5000 Millas: Los Mejores Momentos

So I had kind of decided that I wasn't going to write about my summer trek around the Southern Cone--Argentina and Chile--since it was a vacation, and thus didn't have much to do with my work or the contents of this blog. Still, since I consider myself lucky to have been able to go on such a journey, I thought I would share the best moments with my readers. If anything, it's an illustration of the "other half" of Argentina, the half that is unfortunately inaccessible to many Argentinians themselves. In truth, the best part of the entire trip was the end, when I could share it with others who may never see the beauties of their own country.

Outline of the trip on Google Maps. All the photos at Picasa.

The Top 5's from every stop along the way:

Cordoba:
The first stop on the journey after an overnight bus from Salta, waiting for my connection to Bariloche.

1. This Gothic cathedral

2. The "shadows" of buildings on the sidewalks

3. This modern building complex

4. The convent

5. Going to 3 masses in 3 hours

Bariloche:
Arrived the next day for a 3 day stay in the Lake Region of northern Patagonia.

1. The view from the ski lift at Cerro Catedral

2. Biking around the Circuito Chico

3. Hanging out with people from the hostel (met someone from Napa who went to UPenn)
4. Hitchiking instead of paying 18 pesos for a bus
5. Missing my free excursion, then going on it the next day

Chile/Navimag:
4 day boat trip down the western Patagonian coast through the Magellanic channels

1. Meeting Emily and Julian, exchange students at the end of their term
2. Seeing Pier XI, a HUGE glacier

3. Seeing this ghost ship, intentionally grounded over 50 years ago

4. Endless days with 11PM sunsets

5. Another great CouchSurfing experience in Puerto Montt

El Chalten and Calafate:
Met up with my Dad to do some backpacking in southern Patagonia

1. Seeing the Perito Moreno glacier

2. Successfully climbing a small mountain near Fitz Roy

3. Finally seeing Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre after 3 days of cloud cover

4. The color of the lakes

5. The veggie pizza in El Chaltén after a rough downclimb

Torres del Paine:
Went BACK to Chile on a bus to do more intense backpacking

1. Trekking in less than 2 days what normal people do in 4

2. Sunrise at the Torres

3. The boat ride into the park

4. Teaching my Dad to count in Spanish
5. Staying at a hospedaje in Puerto Natales

Tierra del Fuego/Ushuaia:
Went down to the Argentinian part of the so-called "end of the world" by bus (14 hours).

1. The 360° view from the mountain we climbed

2. Crossing the straight of Magellan

3. "Christmas" dinner in Ushuaia, even though I couldn't keep it down
4. Lazing around all day in the hostel
5. The clouds from the plane ride out

Buenos Aires:
Went to BA to visit the Gambettas and show my Mom around

1. Spending Christmas with my Mom and the Gambettas, even though I kind of messed it up
2. Seeing the Recoleta Cemetery again, which never gets old

3. Staying at the Hotel Savoy

4. Seeing a tango show I actually liked ("Café Los Angelitos")
5. Walking around San Telmo on a Saturday afternoon

Iguazu:
The obligatory visit to the amazing waterfalls, which we made at my insistence by bus :)

1. Seeing--and getting soaked by--the falls, which were twice as strong it seemed

2. Going on that crazy boat ride again

3. New Year's Eve at the hostel
4. Reading Steinbeck's "The Pearl" by the pool
5. Meeting more new people

Salta and Cachi/Cafayate:
Showing my Mom around my home turf, and exploring new places too

1. Seeing my Mom interact with my 2nd family, even though they hardly understood each other.
2. The view along the road to Cachi

3. The boutique hotel in Cafayate

4. The ruins at Quilmes

5. The amazing beauty that surrounds Cafayate

El primer viaje

(events correspond to November of 2010)


So I know it's annoying to hear me complain (again!), but this time I swear it's warranted, because it has been so.. RIDICULOUSLY.. HOT!!! And the worst part is, it's inescapable. I survived three weeks of summer in Arizona once, and the only way I got through it was with carefully planned trips between one highly air-conditioned location and another. No such luck here. Multiple days over 40°C (104°F), a third story apartment and weak ceiling fans all add up to sleepless nights and miserable days. Going downtown, with all the concrete and smog from old cars, is about like entering a deeper level of the inferno (although not that far down, because at the bottom it would be ice).


