean, free breakfast, and nice grounds. All the hostels I´ve ever stayed in have been ... quite the opposite, so it was a nice change!
Saturday we went into the park .... most of the time was just walking through the

trails going to different lookout points of the falls.

We took a boat ride underneath t

he waterfall which was really aw

esome...Í´ll post my pictures of that once I get them uploaded. I thought, of course, that the falls were really beautiful, but the park was so incredibly touristy it kind of took away from the whole experience. The national park reminded me of an amusement park, actually. (Complete with thrilling boat rides, overpriced food, and expensive entrance fees!) So I mean I really enjoyed it, but the whole thing seemed a little contrived at times too.
We left to go back to BA on Saturday night...this time the bus ride seemed longer, but I still slept for like 9 hours of it, so it wasn´t too unbearable. Same horrible food (think strange piece of beef and mashed potatoes, a cold dense roll, and a couple shreds of lettuce. even the flan was unpalatable). I had to go through the streets of BA and ride a bus wearing obnoxious Duke sweatpants and a North Face (which of course was the most comfortable to wear on a long bus trip!), looking completely out of place. I literally have never seen anyone wear sweatpants on the streets here, let along bright blue with a huge D-U-K-E down the leg. Oh well.

(I think I have a strange affection for using parentheses.) I will post pictures on this post soon!

Weekend plans

It´s Thursday at 2:30, and it is officially weekend for me. My last class is 10-1 on Thursdays, so I have 3 day weekends to be able to travel with sufficient time if my friends and I want to....which this weekend I am!

This weekend, Emily, Amanda, and I are going to Iguazú Falls, which are in the far north of Argentina, directly bordering Brazil. Iguazú is the 5th biggest waterfall in the world, and the biggest in South America. It´s a 17 hour bus ride .... which could be horrible, but I´m looking at it as a part of the whole experience. It isn´t any regular bus either, Argentines ride buses in style. This is the company we booked through - Via Bariloche. You can kind of see pictures of the buses throughout their page. Anyway, we leave tonight at 8:40, get there tomorrow at around noon, and leave again on Saturday night to get back to Buenos Aires on Sunday at around noon.

On a different note, today for lunch I found a new empanada place, Hausbrot, that actually sells whole-wheat empanadas (click empanadas y tartas) with vegetables inside instead of meat. Who knows if they´re actually any healthier (probably a little), but they certainly made me feel like I was eating something good for me, with all their all-natural and organic advertising.

I´m about to go meet Emily to go find a hostel and plan our day and a half in Iguazú, but I will post again early next week with my pictures!

Argentina - Brasil Fútbol ....

....we lost, 3-1, in the World Cup qualifiers last night. I went over to my friend Emily´s apartment and watched it with her host brothers and their girlfriends in an attempt to watch the much-anticipated game with Argentines. I fell asleep through most of the game (that is somewhat sacreligious (sp?)to say here, but it´s true) .... and I think the reason was because there were no commercials to get up and take a break during. Overall, the game was not that exciting, or at least not as exciting as I had expected.

Interesting thought that occurred to me during the game:

What languages do referees speak when the opposing players speak different languages? Especially when its during a type of game that the players can go talk to the ref, like basketball or soccer? Last night, Emily´s brother told me that the ref just spoke Spanish, and because Portuguese is similar, the Brazilian players could understand. But without that handy convenience, what would they do? Maybe just speak English, I don´t know!

Ice Cream

Here are the 3 well-known ice cream chains throughout the city...this afternoon my friend Emily and I tried the 3rd one, so now I can post about them in entirety.

Freddo - the most common brand...8 peso cones. I´ve eaten Freddo twice, both times I got banana split flavor (which is banana base with chocolate chips and dulce de leche swirled in) and dulce de leche. There are Freddo´s all over the place, and they´re always tempting!

Persicco - a little bit higher end than Freddo ... I´ve only seen 2 stores of Persiccos throughout the city. One is right by the Subway stop going to di Tella, so I always see that one as I pass. It always looks so inviting, especially since it has lots of outdoor seating (which is almost always full on warm days).

Un Altra Volta - The one I ate at this afternoon, and I think my favorite so far, but the cones were 12 pesos, so definitely the most expensive. The inside was super chic and sleek, and there was a patio inside. I had dulce de leche with bombón, and banana with chocolate chips. Both good choices.

All the ice cream here is delicious ... and they don´t really give you huge portions, so you never feel thaaat bad about eating it. I can see all the temptation getting dangerous when it actually gets hot out here!

Final Classes....

I finally turned in my final class schedule, so enough with the whole shopping period and going to like 15 classes!

This is what I´m taking:
International Economic History - at Universidad Torcuato di Tella, which is a small private school that has a pretty good name internationall for Econ....I don´t think this class is actually very hard, if it was taught in English, but it´ll probably be my hardest one just because there´s so much reading and there´s the most amount of class time. i´m getting major credit for this back at Duke though, so that´ll be worth the extra amount of work.

Argentine Lit. in the 20th century - also at di Tella, I really like the professor, he´s really funny and keeps things interesting. This class is a seminar for foreign students, so we actually do most of our reading in class so he can tell us words we don´t know....so it´s pretty easy, but I like the reading we do.

Hist. of the Ideas and Political Processes of Argentina - taught at Universidad de Salvador, which is a private university, but still kind of a mess. The professor is really easy to understand in this one and his lectures are interesting, so i think I´ll like this one.

Spanish class with my program - everyone has to take one of these classes, but you do get to pick your focus. Mine is Documentary Film in Argentina, but I think it´ll actually end up being more a literature class which occasional documentaries that we watch on our own.

