Iguazú Falls = Fairyland

Since last time I posted, I’ve been busy traveling to the north of Argentina and finishing up school. First, everyone on our program went to Iguazú Falls with our professor Gisela as the final part of our last Comisión class. We flew into Iguazú and spent the day at the falls. There are waterfalls, and then there is Iguazú. It really is an incredible sight to see that much water cascading down and crashing below. We went to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil’s Throat), the biggest waterfall in the park, and it does not disappoint. There is so much water in the air that you walk away soaking wet. All the plants were super green and it amazed me that they were able to stay attached to the waterfall with so much force being exerted on them by the falling water. We then went to another part of the park where we saw some smaller (but still beautiful) falls. The park is organized really well and you can get views of the falls from different levels. We started at the base and then crossed to an island where you were basically in the middle of the falls then finally, we crossed on top of the falls and looked down on the crashing water. It was so beautiful—and unlike anything else I had ever seen. Plus, because of all the water in the air, there are rainbows EVERYWHERE and butterflies and flowers. It really seems like a fake fairy world. When we finally left the park at closing time, we went to the city of Iguazú and found our hostel.

The next day, we had the opportunity to check out an indigenous community called Fortín Mborore. The Comisión has been in contact with the community for a few years and the park service does a lot with the indigenous communities to help preserve their culture. We went food shopping for a big lunch feast and then drove to the community. Only a few people could speak Spanish, most spoke only Guaraní. We prepared lunch and played soccer with the kids and learned a few Guaraní words. The community was basically re-founded after the end of the dictatorship because the families of Mborore were forbidden to live together in community. Angela, our contact with the park service & the Comisión had incredible stories of wandering along the riverbank 30 years ago finding small groups of people living together and trying to convince them to move to the community they were starting so everyone from the Guaraní community could live together. She helped to start the community and then founded a bilingual school (Guaraní and Spanish) that now has the highest matriculation rate of any school in the province. She told us how when she started the school, it was just her as the teacher, nurse, administrator, lunch lady etc. Really an incredible woman. It was an awesome day and really interesting to see more of the indigenous communities we had been learning about.

Our last day in Iguazú, we went to the Jesuit ruins at San Ignacio. The ruins have been well restored and you can really see the layout of the community. We were with this hilarious group of older Uruguayans. They were cracking jokes the entire time and we loved spending the afternoon with them. Iguazú was a wonderful trip and I loved spending time with our professor Gisela. She works with the National Park Service and was a constant source of insight throughout the week.

This is the first of a few posts in the next couple days… bear with me as I finish up sharing the last couple weeks. I’m back in the U.S. in 8 days.

Just a few pictures!

I just got in from one trip (to Iguazú Falls and the Misiones province) this afternoon and I'm headed out again tomorrow to Jujuy, Salta Tucuman so I don't have time to update but here are a few pictures...At the Cataratas (waterfalls) de Iguazú. This one was called La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil's Throat).There were so many rainbows because of all the mist in the air-- the entire park seemed like a fantasy world.
Maya and I at one of the overlooks of the park. you could see the falls from different levels and lots of animals and plants too.
Preparing food at the guaraní indigenous community Fortin Mborore in Misiones.
This is the school for the community started in 1986 by Angela. She helped develop the community of Mborore in 1983 after the dictatorship and then started a bilingual school (spanish and guarani) for the children of the community practically by herself. She had incredible stories of the beginning of the community and was a great guide to the guaraní community.
The group outside in the ruins of the Jesuit missions in San Ignacio. These were started in the early 1600s and were surprisingly open to visitors. After the tour we were able to wander around the park and climb on rocks (aka 400 year old ruins) on our own.
Me inside of a tree that gives you energy if you touch it and something about getting married if you walk around it three times. It was planted near a big stone column and actually grew around/engulfed the entire column.

That's it for now, I'll explain more and add more pictures later.

Lots of love,
Caroline

Just a Quick Update…

To my loyal readers (aka mom & dad) I’m sorry this is a short post. I have to get up in 4.5 hours to travel to Iguazu. We are going with the Comisión to the waterfalls of Iguazu and a couple indigenous towns in the northeast of the country. That trip is Tuesday-Friday then I come back to La Plata to change a few clothes in my suitcase and leave again on Saturday (until Sunday July 3^rd) to Jujuy, Salta, and Tucuman in the northwest of the country. I’m super excited for these two trips, but mostly just to be traveling again.

A few highlights of this week:

• Birthday parties for both John & Leksa (two other W&M students). Maya and I also made the birthday cakes for the parties and we are just getting better and better with every cake (one was a lemon/strawberry layered cake with lemon cream cheese frosting and one was dulce de leche and chocolate).
• Ballet with Maya in Teatro Argentino in La Plata. For a hefty $15 pesos (aka 3.75 USD) we saw Sleeping Beauty—very beautiful dancing and the costumes were gorgeous.
  