Fortunately, although things are less than ideal on the physical side, mentally things are looking up. I think it has to do with how great I am getting along with my new "boss" Beatriz (read "2nd mother"), and even more to do with my excitement for my first "viaje". I use the Spanish word, because "trip" doesn't really sum up what it means to go out in the field with ADRA in Salta. A trip is what you take when you go to see your grandma for the weekend, or sit on the beach in Hawai'i for a week. A trip with ADRA is not a trip; it is a journey-project.


That is what I learned before I ever hopped on a bus out of Salta. That's because word came back from the people who went on the "trip" I had missed before. Even hotter temperatures (though I think a little exaggerated), except without food or drinkable water for miles around. Although it kind of made me thankful I hadn't been able to go, in reality it made me more anxious to get on the road. I wanted to be able to help, in whatever small way possible, the communities where they have to live in those conditions all year long.


And finally, that day came...
Destination: Yuto, Jujuy, Argentina
Project: Conduct a community assessment about interest in the foundation of a literacy program, and help with various other physically demanding tasks for local families.


Day 1:
12:40AM seemed like a strange time for a bus to leave, but in terms of the heat it was probably for the best time. I had already packed my bag two days ago, not so much out of anticipation but out of confusion about which day we were leaving (yes, my Spanish still sucks). Juancito (ADRA's driver) took us--Beatriz, Pilu and I--to the bus terminal at around midnight, where we met up with Graciela, an evangelical missionary who had become ADRA's regional contact in Yuto. Pilu (short for Pablo) and I had been working together in Salta over the past few weeks on organizing ADRA's depositories, so it made sense that he would be my partner in the project. He is 17, and has worked with ADRA for over 4 years. So really, I'm his partner.

Beatriz booked us seats at the front of the top level of the bus, so we waved goodbye to her out the front window as we pulled out of the terminal, with our ADRA chalecos ("vests") showing our allegiance and purpose (Rule #1 of the ADRA Salta code of conduct for volunteers is to have our chaleco on at all times during the execution of a project). Going up the hill out of salta, we looked out over the beautiful night lights as I attempted to find international music on the radio of my cellphone. Michael Jackson's "History" faded out as the tuner lost signal, and I drifted into half-sleep for the next... 2, 3, 4 hours?


Arrival. A clan of mosquitoes had found their way in and had been, presumably, feasting on me the entire trip. We got off the bus in what I would later, in the absence of my sleep-haze, recognize as the center of Yuto. Even though it was early morning, it was hotter than it had been in Salta, and worse: humid. We got off the bus and took turns carrying the 10-person ADRA tent for about 2 km to their residence (they said it was only 1km, and it felt like 5). We reached their home, sweating profusely and continuing to fight off bugs in every direction. Too tired to set up the tent, Pilu and I took up Graciela's offer to sleep in an extra bed located in a mostly-outdoor shelter. Bad idea #1.


With all of the roosters crowing I don't think I slept at all. I woke up feeling as dazed as I had 4 hours prior, the quickly rising temperature of the humid air seeping into my lungs and fogging my brain. Fortunately, Graciela's husband Juan made an amazing mate--with fresh mint leaves--that along with their handmade baked bread helped to bring me around (note: even though it was served hot, that is still the best mate I have had to date). We spent about an hour finishing breakfast and getting our things ready, and then we were off to the surrounding neighborhoods to do our assessment surveys...