Because most of these classes just meet once a week for a longer period of time, I don´t really end up having that much class time. Also, I don´t have class on Fridays, so in case I´m travelling one weekend, I can do a 3.5 day weekend!

Argentine Exercise

There are 2 prevailing physical traits of most Argentines ..... well put together and skinny.  People are very concerned about weight here, and overweight people aren't given much sympathy at all.  So following this, you would expect a city of runners and exercisers, but that is actually almost the opposite!  To go running outside is really pretty rare - some people definitely do it, but for such a big city, you never see people running on the streets.  Maybe a couple in big parks on weekend afternoons, but that's about it.  So then you think, well, if they don't run outside, they must all be intense gym members. I mean, there are exceptions, but for the most part the gym seems to be more a place to show off your latest Nike exercise outfit then to actually sweat.  No one wears shorts, everyone always has a matching exercise ensemble, and is likely walking on the treadmill or lightly using the ellipticals.  Girls wear makeup to the gym, and their hair always looks nice.  So I don't know how they keep up their skinniness, because this definitely isn't a culture of hard exercise and fitness!  So for a girl to go running outside on the regular streets, wearing shorts and a tee-shirt (never seen anyone wear a regular cotton t-shirt, actually) definitely draws some stares! 

International students got a pretty good discount at the big chain of gyms here, Megatlon.  They're pretty nice inside, last Friday afternoon they had a live DJ, which was actually kind of strange but at least something different.  Sometimes they have little snacks out for you too.  I want to go to their spinning classes to see how they are, and learn how to spin in Spanish too!  Oh, another thing about the gyms - the city requires an EKG before you join.  I had no idea what they were doing until she printed out the little chart of heart beats; my resting heart rate was in the 50s, so that made me feel good about my in-shape-ness! 

The Moneda Problem

(For reference throughout, a moneda = a coin.)

One of the biggest annoyances here is kind of unexpected ... a shortage of monedas in their economy and way too many big bills.  People (including me) guard their monedas like gold ... it is just too difficult to get a hold of them!  To ride a bus, which I do a couple times a day at least, you have to pay in monedas, so I constantly need coins instead of small bills, except no one likes to give you change in coins!  

If you really need to ride the bus, but have no coins, one tactic is to go to a kiosk (that are on almost every block) and 1) ask very nicely if they'll change your bill into coins, which basically never happens, or 2) try to buy something strategic with a strategic bill so they're forced to give you back monedas.  Problem with option 1 is that if they refuse you the first time, they will then refuse to sell you something to get change. I have literally been refused sales because they don't want to give me coins! Problem with option 2 is now you've spent 3 pesos or so on your bus ride, instead of 1.20.  Also you have some little snack that you don't actually want, but will probably eat anyway.  Problem with both options: if you are really hurrying somewhere, it takes a lot of time to find willing kiosk owners, and you can't get on a bus without succeeding!

So it is a joyous day if someone surprises you change in coins - yesterday, I mailed a letter to Guatemala for 5 pesos, and the teller gave me 5 pesos back in coins, which is near unheard of! So that was good for the rest of my day and probably today as well, haha.

While I'm on the topic of money - I got cheated last weekend by someone, still not positive who it was, maybe a taxi driver, and got counterfeit bills back for change.  I think there's a pretty significant counterfeiting problem here, so now I'm pretty careful about it.  I tried to pay for something with my counterfeit 10 peso bills, and the guy pointed it out to me, and they were pretty clearly counterfeit ... essentially photocopies.  So that was really annoying, I lost 20 pesos on that one. 

A Casual Day Trip to ... Uruguay

So this past Sunday, I went with my two friends Amanda and Emily to Colonia, Uruguay, which is around a 3 hour boat ride from Bs.As.  It was really really fun, and definitely worth the travel time spent and the boat fare (which actually wasn't even that much).  Our boat left at 8:45 AM from Bs.As, so that meant a pretty early morning getting over to the bus terminal.  I was literally expecting a ferry-type boat, really rocky and somewhat open air ... but it turns out the BuqueBus was like an airplane kind of.  It had a couple levels, lots of seats, dining room tables, a cafe, a store, and even an open floor for tango performances.  So the 3 hr. boat ride was actually really fun! 

The weather report for that Sunday was absolutely horrible, 100% of heavy t-storms .. .but it turned out to just be rainy at sea (and somewhat rocky, but not really) and just windy and a little cold in Colonia.  So, another weather.com fail, thankfully.

Colonia is a little colonial city on the coast of Uruguay - lots of cobblestone streets, hidden cafes, cute shops, and old parks and old ruins.  We pretty much walked around the city (don't know if I can even call it a city, actually), sat down in a really cozy restaurant for lunch (where we met another American solo traveler), and shared a mate like true Uruguayans. 

After lunch, we rented go-karts to drive around the city.  This was really strange that they actually let anyone (with a driver's license) just take their gokarts and drive through Colonia with all the regular cars.  Literally their only restriction to us was "don't drive on the beaches, please!"  Haha, we even had to go to a Uruguayan gas station to top off the tank when we were done.  It was definitely a different way to explore the city, and it was really fun! Anyway, from there we got back on the BuqueBus for another three hours, and another 4 passport stamps later, were back in Argentina 14 hours later. 

Dulce de Leche ...

I don't know what I'm going to do when I come home without the dulce de leche from here! Argentines eat it with almost anything, and it is incredible delicious.   It's really just a caramel spread, but I think it tastes a little different

.  I try to eat it somewhat sparingly, seeing as it IS a dessert, but I think Argentines just consider it like another condiment ... no limits on when you can eat it.  I eat it on toast in the morning, on fruits, once I even had it inside an empanada (I wonder how many calories THAT was?).  Anway, the picture below is the kind that Mirta buys for me ... it's won 'best dulce de leche of the year' awards for 4 years in a row! Haha. 