• Our house is painted! After a few days of paint fumes, we now have freshly painted walls (white, green and orange/yellow) which look fabulous. And then Eli decorated a new computer table with Andy Warhol pictures which turned out awesome.
  
• Delicious seafood risotto last night and a wonderful parilla today to celebrate flag day!

I was bummed to be away from home another Father’s Day—Daddy, you are the best and I miss you. I hope you (and all dads) had a relaxing weekend. And another couple notes to my family: Colleen, when I get home you might have to give up your “upstairs resting room” (aka my bedroom); I get home on a Sunday just in time for SND; and I hope you are ready for lots of pancakes when I get home because I have found a couple great recipes I am dying to try!

I hope you are all doing well, I’ll update again after my trips (with pictures too!).

Love, Caroline

Done with School? Almost?

Hello friends! Another week has passed here in La Plata and it’s been lots of fun. I started the week with the finishing my final project for a class at the Comisión on Recent Argentine History & Human Rights. I wrote a paper about where the figure of 30,000 disappeared people comes from and how different leaders in the human rights field and popular media represent the victims of the dictatorship and other state terrorism. I was happy to finish it and check one more class off my list. I’m just about done with school here, I’m meeting with my professor who had a heart attack to see if we can turn in a final project to get credit for the course, but if that’s not possible then I am done with school here. I’ve really enjoyed all the Comisión classes and it’s weird having (even more) free time.

After finishing my paper on Wednesday, it’s been an easy week. Maya and I wanted to travel to Chile this weekend but with the volcano eruptions, the travel has been restricted and it just didn’t seem like it would all work out. We decided to stay here in La Plata until our trip to Iguazú at the end of the month. Wednesday, we went to see Gnomeo & Juliet (the children’s movie based on Romeo & Juliet portrayed as warring garden gnomes). We’ve actually seen a few children’s movies and they are great practice for listening to Spanish (I would definitely recommend Rio more than Gnomeo & Juliet). Thursday night we went out to our favorite bar here, La Salamanca. It has live folklore music on Thursday nights and great empanadas. I’ve even learned the chacarera folklore dance common in the northern part of the country. Friday, Maya and I enjoyed a mate in the plaza and bought a few tickets for various shows in the coming week. That night, we ate awesome paella. One of Eli’s friends, named Cecilia but called La Vasca (because she is from the Vasque or Basque in English region of Spain), made paella filled with delicious seafood.

Saturday, we headed into the city to see the Sound of Music (La Novicia Rebelde or “The Rebel Nun” in Spanish) on Buenos Aires’ equivalent of Broadway. It was awesome but very strange to listen to the songs that I absolutely adore in Spanish. I had to try to get the English words out of my head and listen to the Spanish lyrics. I really think kids movies and movies or shows that I’ve already seen are great practice with listening comprehension and my Spanish has definitely improved since being in Argentina. After the show, Maya and I decided to head over to Palermo for the evening. Palermo is a young, chic neighborhood with lots of restaurants and bars. It almost seems like a caricature of a hipster/organic/yuppy neighborhood with vegetarian and organic restaurants, hipsters riding bikes in the streets and selling artsy goods, and chic boutiques on every corner. We splurged and got a drink before going out to dinner and I tried a mojito for the first time (it was delicious). While walking around, we stumbled on a wonderful Mexican restaurant for some much needed food with spices. The food in Argentina is good but Argentines cannot handle any sort of spicy food (they rarely even use black pepper). After yummy chilaquiles and huevos rancheros we started walking back to Retiro to catch the bus. After realizing that we were 50+ blocks away, we took a bus to the terminal and before heading back to La Plata. While this was a fancy day for Maya & I, we only spent about $40 USD including the show, transportation, drinks, and dinner. I’m really going to struggle with the exchange rate when I get back to the U.S.

Today, the Bacci family came over for the day and Lydia, Eli’s mom, prepared another delicious meal of spinach stuffed fish, squash and chocolate mousse for dessert. I love that Eli gets together with her siblings (Yamila and Mariano) and her parents every Sunday to just eat lunch, drink mate, and catch up on what happened in the past week. They are all are wonderful people and it’s one of the highlights of my week.

Next week I have a couple birthday parties to go to and Maya & I got tickets to the ballet in La Plata for Friday night. I’m also hoping to go to a soccer game next weekend (I still can’t believe that I haven’t gone to a game yet…). I hope you are all doing well!

Love, Caroline

The Beginning of the End

This week in La Plata was a pretty normal week—it really feels normal living here now. And of course, now that I’m all settled, I only have about six weeks left! bummer, but I’m still determined to make the best of the time that I’m still here.