It is hard to describe extreme poverty to people who never seen it before. As for me, I had kind of expected it to be an overwhelming experience of sadness and anger and frustration. The truth is, all of those feelings come much later. Being on those streets of Yuto, what I experienced was complete blankness. I was blank because I didn't know what to do with what I was experiencing. Poverty was no longer simply an idea, constructed from years of seeing "Sponsor-A-Child" commercials and reading reports from Amnesty International. It was an object. It was right there in front of me, and yet it was totally incomprehensible how it could possibly exist. How could children run around without shoes on the scalding earth? How could a tiny shack fit 16 people inside? How could a family live adjacent to a garbage dump, flies swarming around their meager lunch? How could a "bathroom" be defined as an old refrigerator frame placed over a hole?

But there wasn't time to think about why, when, and how it had happened. It was too hot, and we had work to do. Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to be help that much. It felt invasive asking people questions without giving them something in return, even though the idea of the survey was to provide, in the future, a positive benefit--literacy. I was even more uncomfortable asking because of my nervous and broken Spanish. I can't say for sure if it was better that way, but it definitely meant that we did fewer interviews per hour. In fact, we did very few surveys at all. Even though we had an umbrella to somewhat protect us from the sun, after about 2 hours it was becoming difficult to stand the heat.

Still, although I wasn't accomplishing very much and the sun was blazing, the work was somehow energizing. Simply listening to the stories of the people, tragic as they were, made me want to continue on. A family that worried about the growing leak of a sewage pipe near their house that the local government refused to fix. A farmer who was out of work because the harvest was smaller this year. A fisherman who brought in less than half of what he used to, because a company had built a commercial fishing center upstream. A 13-year-old girl, pregnant with the child of an auto mechanic from downtown who paid off her family to keep their relations quiet.


Eventually, mother nature got the best of us. The sun was now stronger than ever, and we hadn't brought along any water. We went back to the house, ate lunch, and subsequently crashed for the entire afternoon. Trying to sleep was futile, but the rest was welcome. We had dinner, followed by the now-typical conversation about where I grew up, why I decided to come, how long I've been studying Spanish, etc. Afterwards they insisted we shower--even with their limited water supply--and the cold water was divine. By that time we were again much too tired to set up the tent. Bad idea #2.


Day 2:
The following morning it felt like I had slept even less--with an army of dogs barking all night, until the roosters took over again--but the new bug bites I had all over my legs and arms told a different story. For some reason, I was the only one affected by the bug bites, as Pilu remained unscathed. Go figure. I guess my blood is tastier?

Exhaustion had really set in, and although it seemed impossible, it was even hotter than the previous day. Thus, it wasn't a surprise that we didn't end up doing surveys until much later in the afternoon, when we finally got some cloud cover. During the afternoon some children came by, and since we were far too tired to entertain them they took center stage instead, singing and dancing along to the latest reggaeton hits. Afterwards, Pilu and I invented a simple game of tossing prematurely fallen mango buds into a tin can, wet towels covering our heads to fight the unrelenting heat. We also snacked on some fried fish that a family insisted we take, which although very salty was much appreciated.

The surveys went much the same as the day before, just with less heat and more time talking. Since it was around the time most people take their afternoon mate, a few families weren't interested in having us interrupt, and those who did made us temporary members of their conversation hour. This was good because it felt less invasive than asking point blank, but also worse, since our goal of 300 surveys still seemed very, very far away. As it turned out, however, we would have much more time to canvas than we thought: one of our major jobs for the week, painting a community center, fell through. They hadn't bought the paint.


After our long trek, we were once again ready to wind down. After another great mate, dinner, and shower, it was time to once again try my hand at sleep. For some reason it didn't occur to us to set up the tent, so I resorted to my confidence in using more bug spray to fight off my new enemies.