Getting Accustomed!

(for the record, before I start, my English is deteriorating a lot...I tried to spell 'accustomed' in the subject line a couple different ways before I had to look it up. yikes.)

Well I've been absolutely horrible about updating my blog for the last 3 weeks, but I think I'm going to try now to be more regular about it.  It would be kind of impossible to try to remember everything I've done in the last 3 weeks, so I'm just kind of going to forget about them and start recently, haha.

This week classes at the Universidad Católica de Argentina started - everyone here calls it la UCA.  (We get to choose classes from 4 different universities in the city).  I registered for I think 6 classes, and ended up actually trying 5 of them this week.  It was kind of fun actually to see how the university system works here, and it was something new to do, and also new people to meet.  Not sure if I'm going to end up staying in any of my UCA classes...I couldn't understand the professor very well in one, another has a really bad schedule, another is really dull.  I do like one class a lot called Economía del Desarollo (Development Econ), and I might end up taking that one, kind of just depends on how well I like my classes at the other universities (which start next week). 

Some noticeable differences in the university system here:

- No eating in class.  We were told that to eat in class here is akin to smoking in class in the US. 

- Speaking of smoking, it's allowed in university buildings, so people before class are always lighting up, or smoking in the bathroom or whatnot.

- Classes last generally 3 hours or more, but only once a week. Yikes, my attention span (especially in another language) is not that long!

- Just in general, wayyy more disorganized.  Much much much much more disorganized.

- Less comfortable that university spaces in the US ... we all have great common spaces and student unions and cafes and things like that, but it's rare here and where a cafeteria does exist its small and uncomfortable. Also, no comfortable chairs in their libraries!

First Week in BA

I'm almost done with my first full week in Buenos Aires...the city is incredibly overwhelming at first (well, it still is!).  It's really big, kind of hard to navigate at first, and just sort of difficult to get a feel for.  I feel bad for the people who come from like little towns out West who are shocked by cities in general!

IFSA (the name of my study abroad program) is very hands-off ... we go to a central location each day for orientation and Spanish classes, but besides that, they really don't give you any direction on how to get around, what to do, etc.  I think it's a good thing for sure, just different from Guatemala, where someone was telling us what to do every day. 

The very first day, we got a short course on how to use the "Guia T", which is their bus map, and then they shooed us out the door to go home. Yikes. That was difficult, to say the least.  The colectivos (buses) here are very complicated!!

I live in eastern Palermo, near Recoleta. It's a great location, kind of set off the main road near me, Santa Fe, but really close to bus stops and Subte stops.  I live with an older couple, named Mirta and Federico, and they are both really sweet.  They've had a lot of students come through, so they had a lot of things here for me (blow dryer, converters, cell phone, etc) and they know things that Americans like, I guess.  They eat dinner ridiculously late though, which will take some getting used to.  They eat at like 9 PM, by which time I'm definitely not hungry anymore, haha.  Also, both Mirta and Fede are "a la dieta" (on a diet), so they give me all the food they can't eat! We've actually ordered in for dinner for I think every dinner so far. .. maybe she doesn't like to cook? Oh well, its still good.

I haven't explored much of BA yet, besides Palermo a bit and Recoleta a bit.  I think maybe this afternoon, I'll go to San Telmo or some other neighborhood with my friends just to see more of the city.   BA is definitely very European ... they say a lot of it is very Italian, I've never been to Italy, so don't know about that, but I definitely see resemblances to Paris.  Lots of sidewalk cafes, very stylishly dressed people, attractive people in general...things like that.  Actually, we don't stick out at all in terms of appearance, minus the American dress.  I wear my pink North Face fleece around, and that is a sure sign of an American haha.  

I'm definitely having a good time so far, I can't wait to really get to know the city well and after that, start traveling around Argentina!

Guatemala Recap

Well I'm out of Guatemala now - we left on Saturday morning.  We spent the last week in Antigua and at the Belen convent doing a recap of our last 2 weeks in the field, giving presentations, discussing future changes, doing final Spanish evals, and things like that.  The week was actually kind of boring, but I liked being with my Magdalena family again, and the routine was kind of nice to fall back into.

Regarding my last post, I take back my ranking of the street food woman who sold me tamales.  As delicious as they were, I'm not sure if they were worth the ensuing sickness. (Who knows, they might not have been from her)  Anyway, when I got back to Antigua, I got a massive fever for a day, and then stomach sickness for the next 3.  I actually just about an hour took my last dose of Cipro, so hopefully all bacteria are gone.  

I'm sad to be out of Latin America now - living there was so different day to day, everything was fast paced and lively, yet at the same time, no one really hurried and people are more relaxed than Americans.  Life is just very rich and colorful.  We saw some really amazing places, some incredibly beautiful natural scenes, bustling cities, but also some very poor villages struggling to support themselves.  In every place, though, all the guatemaltecos were very accommodating, welcoming, and friendly to foreigners.  I met some amazing friends and people who had really strong passions for their work.  Everyone - friends and colleagues - really inspired me with their work.  I don't think I can say enough about how awesome my 2 months were - I do know I want to go back to Guatemala sometime in the future for sure. 

I'm in Buenos Aires now for the rest of the year - it's a huge change from Guatemala.  Probably even more so than the jump from Guatemala to New Jersey.  Anyway, I'm going to keep blogging about my Argentine semester, but I'm going to change the picture and title and everything ...just to keep the same name.  Later!

My top foods in Pana ...

