things I've lost and other stories

10 Things I've Lost in South America
1. Kill Bill, v. 1. Placed into a laptop in Brazil, and it never came out.
2. my wallet (including 1 of 2 debit cards, copy of my passport, and about US$10. not too bad.)
3. pedometer, lol. hiking in Iracambi. snagged in a low tree.
4. 1 of 3 luggage keys. only 2 left!
5. my pillowcase :(
6. Deferral book - lent it to a friend, never got it back
7. my red shirt! psh! wtf!
8. the good bug repellant
9. my Brazilian 3 dollar anti dandruff shampoo and my American biodegradable soap
10. my last tube of travel toothpaste

Luckily I don't need those things anymore. I would like to have some of them back, but as far as need goes...

5 Things I've Sacrified for a lighter load
1. my travel pillow. I gave it to Nilza actually, way back in Sao Paulo, because it was big and while maybe semi-useful, it was bulky and made me more self-conscious than was worth to use it.
2. the bad bug repellant
3. my work gloves - left them at Iracambi
4. poncho - donated to Iracambi as well
5. my energy bars! I didn't really sacrifice them though, I just ate them all.


other news...

Setting: Rafaela is like a big flat town that thinks it's a city, energetic enough but obvious to a foreigner that it's a tranquil place at heart housing tranquil people. I bike around the whole town, to school, to the town center, to parks and sometimes to nowhere. Stopping in shops when I feel like it - today the lady behind the counter laughed as I purchased orange juice only - it must not be a common thirst quencher here - and asked where I was from, giggling. Sometimes they don't ask me where I'm from. Sometimes they think I'm German. But it's cool because before I speak no one knows I'm foreign, and even when I do no one knows I'm from the US, and Argentina is composed mostly of Italians and Spanish descendents, along with Germans, so I don't even stand out. Like in school - plenty of blondes, and at about 3 feet tall, a redhead with a mass of hair bigger than her torso.

Teaching: I see 12 classes weekly, and 6 of them bi-weekly, so in total I teach 15 per week. In the beginning it was just introductions, and it's now progressed to games, speaking activities, writing...it's been fun. Soon I'll start sharing slang and good music and talk about what high school was like, and the like. I teach children of every age, and it's like nothing else to walk around in a school of 400 where all the kids, from 6 to 17, know and like you and the young ones shout your name, walk up to you and give you hugs, beam each time you walk into their classroom in hopes that you're going to be with them today when really you're lost and don't know where your next class is and are trying to figure it out by trial and error; and the older ones give respectful nods and chummy high fives and talk to you when you wait to be picked up outside. The burden of teaching so many different classes at varying levels, the pressure of being a "culture and language facilitator" as my position is called, is severely outweighed by the relatively successful classes and the enthusiasm with which I'm received by all the students. It's hard to have a bad day in such a school.

A long time ago: Thomas, one of the Irish, is stationed in Rafaela too, but in a different school. Last last weekend (because I haven't updated in so long; faithful readers, my apologies) he and I took two buses to reach Las Varillas, a charming little pueblo in the next province over about 3 hours away. We visited an Irish comrade stationed there, Siobhan, and in general 'had the craic.' Met Siobhan's host family, got a hotel, biked around town, got dinner and pre-gamed before going to the disco (which was pretty hoppin' for such a small town) and coming home, in accordance with the Argentinean schedule, at 6 AM. At 12 we forced ourselves up for a family lunch and soon thereafter took a nap, and Thomas and I spent the rest of the Sunday night making it home by 10:30.

Scandal: My host sister's 9th birthday was two weeks ago, and the only thing she wanted was a hamster, which after some struggle she obtained ("What fault is it of mine that you so detest animals?!" - Emilia, presumably before I arrived, articulating to Host Mother). The novelty of this little rodent did not seem to wear off. After a week she finally came up with a name for the thing: Lupita. She watched it run on the wheel and fall into his water bowl, gave him cotton, giggled and timidly removed it from the cage. Well, I woke up on Monday morning and deciphered through the family's morning Spanish that, during the night, Manchi the dog had eaten Lupita. They discovered the dead body on the rug outside - they had accidentally left the cage outside that night. Well, I assumed Emilia would be in shambles, but to my surprise I found her completely content to have a replacement hamster, which the father promptly bought that morning for a painless replacement. Even so, you'd expect some sort of grief, a child's realization of mortality, with this switcharoo; instead, Emilia remarked today that this hamster is much better than his brother (she calls him the other hamster's brother, don't know if that's her imagination, the truth, or a parent's fat lie) because he doesn't bite. Give it a few days and it might have a name.

Sometimes: I like to swim in the beautiful pool here at all hours. It is technically fall now, and the Argentineans think I'm crazy for swimming at this time of year but (first of all I am, and second of all) it's not that cold. They don't know what real cold is! One night I thought it would be a good idea to go for a swim - it was not cold but not by any means warm - and felt sort of surreal in that pool, where the dark water was level with the ground almost so that my entire view was all water and the Southern Hemisphere's sky, where the constellations are reversed - which I noticed first on the desolate dirt road walk to town from the volunteer post in Brazil. It was very cold and I did not stay in too long.

Last weekend: Solitary biking, plaza watching, partial family dinner, Disney movie with Emilia on a Friday night - she fell asleep at the end; it was dubbed in Spanish - Saturday and an impromptu check-up meeting with program director, lunch with Thomas thereafter, pool, friend's weekend house, quad riding, baseball playing, unpretentious gathering of friends; full family dinner, telephone, party, disco, sleep!; and a very family Sunday, then Thomas and our Arg friend Guido (read: Gee-dough, accent on the Gee) and the pool and another unpretentious gathering of friends with coke and chips on the grass. Rode in the back of Guido's blue truck, in the bed of the truck, and saw a silly little bus, like a clown-themed children's transportation mobile emanating clownish music. Hair blowing around and the sun setting directly ahead as we head west, leading me to believe the city's right-angled streets were constructed perfectly on the cardinals - and in that way at sunrise and at sunset I know which way to look for Buenos Aires, for Brazil, for home.