Day 3:
Make that overconfidence. Whatever poison I was using didn't seem to affect them in the least. I received just as many bites, if not more than the night before. Fortunately it had rained during the night, which made the morning much more bearable. By about 11AM, however, things had gone back to normal. Graciela decided to do the surveys on her own while we would be occupied in manual labor. The door had fallen off the home of a neighbor, an elderly woman who was one of their first converts to the Evangelical faith.


The simple task of taking off the hinges and putting on new ones turned out to be incredibly taxing. The wood of the existing structure was extremely dense, which made it difficult to remove the old screws and nearly impossible to drive in new ones, both of which we had to do with flathead screwdrivers. On top of that, the oven of the one-room house made the heat inside at least double what it was outside. We developed a system of taking strenuous turns for about 2 minutes and then "cooling off" outside. Needless to say that we finished we were elated to be liberated, both from the heat and the Pentecostal-like music that had been blasting the whole time.

We returned to the house for more showering, lunch, and another languid afternoon. With my mind now oriented to manual labor, I put myself to the task of fixing a broken box fan so that we could sleep with less heat--and fewer bugs. Fortunately the problem was pretty simple, only requiring some cleaning and oil of the internal rotor, which had simply been jammed.


The evening went on similarly to the previous ones, except that I unknowingly became part a prayer meeting with Graicela, her husband, and a few visitors. Pilu caught wind of it before I did, and stayed in the room instead. Hearing their testimonies was interesting, especially from the woman who we had helped earlier--her newfound faith had given her the strength to save herself from her abusive husband. Praying, on the other hand, was considerably more uncomfortable. The approximately 30 minutes they prayed seemed endless in comparison to group prayers I had been a part of in the past. After awhile it became hard to distinguish who was the leader of the prayer, as a simple "sí Jesús" grew into more intricate adulations.


The meeting ended as casually as it had started, and with the weather cooling down a bit we decided to go downtown for awhile. The central plaza was very relaxing, a pleasant change from the last two days. As we circled the plaza, Juan stopped to talk with a few acquaintances and I tried to explain my hobby of longboarding. Pilu and I bought some cellphone credit, and headed back to the house. [There's another substory here, but you'll have to ask me personally :)]


Day 4:
Ironically, on our first night with the fan the weather actually let up from being so deadly hot. And it rained.

The rain and the cloud cover made perfect conditions for our other manual task: making a new "bathroom". Having slept better than the other two nights gave us energy to get through the work, which involved digging a 4x4 foot square hole, 8 feet in depth. Even with gloves, it wasn't easy. We took turns with the shovel until about 3 feet in, when we had to switch to a pick to get through the rock-hard earth. As we got deeper and deeper, it became easier to take out the dirt with our hands rather than try to use the shovel in the tight space. Even with Juan coming by for about an hour to give us a hand and an energy boost (juice!), it took us nearly the entire day to finish.

Over dinner I was kind of anxious to get away again. I was tip-toeing my way around a conversation with Juan about why I disagree with the typical perspective on homosexuality, and about how for me the Bible and the spiritual world is more vague than most religious people are willing to accept. Even though I wasn't getting too deep into it, Graciela began to look at me a little differently before. Luckily Pilu I think sensed that things could heat up pretty quickly, and suggested we go downtown again. We showered and walked the distance that now seemed shorter every time. We walked around and eventually played some pool (I think I won 2-1, but my memory might be biased), talking about everything but work: girls, cellphones, the differences between our cultures. A pleasant change from strenuous shoveling that put a good end to a productive day.

Day 5:

Our last day had arrived, and although some residual exhaustion remained from the previous days, we didn't object to helping Juan on some yard work. Apart from being a spiritual guide, I must say that Juan's home represents a great example for the people that visit him as well. Although he is only marginally more financially secure than his converts, he has a garden full of edible vegetables and a sturdy chicken coop, which ensure that he won't have to buy those things at a higher price down the road. We occupied ourselves with moving the chicken coop and some withering plants into the shady half of the yard. The plants were much easier. Some of the roosters that had been separated had escaped and were fighting, especially the tail-less instigator who, in the spirit of hospitality, had been named after me before I arrived (yes, "Sac").