It's difficult to order these in terms of ranking, but I'll try. Rankings are based on taste and price!

1) 1 quetzal frozen chocolate covered fruit or 1 quetzal homemade ice creams. This is probably the most random find ever, but they're so good. Some couple that owns a hotel down some random alley has a whole freezer of frozen fruits and little ice cream cups they make. Only 12 cents!

2) Deli sandwiches from Pana Meats. These are sort of expensive, 25Q, but they are big and come with a side too. It would be considered a good sub sandwich even back in the US. I'm pretty sure they import their meat, too.

3) Pupuseria. Pupusas are the national food of El Salvador and they are really great! It's basically two tortillas filled with cheese or vegetables or beans or meat then grilled on the stove. They come with some sort of pickled cabbage which is really good. Also, 1 pupusa is pretty filling, and each one only costs 8Q. I want to find a pupuseria in New York or NJ somewhere when I get back next year!

4) Uruguayan restaurant. I have no idea why it's called Uruguayan because they have only normal food, but they give you free refillable garlic bread with any order. However, we've been here so many times that I think they don't like us anyone, and have terrible service. On the other hand, they do have 5Q refillable coffee.

5) Chuchitas from a woman on the street for breakfast. These are basically just tamales with a little piece of meat in the middle and a salsa on the top. I probably shouldn't have eaten these, but they were only 3Q and they were really good.

Noticeably lacking: Good coffee shops. All the coffee here (minus Uruguayan restaurant) is around 8Q, expensive, and there's no good coffee shops to sit down and read in, or use wifi in. Also, I've gotten instant coffee before when I paid 7Q for a cup. What a rip off! There's also no good Internet here. Its either ridiculously expensive or ridiculously cheap but the people that work there are mean. (I'm currently using the latter).

Panajachel so far ...

We got to Pana on Monday afternoon ... its a cool little hippie-town on the shore of Lake Atitlan(left), which is this huge volcanic crater-lake in the Solola region. Its definitely a more touristy town aimed almost exclusively at foreigners. We have 2 hotel rooms here, so its nice to have the private bathroom and shower of a hotel, but its basically a hostel situation in terms of beds. The lake is really beautiful, also its really dirty and contaminated and when you get up close you see it littered with garbage.

We've spent 2 days so far in a little village on the other side of the lake called San Antonio Palopo. Its a short pickup truck ride away (which are really fun, by the way!).

We're having our weekly campaign there on Saturday, so we went on Tuesday to do publicity for the campaign. SolCom has a good relationship with a weaving co-op in San Antonio (we're having the campaign at the weaving co-op, which is an integral part of the town, so its a good location), and this week we-re also doing some publicity work for the co-op. We made a brochure for them and we're working on a video about the weaving process. Yesterday while we were in San Antonio, my assignment )along with one of my friends, Amanda) was to go into the local elementary schools and talk to the directors about our campaign and then talk to groups of kids about the importance of clean water. Meeting with the directors went well ... he was excited about getting reading glasses and even was going to buy a water filter for the school, but talking to little kids was not so great! Little kids are pretty harsh! My Spanish is pretty decent, but to talk to little kids whose first language is Kakquichel about something thats pretty boring to them is hard! Amanda and I sort of ran out of there with our water filter when we were done. Haha.

Today we took a boat across the lake to San Juan, another little village. We visited another weaving co-op (there are a TON of weaving co-ops here, which makes it hard for one to stand out over another) to give them another brochure we had made as well as help them with a homestay program they're trying to start. We went around and looked at all the houses to make sure things were up to standard and correct things such as see-through shower curtains. Haha.

Oh, also on Wednesday we took the morning to go ziplining! It was pretty awesome .... there were 8 cables, and it took probably an hour to do all of them. We got really cool views of the lake as well as the jungley forest below us. There were also some spider monkeys ... the ziplining was in a Nature Reserve. To be honest, I kind of thought ziplining would be a bit more extreme than it was, but it was still really cool and definitely worth my $15. I'll put up pictures later once I get a better internet connection.

Xela Weekend Excursions ... Amazing

We went to Fuentes Georginas on Friday afternoon, which is a natural hot spring area about an hour outside of Xela. It was really incredible ... we drove about half an hour on dusty dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, and then all of a sudden there were these beautiful hot springs with a bunch of gringos (what everyone calls foreigners!). The water was legitimately very hot, although I think it varies by day. By the water source the water was near boiling and very sulphury. It was like a sauna and hot tub all in one ... very relaxing.


On Saturday night and through Sunday morning 3 friends and I climbed Volcan Tajumulco, which is the highest peak in Central America. It was really really incredible, one of the best things Ive ever done in my life! We left Xela at 1030 PM and got to the base in San Marcus at around 1230, and started hiking then. It was kind of creepy hiking in the dark ... I thought so mostly because our guide was telling us about wild coyotes. He was also telling us stories about "los espiritus", the spirits, which were really interesting, not because I believed them, but because he actually did. Spirit stories are so engrained into the culture that really everyone (even educated people, like our guide, David) believes them.

Anyway, the summit of the volcano was just amazing. It was freezing, winds over 50 mph, but we actually had a 360 view of Mexico, Guatemala, and the Pacific. Also, it was sort of cloudy when we first got up there at sunrise, which was actually cool because it looked like the view out of an airplane, except we weren{t in an airplane. It cleared up really soon though, and we got our awesome views.

After the hike back, I ate ice cream and slept for the rest of the day. I woke up to eat dinner, then slept again for like 9 hours.

Campaign in Flores

On Saturday we had our 3rd campaign, and it went really really well.  We split into two groups, and 5 of us went to a town about 2 hours outside of Xela called Flores.  It was a lot bigger than the other towns we've done campaigns in so far, so that was promising for a good turnout.  

