Jose Luis went home, and Mel and I wanted to visit another city in argentina while we were heading back. We decided to go to posadas because it was on the way. On our way we saw where Che guevara was from, but we didnt have time to stop at his house and see the museum in his house. We got to posadas we just enough time to go to downtown and grab a bite to eat.
Posadas is really pretty in the downtown area but there were also a lot of poorer neighborhoods as well we found out when we got on a but to go downtown but it turned out that it was going the oposite direction. We ended up in a slum on the edge of the city, but luckily we just stayed on the bus and it took us wher we originally wanted to go. When we got back to the bus station we though we had quite a bit of time to kill until our bus to Buenos Aires left, so we were just hanging out watching a movie that they had playing at the bus station. A couple of street kids came into the station and were asking for coins, and afterwards started to play around and were goofing around. I started talking to them a bit, and Mel thought they were cute and wanted to take one home with her. I asked them why there were not at home, one laughed and said that the other one couldnt go home. I asked the other on why. He told me he didnt want to go home. When I asked him why he didnt he told me that if he goes home everyone is going to hit him. Just after the kids ran off, one of the ticket agents came up to us and asked us if were were larsen, and young. He told us that our bus was leaving us, but we both thought that we had two more hours to wait before our bus left. Luckily although we made them fifteen munites late, they waited for us.
So if you are going short distances in south america, bus is the way to go, but more specifically you need the full bed seats. It is a really nice way to travel. You have everything, they give you snacks, a good meal, champange, and the seat goes all the back so it is easy to streach out and sleep. It was actually fun to be on a bus for 10 hours.
When we got to Buenos Aires we met up with my peace corps friends Rob and Josh. We rented out an apartment for the week in the nieghborhood palermo. Palermo is really nice and laid back, they have a lot of little cafes and boutiques. I really like BA as a whole as well. The city is just as big or bigger than new york, but it never feels sketchy, or really congested. Well at least in the parts of town that we visited. There are a lot of sights to see, and some really pretty parks, but I dont think I can even beging to explain it all. We did go to see Evita Paron´s grave, and we went to La boca to have a steak dinner and watch tengo dancers. Other than that we went out a lot, spent too much money, and drank a bit too much too. But is was great to have an apartment to go back to, and to be able to cook.
Now the bus ride back was not so fun, because we decided to be cheap and buy tickets for seats that were only semi beds, which means that they only go 60 degrees back. Big mistake. My legs were killing me by the end of the 18 hour bus ride, and they hurt for about three days after. After I got back we I immediatly went out of town again because we had to go back to our training sight for and in service training for three days. So after all that traveling it was realy hard to come back and go to work again. Especially because my projects have kinda been stalling out lately.
I am getting a little bummed out with working at the school because it seems as though the kids dont really pay attention, and what makes it worse is that the teacher leaves me alone. Its not that I cant do the lesson on my own, it is just the lessons are supposed to involve the teacher as well, and she is supposed to help me with insight especially when I am lacking language ability. My garden project still hasnt really started because we are still working on cleaning up the space needed to plant the garden. There was a mountain of roofing tiles and cement that had to be moved, and what makes it worse is although I asked the kids to bring tool, none of them do, so we end up working by hand. It is a really slow process, but I am just going to not worry about it too much. If we get it done, and we plant a garden great. But its not the end of the world if we dont, and all I can do is my best to motivate them.
My Olympia day at the dequeni foundation went fairly well, it wasnt a complete desaster. I had about fifteen volunteers, about half paraguayan, and half peace corps volunteers. For that reason alone I think it was successful, but the activities went pretty well also. We had games, charlas, and interactive learning activities. The only problem was that at first no one was listening to me and the groups were changing before I told them to go to the next station. This caused a lot of confusion, but all in all everthing worked out OK.
Last week there was a big convention here called Foro de las americas. There were people from all over the world here, right close to where I live participating in activities and workshops that were designed to address the social problems that we are facing today in all of the americas. But the truth is that the forum was mostly for latinoamericans. I went to several of the workshops, and they were very interesting, but I realized that I probably shouldnt have been walking around the convention with a nametage that said I was from the states. In one of the classes a guy turned to me and asked me out of nowhere if I was sad that there was no more land left in the world to colonized in the name of the United States. I told him that I was actually againts the polocy of colonization, but it didnt really matter, he didnt like me just because I was from the states. Another guy sitting next to me told me not to worry, he said people that come to the forum usually are not for colonization. All in all though, the convention was a really cool experience. I got to see the president of Paraguay speak, and the nobel prize winner Rigoberta Menchu. I also met some really cool new people, and inparticular I met a group of people who are all social work majors from the national university here.
Apart from all that, I did start going to a gym here because I am getting fat from all the oil and meat I eat here. I also thought it would be a good way to diversify my friends a little bit, since all my friends are kids here.
I think thats all I have for now, but if you have questions or want me to talk about something specific, please tell me. It is hard to motivate myself to write this, I think the only reason I did it today it becaue my sister katie told me to do it, so if you wanna read more, just let me know.
