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Soo much to talk about...
Friday I had my meeting with Pilotos Solidarios which is the org I'm going on weekend trips with. It was really good, I also met my main Arg. contact there who is really nice. I am officially going to the province of Santiago del Espero this weekend for the trip. It will be a 14 hour bus-ride....so we leave thurs night and arrive fri morning. I will basically be acting as a physicians assistant during the trip: taking blood pressures, weights, etc of patients. We will be in a few very small villages in this province that from the pictures looks fairly desert-esque-and HOT im sure. So im a bit anxious about the trip but looking forward to it as well. By the way the doctor who i will be shadowing is the president of this org so I will get to know him. I supposedly will meet with him before then to talk about shadowing but havent heard anything yet.
Friday night i went out with a few people i met through a BsAs expats forum. We stayed pretty close to where i live, just went to a few bars. It was pretty good, though i wasnt up for the standard nights here that end at 8 am. I think it might even be later here than in spain, dinner on weekend nights or when going out isn't until midnight.
Also on a spain-related note, Stace ive been thinking of you, they hate large bills here and give you the worst looks or just simply tell you you cant use them. keep in mind me handing them a $100 peso bill is around u$s30 so its not overshooting by that much. Anyway there is an actual national shortage of change in argentina so its really really hard to get it- note that you can only use exact change on buses, etc. It's just a mess but oh well.
Ok on to saturday- I attempted to get a cell phone with one of the girls I met but all of the places in the area we were in were closed. So that will have to wait. After that I went to LIFE my other org and went to my first volunteer outing. Overall it was really great. We took a small van out to the area we were working in which was about a 30 min drive. The area was very impoverished, there was a MASSIVE building that was supposed to be a hospital that Peron started when he was in office but they ran out of funding so it doesnt have walls or anything. It must be 2 city blocks long and all of these people live inside it. We were in a small building across from it and as soon as we pulled up tons of little kids ran up to greet us with a kiss on the cheek and lots of smiles. The activity we had yesterday was "cooking class" so we "made pizza" with the kids. To give you an idea of how run down this place was we had to get a large bucket of water for the kids to wash their hands( there wasn't running water in the building) and after like 3 kids had put their hands in the water was filthy. Anyway we made pizza which was probably not very tasty but they liked it. While is was cooking, and after eating we played outside with the kids. I really enjoyed it and doing it several times a week will definitely help my spanish loads. I didnt bring my camera because i wasn't sure what it would be like but i definitely will next time, the kids love taking pictures. I didnt get home until about 8 last night and was exhausted so I just took it easy.
Today I was a tourist and it was great. I met up with 2 girls, one that i just met and we went to the San Telmo Feria which is one of the main things to see/do while in BA. San Telmo is the oldest neighborhood in the city and every sunday they have this huge antiques fair in the main plaza. There are tons of people, street performers, vedors, etc. It was really nice to walk around and people watch.
After the feria, Marisa and I, the english girl i met today, went on a bike tour of the city! It was great but exhausting. Also, my arms are fried. I put sunscreen on before but still friend. We did the south tour which goes down to La Boca which is the sketchier bit of town so i most likely wouldnt have seen a lot of it otherwise. We saw the Boca Juniors futbol stadium- there are 2 teams from BA (boca and river plate) anyway long story short their rivalry is one of the biggest in the world, their matches against eachother are listed on the top 50 sports events to see. to get more of an idea coke sponsors boca but red and white are river plate's colors so you'll notice on the stadium all of the coke logos have been painted over in black.
after the stadium we saw el caminito which is those brightly colored houses you always see in pictures of BsAs. Its cute but otherwise just a big toursit trap with lots of people trying to get your money. there were some cool street tango shows though. The history of the area is that a long time ago the elite lived there until the yellow fever came and they abandoned it. then immigrants came and lived in the old mansions, sharing the common areas among families. the majority were italian. The vibrant colors are because they painted using leftover paint from the shipyard, so walls ended up all different colors.
Next we went to a huge ecological reserve on the coast that was full of people out walking and stuff, every group of people had someone carrying a thermos of hot water and someone else carrying the mate. We saw the water and it's sooo brown! As far as you can see just brown-ive never seen that much water that color. Overall it was a great way to see some interesting parts of the city and good exercise-next time just need more sunscreen!
i'm going to post some pictures and im not sure if i can comment on them or not so if not ill post anoter blog with them later- love you all! besitos
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