This week, we finished up our last Comisión class. It was a great class on Indigenous Rights and the Environment—I think my favorite class here. We watched a couple documentaries on the soy industry here and the loss of indigenous lands to large international agriculture businesses and turned in an easy final assignment on Thursday. I just have to finish one more assignment for the Comisión (hopefully by tonight!) and finish my university class. However, in the university class that I am taking, the professor had a heart attack (he’s doing well now though) and might not be giving any more classes. So I might be just about done with my school work here, with six weeks to spare. I’m looking into taking a few trips and I just bought a ticket to Salta & Tucuman in the northwest part of the country for the end of June. I’m trying to work Mendoza (wine country) and Santiago, Chile into the next couple weeks too.

The other big thing we did this week was a rugby game on Saturday. We watched the Argentine Pumas (the national team) beat the French Barbarians in a stadium

just outside of Buenos Aires. It was cold but lots of fun, and it definitelymade me miss playing rugby.

The rest of the week was filled with drinking mate with friends and hanging out with the family. I’m happy to be finishing classes with so much time to spare here and I’m excited to see more of the country.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the sunshine!

Love, Caroline

Patria, Puppy and Pancakes

This week was a very busy, exciting week here in La Plata. After visiting Córdoba with Maya, we decided to try to do more things in La Plata and Buenos Aires in the remaining six weeks that we have in Argentina.

Wednesday was a national holiday here—Día de la Patria (Homeland). It celebrates the first step in the independence process (Independence Day isn’t until July 9^th). For the U.S., I think it’s the equivalent as the first day of the Continental Congress. We went with Eli’s family and friends to a party to eat Locro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locro) which is an indigenous stew from the northern part of the country. It has all sorts of meat, corn, and other veggies and was super tasty. We sang the Argentine national anthem and the March of Perón and listened to a few people give little speeches (everyone is super political so they all have some opinion on La Plata/Argentine politics). It was so great to watch everyone get together to celebrate. After we had a relaxing day and called it an early night.

The next morning, we met at the bus station to go into Buenos Aires for a hearing for the cases of human rights abuses brought before the Escuela de Suboficiales de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) which is a military school that was used as a torture/detention center during the last military dictatorship. It was interesting to see the courthouse and watch how they were laying out the case against the leaders of ESMA. We were only able to stay for an hour or so but then we stuck around Buenos Aires for the day. We went to a new museum behind/beneath the Casa Rosada (Government House – basically the White House without the residential part). It was a great museum that walked through Argentine history since independence in 1810. It also houses a mural by Siqueiros, a Mexican artist, that involves the floor, walls and curved ceiling—very beautiful. After getting back to La Plata, I met up with Leksa for a drink at a folklore bar called Salamanca that has live music every Thursday. Another full day.

Friday we had a relaxing day checking out other things to do in La Plata and Buenos Aires. We bought tickets to a ballet/tango show and looked up some film-screenings and concerts. We came back to our house to find that hour host mom had decided to get a new puppy! We now have a month-old beagle named Bosco who is absolutely adorable. Eli also informed us that she just finalized the paperwork for buying our house. She was so excited and already has started planning things to change around the house. We got take out pizza where my friend David works and then spent the night playing with the puppy and celebrating.

Saturday, Maya and I decided to make pancakes for everyone here. They have panqueques here that are basically crepes so we were excited to show them our pancakes. We made chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes and everyone seemed to enjoy them. I LOVE making pancakes and it was great to have everyone over for the day. Later that night, Maya, Leksa and I went to a beautiful ballet/tango show in La Plata. I really enjoy tango music and it was very cool to see a ballet version of tango.

I really enjoyed doing more things around La Plata. It’s a very cultural/political city and I’m definitely going to miss all the events that a city offers when I get back home. This week we are looking at a few different shows/movies and trying to go to an international rugby game on Saturday.

As always, I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the long weekend!

Love, Caroline

The Month of May

The past couple weeks have been busy here in Argentina. I finally feel settled in my life in La Plata and I’m really enjoying living in Argentina. I can’t imagine doing a shorter program—it’s starting to weird me out that I have less than two months left before going back to the U.S.

Since my last update, my friend Shannon came to visit Buenos Aires and La Plata, we celebrated my birthday and I went to Córdoba. I’ll try to keep it short and add pictures to this post ASAP.

Shannon studied the semester in Quito, Ecuador and came to Argentina with her friends AliceAnn (who has family in Bs As) and Johnny. We met up in Palermo at AliceAnn’s cousin’s grandmother’s house and checked out Palermo that night. It’s a great area with lots of gorgeous boutiques, restaurants and street fairs. AliceAnn’s family was so welcoming and lots of fun to be around. Sunday, we went to San Telmo and checked out the street fair there before Shannon and I took the bus to La Plata to have dinner with Eli and the kids. We ran around the house playing music and joking with the kids. Monday we checked out La Plata and met up with a few people from my program to drink mate in the plaza. That evening we went to a bar for happy hour and Shannon ran into someone she had met on a vacation in Ecuador. We ended up in the middle of a group of 30+ Argentines involved in CouchSurfing. Most of us would call that a small world coincidence but for Shannon stuff like that happens all the time. The next morning Shan returned to BsAs because I had class all day. I loved seeing here and it was so interesting to hear about her study abroad experience in Ecuador. We also made a promise to travel in 2013 after Shan finishes school, so I’m looking forward to that.