We finished up most of the work before lunch, and went to the nearby soccer field to watch part of a local championship. Afterwards we went downtown to buy our bus tickets, worked in another quick game of pool, and before we knew it we were waiting for the bus to arrive, sharing a Coke and saying our good-byes. And we were gone...

Our bus left around 9:30PM (scheduled at 8PM), which gave me time to reflect back on what we had seen and done before dozing off. First, I was glad to know that we, as ADRA, were willing to working openly with people of other faiths. It didn't matter that "we" were Adventist and "they" were Evangelicals. What mattered is the people that we could help by working together instead of nit-picking on differences. Second, I hoped that we could follow through on what we had found from our surveys. Although our methods weren't exactly scientifically rigorous, it was clear that the majority of the people living in the surrounds of Yuto hadn't finished elementary school, and many of them were partially or totally illiterate. An additional educational resource was definitely needed. Third, having seen the impoverished lives of the residents Yuto, I wanted to solidify my understanding of how they had become so desperate, and why they couldn't seem to escape it. Generally my tendency is to blame the oppressive and corrupted systems of the world, with colonization, globalization, and corruption having negatively affected much--or all--of Latin America. But is that the whole picture? What do we say about the family that chooses to get satellite TV instead of buying more food? What about those who buy an expensive sound system instead of getting medical attention? Or investing in alcohol instead of the education of their children? As Pilu pointed out to me, this seemed to be the case for many families in Yuto. For me it poses a difficult question: Are they partially responsible for their own poverty, or is our society to blame for warping our priorities, making us believe that entertainment is at the pinnacle of importance, regardless of the sacrifices we make to achieve it?


click here to see all the photos from the trip (and a couple videos!)

La vida salteña

I think this will probably be the entry that is most difficult for me to write. It's not that I have anything controversial to say (yet), but that it's very difficult to put into words the atmosphere of the city that surrounds me, and the little part that I play in it. Salta has so much beauty--both natural and cultural--that any attempt to describe it seems to leave something out. As for my part in it, at the moment it seems rather mundane in comparison, but it's impossible to understand what I'm doing here without that wonderfully/painfully inevitable word: context.

I must admit that my knowledge of Argentinian history is rather sparse. It's mostly pieced together from the little I remember about Latin America from History and Spanish classes, reading a rather biased but informative account of the military government that took over in the 70s ("The Shock Doctrine"), and picking up little snippits from signs at tourist attractions. But, in a nutshell (from my semi-ignorant perspective.. find the real history here), General San Martín, hyped up on the recent American and French Revolutions, helps to liberate South America from hundreds of years of Spanish colonial rule of a land rich in resources and native culture (the Spanish weren't so interested in the latter). Argentina declares independence May 25, 1810 (bicentennial just passed), and form a constitution on July 9, 1816. Argentina enters the modern market, and Europeans flood in by the thousands (indigenous peoples now make up less than 1% of the population). The democratic government takes hold, but occasionally suffers military overthrows, the latest ending in 1983. Argentina remains a powerful economy, but is held back (in my view) by a deadly combination of privatization and corruption, epitomized by former President Menem. (I apologize if this short history contains some heinous errors. I feel it is important to show what I "know", even if incorrect).

