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Hola!
A few updates:
I am officially only an hour behind east coast time now, so that's a bit exciting. Since I've last written I've been volunteering with LIFE a ton. I still love it and am making progress with my kids and lesson plans. Last week I designed a really nice bingo game that we played in english that went really well. Also, I have introduced the idea of doing pen-pals with my kids. Thanks Steph! She is teaching spanish to high school kids in WI and is willing to help me out with this. I'm going to have my kids write some basic info on a notecard and decorate the other side and then put them in a big envelope and send to steph, etc. The idea went over really well and will hopefully be started next week!
Spanish lessons are still going well.....no changes there
Last thurs i went out to an indian restuarant which was outstanding. I think i've mentioned it but there are 13 million people in this city and like 10 ethnic restaurants....not cool. And no spices, salt, etc., very bland...oh well...who thought the day would come when i would say you can only eat so many carbs...but seriously argentina
After that we went to Club Niceto, which on Thurs is called Club 69 and features a transvestite show...It was pretty fun, though the show itself changes every week and I think my week was not as good as we've heard they normally are...i'll post some pictures tho.
Saturday and sunday my friend sarah and i wandered around my neighborhood, Palermo, which has street fairs on those days- i bought my own mate gourd! For those of you who don't know, mate (or yerba mate (mah-tay)) is the national drink of argentina, its basically a tea but super bitter. You drink it out of a funny little gourd and use a metal straw called a bombilla. The gourds here are very different from the ones dad brought home from brazil though...but anyway mine is very cute and i had to cure it before using it, which entails essentially making a cup of mate and letting it soak overnight, then drying it in the sun. I have pictures of that as well :)
sunday morning we went to what is supposed to be the best, and among the only brunches in town...we went at 2 which is early because you dont go to sleep till 7 am sat night, so most people that brunch go about 4pm. anywhoo it was at a scandinavian restaurant, the food was pretty good but not quite the american brunch we were craving. thoug it was about u$s10 for an eleborate meal including champagne.
So tuesday was st patricks day...and argentina surprisingly(to me at least) has the 5th largest irish community in the world (after only english speaking countries) so there is quite a large celebration here. there is one avenue with several irish pubs so the street gets shut down for the day/night. we ended up mainly in one pub, with a U2 cover band i might add, that wwas quite good except when he'd talk and it was in spanish and threw it off a bit. they played a bit of irish music, during which i ended up forced on stage to dance....no i wasn't even drunk...but it was fun and i danced for the whole bar who loved it.
tomorrow i am leaving for my first weekend trip with Pilotos Solidarios, the doc's org. it was supposed to depart tonight but this is argentina so clearly that didnt happen, and knock on wood we leave tmr. The fourteen hour bus ride leaves BsAs at 345 in the afternoon and arrives at like 6am and then we start working at 7....should be interesting. I think there is a total 7 people..mostly docs and dentists and then me. will be good spanish practice at least...oh ps the buses here can be very nice, im not sure if i ahve a full bed or semi bed but either way, its not QUITE as bad as it sounds. we will work all day sat doing medical exams, etc in a small town in the province. camping sat night, and then working sun before leaving that evening to arrive back in BA monday morning.
as far as i know now my jobs will include: taking heights, weights, blood presures, names, etc of patients, running errands for the docs, and of course making/refilling their midday mate's. oh and also taking pictures to document the trip as they cant do that while working. i'm very excited and also a little nervous as well. ill update early next week- miss you all!
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