When we got to the campaign location on Saturday morning, there were already probably 15 people in line waiting for their eye exam.  For the next 4 hours we had a really steady stream of people.  People would get a number when they walked in, and then actually have to wait a little bit (we could have used a couple more people doing eye exams!)

 before one of us could talk to them.  It ended up being really successful - we sold 35 pairs of glasses and a couple other things.  I thought it was really fun and really rewarding to do so much work at a campaign - it was great Spanish practice, talking to a ton of people, and it is really interesting to see a cross section of the population of each town.  A lot of people had problems that we can't deal with (i.e. don't need reading glasses, or eyedrops for redness and irritation), but a decent amount actually get really excited to be able to see up close again, to read, or sew, or something like that.

After I'd been in my own room doing eye exams for probably 3 hours, a woman (as she was

 walking out) pointed out an "animal underneath the table".  Turns out to be a tarantula, the size of an outstretched palm.  It was incredibly disgusting. It had been there right next to me for a long time!  Did I mention that this campaign took place in the town's public health facility, IN the doctor's office? Tarantulas in the exam room .... that wouldn't really fly in the US!

After our campaign, we ate lunch in a 'comedor' in Flores .... comedores are everywhere in Guatemala, but we've never eaten in one because you can't really guarantee cleanliness.  A Peace Corps girl told us she ate at this one all the time, though, so we figured it was fine.  A comedor is basically someone's house that they open up for people to eat in.  You go sit down in their house and then they bring you whatever they made for lunch that day - we had a vegetable soup (called caldo), tortillas, and some fruit drink thing.  It was really delicious! Also, it was only 12Q (1.5 dollars) for everything.  It was definitely something typically Guatemalan that I'm glad I did at least once!

Real World: Xela

This week Team Esperanza is in Quetzaltenango, more familiarly known as Xela. Xela is the 2nd biggest city in Guatemala, and we're living right in the center, so its fun to be in an urban (and thus very different!) environment. Our group gets one big apartment, and everyone gets their own room. Its a pretty big apartment! Anyway, I like to think of our week here as the third world country version of the Real World - put a bunch of 20 year olds together in an apartment and make them work together, and see how they get along. Haha. So far, so good.

Since we have a kitchen, people want to cook their own food. Buying breakfast food, fine, buying yogurt for snacks and stuff, fine ... but cooking dinner is getting to be too difficult! First of all, if we want anything but dried foods (pasta) you have to go the actual market where you buy food from indigenous people. Then its a pain to disinfect and or boil (likely both) all the food to get rid of parasites and stuff. The kitchen is like 50 years old ... you have to light the stove with a lighter (which somehow I ended up being the only one who knows how to do it, and you also end up burning your hands trying to do it) .... no one really knows how to cook anything, either. Example, last night as our appetizer we had "nachos" - slices of questionable cheese melted in the microwave over stale chips! Haha. Its sort of fun though, having to figure everything out ourselves! Oh, also, we don't have utensils. See left picture. I'm looking forward to our dinner out tomorrow night though. The convenience is certainly worth 4 to 5 dollars to me. Ha.

Today we visited a Spanish school called El Portal. This activity sort of falls under SolCom's program called AsesorPorFavor - which is basically a free consulting service. Theres a bunch of Spanish language schools throughout Xela, but this specific one is nonprofit, and uses the proceeds to provide scholarships to very poor children with single mothers. Its a good concept, but since theyre fairly new and somewhat out of the way, they don't have a ton of business. Anyway, we were there giving them some ideas on publicity and marketing as well as some cost cutting tips. (We want to sell them a water filter to save money on buying agua pura). This week we're going to make up a more attractive brochure to pass out to hostels and such.

Anyway, the water I put on to boil about 30 minutes ago is starting to bubble, so its time to put in the pasta (yay). I think we have leftover "nachos" tonight too. Yay, again.


Xela is a really awesome city though, very authentic, so so far I'm really liking it!

Weekend Trip to the Jungle!

This past weekend, because we had both Saturday and Sunday free, a group of 10 of us traveled to Coban, which is a region (and a city, too) to the north and to the east of Antigua.   It was actually a pretty impractical trip, because it was 7 hours each way in a little microbus, and we did only have 2 days.  We left at 5 am on Saturday to get there at noon, and then had exactly 24 hours until we had to drive back.  The trip was soo worth it though, definitely the coolest place I've been so far I think.

One of the best parts of the mini-vacation was the place we stayed, El Retiro Lodge. For only 35Q a night too (about 4 dollars!). We slept in little bungalows - they had a great restaurant with a really good Mexican buffet for dinner ... direct access to the Lanquin River, and just a really cool atmosphere.  

On Saturday we went to the Lanquin Caves - a bat cave really close to El Retiro.  (Picture to the left). It was really incredible, to walk through this huge, really extensive, cave system.  There were also Mayan altars throughout the caves which was awesome.  At 5:30 all the bats come out of the cave, which unfortunately I didn't get to see but we did see a couple bats in the cave above our heads. 

The Lanquin River starts in the Caves, and El Retiro offers tubing trips starting at the river and going down to their property.  It was really really fun - definitely something that might not be allowed in the US...no waiver forms, no life vests, likely highly contaminated water, no safety brief ... just sort of like throw your tube in the river and go!  Coban is a jungle area too, so I thought it was really really cool to just be tubing on this river through the jungle!

We woke up early on Sunday morning to go to Semuc Champey - a national park in Guate. It was really beautiful, we did a hike through the turquoise pools and then up a mountain to a lookout point.  I'm in better shape than I thought I was, for not having exercised (except for walking a bunch of places) at all since I left!  Again, just hiking thro

ugh the jungle was really worth it!