Salta seems to have been pivotal throughout this history. In my mind it is an anchor point both historically and geographically in South America, with threads fingering out to the north that connect it with indigenous and Incan roots, and southernly fibers that, while perhaps weaker, link it to colonial and modern influences. This makes Salta feel quite a bit different than the rest Argentina, because of its lasting resemblance to the Andean cultures of nearby Bolivia and Perú. Being such an anchor implies a certain amount of conflict (think of other anchors like Washington, D.C., London, Rome, etc.). They are places of both violence and victory, suffering and pride, history and future. Salta is no exception, and in this respect its cultural foundations reflect perfectly its environmental make-up, an incomprehensible clash of desert and jungle that converge in the Lerma Valley that holds the provincial capital (see this map). Although there is a constant tension between competing forces--whether they be climatic or cultural--the resulting beauty that somehow endures makes the tenuous balance much more interesting and rich than if it weren't there. As for those who live here, I don't think I would be overextending my "geo-cultural" analogy to suggest that the soaring mountains that rise over the valley not only represent but embody the achievements, aspirations, and struggles that together define what it means to be "salteño" (someone from Salta). It's all part of what makes Salta live up to its' nickname, "la linda" (the beautiful).

(aside: by way of example, my host-father once joked during one of his impromptu history lessons--typically given on motorcycle rides--that "the fighting [for independence from Spain] started in 1810, but we're still not sure who won!". In the context of my analogy, I think it's significant that he made that statement as we passed a war memorial that lies on the edge of Salta, and is therefore the first thing you would see coming into town from a scenic route to the north that is particularly beautiful and diverse)

I feel very lucky to be in such an interesting place, but to be honest my tension is by proportion much less significant. It's not torrential downpour vs. insufferable drought, noble gauchos vs. Spanish oppressors (see here), or military dictators vs. rebel students (see here). My conflict is much more internal: between feeling useful but uncomfortable on the one hand, and feeling utterly insignificant but comfortable on the other (and from the tone of this entry so far, you could probably guess which is currently winning).

It may sound backwards, but I think most people before going out into the field expect--even want--the former. Maybe it's just me, but it seems that part of feeling like you've accomplished a lot requires feeling like you sacrificed a lot, too. In fact, it's the subtext to the saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day": something so substantial should demand a huge input of time and work. (entirely unrelated, but thinking of Roman proverbs reminds me of that hilarious Anchorman moment: "please.. continue"). Obviously sacrifice is not the only element of feeling useful--we can all remember moments where we "gave our all" and still didn't meet our goals--but I think it would be difficult for me to think that I had done something really great without having used a lot of energy and maybe even felt some pain. In other words, felt uncomfortable.

That has been my problem: I feel too comfortable. I thought that by leaving my home and going off into a foreign land to help the less fortunate would be really hard. The fact is, I've simply transported my already comfortable life to a different place. Yes, there are slight differences--I now eat dinner really late at night (sometimes at 11PM), ride the bus instead of drive my Dad's van, and use the internet a lot less (only during siesta or late at night)--but for the most part I live each day thinking, "This shouldn't be so easy!". I can wake up late, my two hosts--Graciela and Beatriz--spoil me worse than my mom and Cynthia combined (they don't let me do the dishes or laundry!), and confusions and stand-stills in conversation are happening much less often, so I'm having a great time getting to know their families and friends. I even have something I don't have at home: a steady tennis partner! Getting lost on the bus for an hour and a half and waiting in the cold for a few hours after watching Michael Jackson's "This Is It" at the local Hoyt's seem like mild inconveniences in comparison with all the good things I've been given here.

And, while the promise of hard work lies on the horizon, for now it's just not as demanding as I expected. My "first day" seemed a lot like the others, just that I woke up earlier, met a veteran volunteer of ADRA Salta (Pilu), and learned the bus route to one of the ADRA depositories. In a whole week of work, all I seemed to be able to accomplish was to organize some clothes to send on a trip I couldn't go on. I tried to make that feel important, but at the end of the day, taping together pairs of disorganized shoe donations hardly felt like the intense, difficult regimen that I was looking for in my humanitarian (ad)venture. What is missing? Have I really just been self-righteous in my attempt to be self-sacrificing? Is it possible to feel both comfortable and useful?