The next weekend was my birthday weekend and we had a big party at the Bacci house. Maya and I made two cakes and Eli cooked choripan for everyone. It was great to get everyone from the program and my family here together for a night. After dinner, the people from my program and I went out super late celebrating—it was a great birthday. Thanks to everyone who sent emails, cards, and facebook posts—I miss you all! The next day was a little more relaxed, I skyped with a few friends and then tried to go to the opera with Leksa & Maya. The tickets were sold out but I think we are trying again this weekend.

This past weekend, Maya and I went to Córdoba, the second largest city in Argentina. We took an overnight bus and arrived Friday morning.

After getting settled in our hostel, we took a bus to Alta Gracia. It’s a very little town that has very good air quality and used to be a place for wealthy Argentines to relax. We checked out the Che Guevara childhood home museum and then the people convinced up to check out the other two “museums.” They were basically little homes converted to

museums for Martin Falla, a Spanish composer, and Gabriel DuBois, a French artist. Fascinating. We then had lunch and checked out the Jesuit settlement before heading back to Córdoba. We went back to the hostel before dinner and when we emerged, almost all the stores were closed and boarded up. It was definitely a little weird how the town looked so closed on a Friday night at 9pm. We walked around looking for a place to eat and found an awesome looking Arab place. We both were excited to eat something besides typical argentine cuisine and we ordered a picada (basically little bits of everything on the menu). I’m not a picky eater but it was the worst meal I have ever had. Hummus that tasted peanut-y, babaganoush that was super sweet and not resembling eggplant at all and disgusting looking unidentified sausages. We should have known better than straying from the typical Argentine meat but our desire for spices and variety got the best of us and we definitely regretted it. After dinner we looked around for ice cream to appease our unhappy taste buds but everything was closed. We returned to the hostel determined to have a better day on Saturday.

Saturday we took the bus to Villa General Belgrano, a little German town about two hours away from Córdoba. The town was created after a German war ship sank near Argentina after WWII and it now hosts an enormous Oktoberfest (supposedly third after Munich and Blumenau, Brazil). It was a beautiful drive over mountains (B&B people think that day out of Stanley, Idaho with the winding road up the mountain that seemed to never end) and lakes. We got to VGB and it was super quaint. Everything was German-looking from the restaurants to the buildings, even the sign in front of the police station. We walked around looking in shops and sampling the alfajores (basically two cookies with some sort of sweet filling covered in a thin layer of icing) native to the region. We had lunch outside, tried delicious German beer and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We headed back to Córdoba and went to a great artisan fair. It was super big with lots of very unique, handmade pottery, jewelry and other art. We went out for a drink then got some ice cream (which is oddly much cheaper in Córdoba than in Bs As) before calling it a night.

Sunday we were a little concerned as to what we were going to do all day (because things normally close down on Sunday and Córdoba seemed especially closed on Friday & Saturday night). We checked out all the churches (which were very beautiful and super old—think 1590s). We then decided to see a movie to pass some of the morning time and we saw the animated movie Rio in Spanish. It was cute and I was proud that I understood almost all of the dialogue. We then decided to walk toward this park and passed a couple museums on the way. After Friday’s museums we were a little hesitant but both the art museums were really beautiful, both in architecture and the art they housed, a very nice surprise. We then walked to a couple plazas, one for the bicentennial (2010) that had 200 large colorful rings spread around the plaza. We then returned to the artisan fair for a final look before getting our bags at the hostel and heading back to the bus station.

Overall, I had a good time in Córdoba but I don’t really get all the hype. There are lots of bars and boliches (dance clubs) and night life is supposed to be crazy but I can’t keep up with the Argentines. People go to bars around midnight and then boliches around 3am before finally heading home around 6am. Maya and I felt like grandmothers for going to bed at 2am after getting a drink at a bar. I wish that I could have visited Córdoba with a rental car—the surrounding areas are beautiful and I love the mountains.

Upon returning to La Plata, Maya and I decided to really experience as much of Argentina before we go home—we are going to the opera, soccer and rugby games, political rallies, listening to live music and planning a long trip to the northwest of the country. I’m really starting to feel the countdown of time we have left and I’m looking forward to the next two months here.

I’ll try to update the blog more regularly, but as always, I make no promises. I hope you are all doing well—congrats to the W&M Class of 2011, I’m going to miss you next year!

Love, Caroline