Soccer games are fun. Buenos Aires is South America, kind of. I like it here.
You're never going to speak like a native speaker, just so long as you are becoming more fluid and augmenting your level of vocabulary, which you are, don't worry. I don't.
Mendoza is doza. Uruguay is a "chill" place. Iguazu is like no other. Sometimes I feel like I am just getting to know the cool things this city has to offer, there is always something going on. Other times, I feel trapped by the cement of a place in which I am a foreigner. I like it here, but I am ready to travel again. One more month. What will I do with that month?
I will volunteer in Villa Lugano(Villa 20). The government provides the kids of this area with one good meal a day. This happens in places called comedores. In between the time when school gets out and when dinner is served, kids have free time with little supervision and even less to do that could be considered safe. The organization I will volunteer with is called LIFE(Luchamos por una Infancia Feliz y con Esperanza). Its not the greatest, but what organization is perfect? I will use it for what they allow me to do. They go to these comedores and hang out with the kids, help the with homework, maybe just take their minds away from the duro de la vida.
While providing them with a space to just be kids is great, the potential to be educationally productive in this time frame asks me for something else.
I, in partnership with my amiga Suzie, have created a health education program that we have done and will do on thursdays. We are completely uncertified, unfunded, unhelped, and unsomething else too. But man do the mothers we talk to appreciate it. No catholic hesitations on this stuff (even though they are very religious). They know the reality of situations. It will be a lot of work for us, but we will stay motivated. The kids need it. I guess we will never know if we have helped, but for me that won't be necessary. I just need to think that I will be helping someone at some point in the future. Even if the kids will laugh and giggle and maybe not appreciate it, it will be worth it. What else can you do?
I will also do research for a monography on the water distribution in Villa XX. I will explore the area with the safety and guidance of some friends who I have met who work in the area. The process of urbanization is an interesting one. The water is privatized here, go world bank! These people didn't have much access before the privatization, nor after, hard to say that privatization is worse than governmental supply. I will be writing 20 pages single spaced in spanish on this topic. If you would at any point like me to go more in depth on this subject, I probably will be able to.
I will have found a community about which I care a lot.(spanish being translated to english). But I don't think it will be enough to make me want to live in this city again. I need green.
After returning the USA for 5 days and then going to Israel and then coming back, I think I will appreciate this time as one of immense growth away from the scientific world. Will I be ready to enter that world again? The microbiology of infectious diseases says "you better be."
Despite the tone of this tablet, I assure you, I'm in a good place.