What I've come to realize is that the humanitarian adventure is an illusion. It is foolish--and very American--to think that with some determination and hard work you can start to turn things around in an instant. "Dream big", "reach for the stars", "be all you can be", "impossible is nothing", "just do it"... these are the mottoes that drive us. Although I think it's hard to argue that the optimistic dedication these phrases inspire could be a bad thing, I do think it is terribly misguided. A failure to work within our limitations--whether they be personal, institutional, or systemic--leads to one of two undesirable outcomes: 1. dissatisfaction with work that does not live up to our grand expectations, or 2. exaggeration of work that wasn't actually as great as we make it seem. This is a terrible dilemma, because there is no such thing as perfect work. As long is that is true, the overly-optimistic humanitarian will always see "room for improvement" as failure, or, to compensate, remain in denial that improvements in the work were really necessary.

Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where I know the solution to my problem but it still seems unsolvable. It's hard to disillusion-ize myself. That is, it's easier to recognize my limitations (personal, institutional, systemic) than it is to accept and work within them. I recognize that I am impatient, but it is hard to be patient. I want to feel like I'm making significant changes right now, even though I know that change for the good can take a lot longer than I would like. It's easy to recognize the institutional limitations of time, money, and disorganization that face ADRA in Argentina, but much more difficult to acknowledge them instead of simply getting angry at them. It's perhaps easiest to recognize the limitations of the system we live in--the lack of real help we provide to those in need, and all of the social, political, and cultural pressures that get in the way of doing so--yet these are the things that seem nearly impossible to change.

So, now you can see (and me too, in writing all of this out) that while small, my internal conflicts have the power to really affect my work, and, perhaps more importantly, my perspective on my work. Breaking down my illusions while maintaining a healthy level of optimism could prove to be a difficult task, especially when the possibility of feeling both useless and uncomfortable looms darkly in the corner. Learning how to feel productive by finding the right balance between sacrifice and suffering--i.e. suffer physically by working too much, or mentally by working too little--could be even harder. No pain, no gain?

(p.s. sorry for all the text, you can find some of my pictures of Salta here)

¡A Salta!

So I'm going to pick up where I left off, more or less (events correspond to November of 2009):

I've made a huge mistake. If I've learned anything so far it's that risking the appearance of having the intelligence of a four-year-old by asking more questions is better than assuming you know what's going on. In the end, you'll feel like a four-year-old when what you understood was terribly wrong. I learned the hard way that just because you buy a bus ticket at the terminal, does not necessarily mean that that bus leaves from the same terminal, or even the same town. I learned the hard way that if you miss your bus, there is no way to get your money back. And, I learned the hard way that it's stupid to call a up a company expecting them to help you when the error was so clearly personal (5 minutes and 9 pesos later).

So I played it off to just about everyone that I had actually bought my ticket for the next day, "surprising" my friends by having an extra night and day to hang out. The next day, I did the right (obvious?) thing by taking the earlier, smaller bus to the bigger town to take the bigger bus. Fortunately, as opposed to some of my experiences on buses in 2008, the ride was very comfortable. Not excessively hot, no pirated movies playing full-blast, and a relatively clean bathroom. I even slept for a significant portion of it, which I can't even do on planes! And the view coming into Salta was stunning. Although I had already visited Salta before, this entrance (from the South, instead of the East) gave an overlook of nearly the entire city, the towers of the cathedrals rising high above Salta's mostly low-rise skyline. Descending down that mountain pass, it dawned on me that this was home.