After coming back from Semuc, we ordered a quick breakfast and coffee, and then got right back into the microbus for 7 hours to come back home to Antigua.  Definitely worth it! The entire weekend ended up being on the expensive side .. I think I paid a total of like $60 for the entire time, everything included. (Which is actually cheap if you think about it...entrance into 2 parks, tubing, meals, lodging, transportation for 14 hrs, but still, its a lot in terms of quetzales!)

Definitely worth it! If I ever come back to Guate, I would want to go back to El Retiro and spend more time there!

Beans + Beans + Beans + Whole Milk

The Guatemalan typical dinner (which I know QUITE well by now....):
Black beans.
Tortillas.
Maybe some rice?

That's about it. Haha. Actually no joke the last 3 nights for dinner I've had a plate of beans (last night they were red beans, so a little different) and tortillas. Oh well. Usually Guatemalans have a bigger lunch, and then just eat something simple for dinner. The typical breakfast includes all the above plus some fried plantains, so at least I get to eat cereal for breakfast instead of repeating my meal from the night before!

Speaking of said cereal - it is always Corn Flakes (I think this stems from Guatemalans obsession with corn, also they're pretty cheap, and the only other option that isn't imported and thus wildly expensive is Choco-Krispies, kind of random). It's kind of a luxury that my family buys me cereal - they usually don't eat breakfast. The very first day I ate breakfast with my family in Antigua they gave me a full bowl of (warm-ish) instant milk, with a box of cereal on the side. Usually at home I only use a little bit of milk and don't ever drink it, so there was no way I was finishing a whole bowl of instant milk. So they took my left-over instant milk as a sign I hated instant milk (not really true, I would definitely eat it, just less of it!) and started buying real milk. Except I feel very bad about their milk purchases - it costs 40Q, which is expensive, and they only buy whole milk in gallon sizes, which I like almost less than instant milk. So then I don't use a lot of it - it goes bad after a week or so, and thus doesn't get finished. Haha, just a bad milk situation. I think they are kind of proud of buying real milk for me though, it's almost a status thing (my family has a fridge, which is uncommon), so I wouldn't want to tell them I don't like it at the almost-end of my trip. So anyway, I'm looking forward to 2% milk when I get back!

Macademia Farm + more Antigua

This week all the 4 groups are back in Antigua, to sort of recap the first half our of time and do more Spanish lessons. It´s fun to have everyone back in the same location, although I´m definitely looking forward to traveling again. Antigua is still fun, and I like being with my homestay, although it´s definitely a little old.

On Monday, while the other groups were traveling back here, my group went to a macademia nut farm right outside of Antigua, near Ciudad Vieja. It was really really cool, probably one of my favorite mornings here! We ate delicious macademia nut pancakes (with blueberries), got a tour of the farm, heard about their organization a bit, and got to sample some things. In addition to just growing macademia nuts, they also sort of function as a development group, because they provide up to 100 macademia trees to rural farmers at a really reduced price, and then give counsel about how to grow them, so that farmers can make an extra income. I think macademia nuts also pull in a higher amount than more traditional crops. They also paid for the morning, which was nice! I wasn´t expecting them to pay for anything here, but they pay for quite a bit, and give up daily stipends also. It makes sense for the people who paid to come here, but for us from Duke it´s really just extra-extra money being given to us. Haha.

Today I had my last Spanish lesson with my tutor, which was sort of sad but not actually sad....I really like her, she had a lot of interesting things to tell me about, but the lessons themselves kind of dragged on (4 hrs of straight conversation!). This afternoon we all gave presentations on our experience with each product at the campaigns, and general tips to share about how to have good publicity and good campaigns.

I found a good Internet cafe in Magdalena (where I live) which is faster and cheaper (only 5Q an hour instead of 8Q, so thats like 60 cents an hour instead of a dollar haha). I´m about to look up places to go this weekend (we have Saturday and Sunday off) and then go back home, so thats about it!

CrediCapaz - A Savings Project

One of my team´s projects for our 4 weeks is helping SolCom with one of their (very) new initiatives, called CrediCapaz. Basically all that exists now is a name and the desired outcomes of the project. So each team is charged with doing market research, surveys, and formulating a potential plan that we´ll eventually present for review. CrediCapaz is aimed at encouraging good savings habits among poorer Guatemalans by setting up community savings-based ¨banks¨.

Savings really can have a lot of good repercussions for the poor - they can use their savings as a buffer for unexpected things, or save for larger planned investments. Also, its a lot easier and better to make an investment out of your savings than to take out a high-interest microfinance loan (some go up to mid 30s% interest).

So far my team has done a lot of research into existing financial options for Guatemalans in different areas and surveying into the current savings patterns. My friend Chris and I walked around Nebaj and talked with owners of cooperatives and banks to see what sort of rates they offer and incentives and disincentives for using each type. I thought that was really interesting - a good opportunity to use my Spanish and talk directly to the administration of those places. We also developed a survey for regular people to ask about their savings - we´ve found so far that people are interested in savings, often don´t have enough money to do so, and generally distrust banks (apparently they fail w/o warning!).

The rest of this might be somewhat technical? I don´t know. It´s interesting.

Our plan is based on an existing structure in Guatemalan society - the cuchubal, which the word for a ROSCA. A ROSCA is really not complicated at all - basically a group of people that contribute a fixed amount each month (or a set term), and one member of the group takes all the money each month. It could kind of be looked as a 0% interest loan. Read the Wiki for more detail.