That realization became even more real when I arrived a few minutes later at the terminal. I think that one of the most important qualifications of a home is that you have people that come to pick you up when you arrive. My boss and soon to be adoptive mother, Beatriz, was there with her temporarily shy 8-year-old daughter, Elena, as well as the wisecracking ADRA driver, "Juancito". (A quick aside: in Spanish you can basically throw "ito/a" onto any word as a diminutive, and on names it becomes an endearing nickname. In Salta this is very common, so instead of "pan" for bread it's "pancito", and instead of "agua" for water it's "aguita". This becomes another case of my name being the least international of all names, because calling me Zachito without a "z" sound in Spanish makes it sound like "saquito", the dimunitive for a coat.) We packed the stuff into the car and headed off towards "home", an apartment complex (called "Parque La Vega") that lies about 7km south of downtown. On the drive I only recognized a few things from my last trip: San Martín Plaza, where you can rent swan-shaped paddle-boats by day, or find services considerably less innocent by night; and the San Bernardo mountain, which for 14 pesos a piece has a gondola that will take you to the top to see the whole city from a bird's-eye view (still haven't done it!). Everything else, however, seemed new. The soccer stadium, the high-end car dealerships, and a whole string of warehouses and distribution centers.

Although it must have taken less than 15 minutes, the trip seemed like an eternity. I had entirely forgotten about the other crucial qualification of home: living space. Before leaving to Argentina I had in mind that I would try to live in an apartment on my own, rather than risk the possible--and probable--conflicts that might arise out of staying with a conservative Adventist family. Here I was, sitting in the car, heading off to who knows where, without the slightest plan or idea of how to sensitively ask about my housing options. Again my fears seemed to be in excess of the reality, as the arrangement had already been made for me long in advance. I live just around the corner from Beatriz in the home of a widow, Graciela, who is equally liberal and perhaps more fiery than Beatriz herself... at least when it comes to leaving things on the floor or not making my bed! On top of that, she runs a kiosk out of her living room, so for better or worse I have constant access to a whole slew of goodies, not least of which are the delicious "facturas" (pastries) I get to eat every morning for breakfast with mate cocido (mate in teabags instead of free leaves).

Like English, Spanish has a clear distinction between house and home ("casa" and "hogar").

In both languages they can be used interchangeably, but if we are being specific a house is really just a place, while a home adds an element of humanity. A house can only be a home if there is a person that feels that way towards that location. In addition to the two qualities of home I have already mentioned--people and place--I think the real difference between house and home consists in our pattern of life, the daily rhythm of what we do in and around the house we live in. For that reason, it could possibly weeks or months before I really feel like this new place is actually my home. Only at some point in the future will I be able to assess whether I really feel comfortable in this "hogar", or whether that concept will be forever tied to my two homes in the US (Angwin and Takoma Park), and being in Salta will remain only as a "casa" until the moment I leave.

¿Adónde fuiste?

So, it's been awhile since my last post. 5 months and 12 days, to be a little more precise (thanks www.timeanddate.com). Whoever continues to read this is probably more interested in an update rather than a post with an explanation for why I haven't been writing, but for my own reasons and for those who may be interested, I feel it's necessary. So here they are, listed in order of importance:

1. Laziness. The simple fact of the matter is that it's not easy to write every two weeks, which was my original plan. It takes a lot of dedication and drive, and I was seriously lacking in those two departments.

2. Fear. Something that I learned from blogging is that you should always know who your audience is. In college it's easy to write whatever you feel like without any repercussions (apart from grades, obviously), because your only audience is a professor. On the world wide web, however, just about anyone can access your thoughts if you put them out there. Word got back to me that the assistant to the director of ADRA Argentina had been reading, and even though we are good friends, the implications of that made me feel a little restricted. In addition, some of my Argentinian friends were not entirely happy with some of my characterizations of their culture. I realize now I should have been more careful criticizing another culture as easily as I criticize my own.

3. Time. I am busy. Sometimes it may not seem that way when you see me on Facebook, but I really do have a lot of responsibilities here. When I do have free time, it's not exactly the most fun or relaxing thing to sum up the energy to write, rather than decompress.

So there you have it, folks. A short sum-up of my absence from the blogging world. I can't promise that I'll be getting back on the horse, but I'm going to try. Or, to use one of my favorite Bart Simpson quotes, "I can't promise you I'll try, but I'll try to try."