Our plan modifies the ROSCA´s shortcomings, which are lack of savings interest and unknown withdrawal time. We are trying to modify it so people can plan their withdrawal time, so they can plan investment, and also offer initial interest (from SolCom, via an Asesora) to entice people to join. I won´t go into all the details here because it would take awhile, but it´s really interesting to go to the grassroots level when designing a project like this, and seeing what people really want, what they would actually take advantage of, what incentives they need, etc. It´s also good for practicing Spanish!

Monterrico - A Volcanic Beach

Yesterday we sort of had an off day, and they took our whole team to the beach for the day. We went to Monterrico, which I think is one of the more touristy beaches in the country, probably one of the nicer ones. By touristy, it was by no means more developed or anything, I think that just means there were a few foreigners (not really even Americans) and the prices were slightly higher (this one ice cream cone that we buy all the time cost 6Q instead of 5Q..a whole 12 cents more). It was a really nice day though - sort of cloudy in the morning but by 11 or so it got sunny and really hot. Because it´s a volcanic beach, the sand was black(ish) which was pretty cool. The waves were really high and the undertow was really strong, so I didn´t actually swim in the ocean. Even people that really wanted to swim in the ocean couldn´t....there was a pool right off the sand though, so that was nice. My first pool of the summer!

Hike to the cascadas!

On Sunday, we had a free day, so my team did a short hike to a waterfall that was outside of Nebaj.
I guess the waterfall itself wasn{t that spectacular - nothing that couldn{t be seen in the US, but I thought the hike there was pretty interesting:

1) We went with an Ixil guide who pointed out a bunch of small villages that were formed in the 80s for displaced people. Basically during the civil war people were forced out of their homes in Nebaj and forced to live in shantytowns, kind of. And people still live there ... you can almost tell they were makeshift villages - badly constructed houses and all crammed together.

2) Garbage everywhere!! Guatemalans have no sense that littering is bad! Rivers would be almost blocked up by piles and piles of plastic cans ... water was ridiculously contaminated ... wrappers everywhere! It was kind of sad to see really, that the pretty landscape was so overridden by trash! (The picture below is of garbage in a river, its sort of hard to see)

Our First "Campaña"

On Saturday, our team did our first campaign with Ana, a local "entrepreneur" who works with SolCom, in a pretty small and very rural town called Xexuxcap (actually an Ixil word pronounced with lots of "sh" sounds). We had come into Xexuxcap on Wednesday to do publicity for the campaign - which basically was going to find the mayor of the town, getting his permission, finding a spot, and walking around all the streets of the town putting up posters and talking to people and passing out flyers.

Basically campaigns are one of the biggest focuses of our work here - its where we actually go into a smaller "aldea" (village) and bring products, and the entrepreneur sells them. We gave free eye exams, and then sold reading glasses, as well as water filters, seeds, water purifying drops, and some other things. Since our village was pretty small, we sold a little under the average - but it was really awesome to be able to out in a really remote part of the country and interacting with people and giving them things that people really need. When we{re just talking about the products, there{s a disconnect that makes the products seem kind of uninteresting - but when youre out helping an entrepreneur, you can really see how needed everything is. We sell eyedrops (kind of like Visine I think), and since everyone is always really exposed to dust and dirt and lots of sun, peoples eyes are actually really irritated, and people actually came with bright red eyes, which I guess I wasn{t really expecting.

Also we{re testing out a new solar light, which back in Antigua in the discussion phase, I thought was kind of small and wouldn{t actually be popular. But when you take the product out to the aldea, people went crazy for them, because a lot of people spend money each day on multiple candles to light their house. So it was really awesome to get to connect discussion with actual practical use.

We just got back from Nebaj, and now Im back in Magdalena, the town I live in outside of Antigua. Im glad to be back in Antigua with my original family - Ive missed their food! Also, Ive missed their (warm) bucket showers (never thought I would say that!), but cold real showers are much worse!

Unexpected things I´ve taken for granted in the US...

1) Decent plumbing systems. As in, here, you can´t put toilet paper in the toilet because it would clog up the pipes. (Toilet paper itself is somewhat uncommon apparently too!) Also, a lot of toilets you can´t lift a handle to flush, you have to dump a bucket of water in to make it flush via a gravity-feed system.

2) Strawberries. Can´t eat them here because they grow underground and are thus really susceptible to bacteria and stuff.

3) Window screens. Lots of flies around here!

4) Desserts in general. Families don´t really eat dessert! I guess that´s actually

not so bad (for me) really...

5) The ability to travel in general. Most people I´ve talked to haven´t really been outside of their own department, and definitely not the country. I almost feel a little guilty telling them where I´ve traveled! They are all likely wondering what we´re all doing visiting them when we have so many options. As one of my friends pointed out though, maybe that´s actully a good feeling for them, to know that their home is worth visiting even though we Americans have so many other options!

All I can think of for now!

Nebaj

We drove to Nebaj on Monday from Antigua - a ridiculously harrowing drive up and down and around the mountains. Not sure of the altitude here but itś definitely higher - maybe 8000? The views from our bus were really amazing though so the constant hairpin turns were worth it!

We split up into four groups of nine people each, so for the rest of the time here (minus a regroup in the middle and a conclusion at the end) we¨re only with a small group.

Nebaj has a really really interesting history and culture...it is in the Ixil region and has a pretty distinct food and dress from the other parts of the Western Highlands. ALmost everyone speaks Ixil, a Mayan language, and Spanish is only a 2nd language. During the civil war inthe 80s most of the area was wiped out, but you can tell that everyone here is still really proud of their Ixil culture.

Im living with a new homestay family for the week that Im here - this time there are 2 little boys (who dont really speak to me that much, oh well), and one mother (who is actually only 24 or 25 I forget which). The dad works in a far away city and comes home on weekends. I think I like my family back in Antigua better, but this house is basically a mansion compared to Antigua. It is all indoors, to start, real roofs, and I actually have my own bathroom and shower and sink. None of which work, actually, but just the fact that they exist is good enough ... haha. Also, the bed is essentially some plywood covered with sheets (although there are somehow lumps in it...), which is by far less comfy than my bed in Antigua. But oh well, you win some you lose some....

I really like Nebaj so far. Itś very authentic and definitely more rustic than the Spanish-inspired Antigua. There are really no tourists here (well some, we met a girl who is living in southern Guatemala for a year making a documentary, does she count as a tourist?) and certainly no English speakers except for us. I like the vibe here, its just very real.

PS - this picture is from the top of our hostel the first night looking over one part of the city - Soluciones Comunitarias owns a restaurant/hostel/guide service here, and we use those places all the time.

Soluciones Comunitarias

So what am I actually doing here in Guatemala? (Besides touring cities and hiking!)

We´re all working as interns for Social Entrepreneur Corps, which is an American-based company that sends college students to Guatemala or Ecuador to, very broadly, work in development. We are specifically working for Soluciones Comunitarias (website in Spanish!), which is a Guatemalan-based development company which tries to provide access to services and products to rural Guatemala. SolCom has a bunch of different projects that they run that are pretty diverse but are all focused on that (broad) goal. SolCom is under an American nonprofit Community Enterprise Solutions (confusing structure...I could explain better in person!) ... that website gives the best overview of the programs that actually exist in Guatemala.

SolCom´s method of development work is social entrepreneurship, which is basically finding innovative and entrepreneurial solutions to development problems. So they´ve come up with some really interesting ways to go about working on development issues.

The main project SolCom is sort of known for is their microconsignment model, and we´ll be working a lot with that. Basically, SolCom provides local women entrepreneurs with products that the community needs (eyeglasses, water filters, wood burning stoves, seeds, etc), then trains the women to go out and sell the products to the community. The women keep profits minus a small share which goes back to SolCom to buy more products. We basically help the women advertise, promote their campaign, and sell the products in a bunch of different locations throughout Guatemala.

Besides microconsignment, SolCom also offers consulting services to local businesses that want them...we´ll also be working as business consultants, basically. There´s a couple other projects they´re working on - from savings-based microcredit (link is to info about a ROSCA, a really simple form of savings based microfinance) to publishing a free brochure with business insights.

We´ll be traveling to 4 different locations in Guatemala (Nebaj, Solola, Xela, and Antigua) to help with SolCom´s projects. We´ll really be doing lots of different things in each region, so it´s kind of hard to say exactly what I´ll be working one each week - but oh well I´ll keep updated.

Hope that wasn´t too confusing. There is a pretty complicated structure they have set up, but in general Soluciones Comunitarias is the umbrella organization based in Guatemala, and they fall under CESolutions, which is the nonprofit in the States which raises money to support the effort.

These first 2 weeks in Antigua (which are almost over!) have been 4 hours in the morning of Spanish tutoring, and then 4 hours in the afternoon of development training - learning about social entrepreneurship and the models they have set up in Guatemala. So starting next week we´re actually going out and doing our field work!

Climbing Pacaya

On Sunday we all climbed Volcan Pacaya, which is about an hour outside of Antigua. It wasn´t a very intense hike - only for the first hour or so was it steep. (They also drive you about halfway up the volcano) It was really awesome once you got to the volcanic rock part, though ... you were basically climbing over cooled lava. Pacaya is also active, so every week the landscape slightly changes, and there is tons of hot lava around. You couldn´t get very close to the lava because it was literally burning hot. Our guide´s shoes actually burned off, he got so close! It was really incredible though to be so close to a volcano! We also got to ´ski´down a volcanic field ... it is basically loose ash and rock that you can slide down on your feet! Overall, really cool and different hike!

Making Tortillas

Last night I helped my madre make tortillas for dinner. Guatemalans eat tortillas with every dinner, actually almost every meal I think! The last 3 nights we went to a tortilleria around the corner to buy them, but last night Olga made them. it's ar eally long process; you have to buy the maiz (corn) and then make some powder and then some complicated dough. I helped her pat them out - you kind of pass them between your two hands really quickly to spread them and shape them. I made 2 in the time it took her to make about 25!

They taste different from American tortillas, definitely. I like them, but am not crazy about them. Some of their meals aren't very filling though, so to eat a heavier bread with meals is good for keeping you from getting hungry!

Last night we also had a really good dinner...some sort of vegetable soup with pasta in it, and some weird vegetables that I didn't recognize on the side, and also some rice. They have a bunch of fruits and veggies here that I am only learning the Spanish word for ... never seem them in the US!

La Camioneta (Chicken Bus!)

The 'camioneta' is hard to describe in words - it's difficult to convey the full atmosphere! The camioneta is essentially the public transportation in Guatemala (although it is privately owned...). Think a 1980s American school bus, add a crazy paint job, 100 people (capacity 60!), winding roads, and take away any notion of sanitation (did that exist in American school buses anyway?) and you have a chicken bus!

Because drivers want to make the most money, they try to fit as many people as possible. People hang off the sides and sometimes even go on top. Also you don't pay the driver when you come on, you pay an 'ayudante' (helper) in the middle of the ride. The ayudante often has to climb over seats to get to everyone...

Anyway, we have to take the camioneta 2x a day for these 2 weeks! It's crazy but strangely kind of fun! (As long as I have some Purell for when I get off...)