to be

to be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. never stop fighting.
-- e. e. cummings

mishmash

the other day i went with lauren to the hospital because she had gotten kicked in the leg really hard during soccer practice and needed to make sure it wasn't fractured. we got a friend named shaine to go with us because he actually speaks spanish. shaine and lauren were in the exam room and i was chillin' out in the hall when all of the sudden a guy comes rushing around the corner going "we have an emergency! there's an emergency down the hall!" nurses and doctors started busting out of doors and sprinting down the hallway a little ways. there was lots of commotion that i could hear, including noises of the guy starting to aspirate or something. then there was even more commotion and people rushed by dragging the man on the ground by his hands and feet into the back where they could give him better care. it was scary. i'm pretty sure i turned pale and was prepared to bolt into the room that lauren was in should there be blood or guts or barf somewhere. i never found out what was wrong. i was really trying quite hard to eavesdrop on the spanish conversation going on, but alas, my spanish isn't quite that good yet. but i don't know what it is about this trip so far that has me be in the midst of medical emergencies. it just confirms to me though that i am indeed correct in not being in the medical field. a nurse that passes out would be of no help to anyone! i shall pursue being a doctor through the means of books and really long papers instead.

but on that note, i have been thinking about how God really has a sense of humor. i never wanted to be a teacher for my sm year, and look at what i am doing. i never wanted to go to south america. look where i ended up. i distinctly remember having a few conversations with chrees about how we should not say what we didn't want to do out loud because that is where we would end up. looks like chris followed that better than i did. he didn't end up in asia...

i had a really good feeling though the other day. i was sitting in one of the few classes i have actually taught. and i realized that i really liked it. maybe not the preparation and some of the frustrating stuff, but i felt so inspired. i wanted to teach my students to the best of my ability. it really got my brain firing to think about learning styles and creative ideas. and i thought, if i feel like this about teaching a subject that i'm not as passionate about, how would it be to teach what i AM passionate about? that got me really excited. for once, i feel like i am on the right path. i feel like i have direction in my life, a passion. and it feels good. i never thought i would discover my passion, and it has been a really fun process.

there are pigeons here. they are annoying. they poop everywhere. they fly up right in front of your face. they dive bomb you. i'm dreading the day when i get hit. they also sit in the trees and randomly spazz out. so annoying and frightening at the same time.

another theme on this trip seems to be me being violated. the other day this one teacher came in. she seemed to be very senile. she didn't understand that i didn't understand her spanish. she didn't understand that i didn't really know how to make the printer do what she wanted it to do. she didn't understand that what was coming out of the printer was not her stuff. but when haroldo came to show us what to do, i was standing in the back and looking over their shoulders. first of all, she was standing there with her elbow out and she swung around and nailed me in the chest. then because she realized i wanted to see better, she reached a hand back to grab me. but since i'm taller, her hand grabbed my butt. SHE GRABBED MY BUTT and pulled me forward. when will this stop?!

everyone kisses you on the right cheek here. so far i have only almost made a big mistake once. but i'm convinced the blemishes on my right cheek are never going to go away, because not only do i have my own face oil to combat, but also the face oil of the people who greet me. *sigh*

they have these amazing cookie things here called frutigran galletas. so good.

they have this disgusting food here called everything in the caf. so gross.

i get to go to peru!

the end

the good times just keep coming...

there are some times where i really feel like an incompetent fool.

take today for example. it's friday today, so naturally i wanted to clean. but cleaning here is so completely different than in the states. they use very different methods and products. i cannot tell you how much i miss clorox wipes! those are my very best friends. yesterday i was in the ceape (the same as our VM) and i decided to arm myself with a toilet brush and toilet cleaner, because in my brief perusal of the cleaning supplies in my bathroom, there didn't appear to be either. i have a ton of plastic water bottles filled with chemicals of some sort thanks to my roommate, but i'm not about to touch those since they are unlabeled. i don't want my toilet to explode with foam or something if i put the wrong thing in there.... but i digress.

i didn't quite know how to start cleaning, so i cleaned off my desk and then decided to give the whole room a good sweeping, walls and lights included (to get rid of the cobwebs). but then i only had one bucket that i could fill up with water and some sort of cleaning solution and i didn't know if i should clean the bathroom first, or the floor in the room first. i opted to clean the toilet first. i donned the big yellow rubber gloves that i found in the bathroom and went to work. i used my new toilet bowl cleaner and brush and felt pretty proud of myself. this is the first toilet i have seriously been afraid of though. but i then found a sponge on my roommates shelf (hopefully she doesn't use it for dishes....) and scrubbed the rest of the toilet with it.

but then i noticed the bidet.

they have those here in argentina. now i have never ever used one of those. and i don't think i ever will. but i figured that since i was cleaning the toilet, i might as well scrub that out too. so i unceremoniously squirted my toilet bowl cleaner in it and gave it a timid scrub with the brush. but then i realized that i needed to rinse it out. i studied the thing for a little bit. i knew what knobs i needed to turn to get water, but i had to figure out where the water actually came out of. i spotted where eventually. now even though i haven't ever used one of these things, i get the basic concept. i reached over and cautiously turned the knob just a smidgen. a minute trickle of water came out. well that won't get the job done. so i cautiously turned the knob a little more.....WHOOSH! a fountain of water burst forth, shooting high above my head almost to the ceiling. i stood there, shocked, with toilet water raining down on me. eventually i started giggling. and pretty soon the giggling turned to outright laughter. i stood there for a little while laughing, while water was spraying everywhere in my bathroom. on me, on the wall, on the floor. i eventually came to my senses and somehow managed to turn the water off. i couldn't believe my rookie mistake. apparently i don't have as good of a "basic concept" as i thought, so as to avoid something like that. oy.

i clean the rest of the bathroom and then the floors, but i'm still not sure if i used the right kind of cleaner or not. my room smelled kind of funny after that. and when i pulled the gloves off, my hands were covered in white powder. great.

i am not totally satisfied with my cleaning experience today, and i really miss american cleaning products. and i doubt i will ever touch a bidet again. but i do have a good story now. :)

guts, butts, and the adventures in between

last night i drank vomit. at least that's what lemon tereré tastes like to me. it was disgusting, but i made myself drink a little bit more thinking that maybe by some chance it would improve. it didn’t. i quickly searched for something else to cover up that horrid taste. we were at dale and amanda’s last night for some cold mate (that weird “t” word) and to watch some hockey. now I have never been too fond of this whole mate thing. call me weird but I just really don’t like it. but last night i tried it just because it is part of the whole experience of argentina, something that you just have to do. no excuses. so i did it, essentially kissing 9 other people in the process because you all SHARE the same STRAW! How gross is that?!

but at least now I have people to share experiences, and even straws with. a lot has happened in the last week and a half. prepare yourself, this is a long blog….

the week that anthony left was a little rough. i found myself quite alone, still the outsider of the group of people here. there were many tears that week as i fought to adjust to my new surroundings.

i eventually found out more solid facts about my time here. i found out that i was going to teach my students (seven grown men of the administrative board) one on one, rather than as a class. this was a little bit of a relief for me. i had felt really intimidated by the thought of standing in front of a class. i also found out that i would be working in the ACA office in the morning, as well as taking some classes. i was really happy to hear this, because I had thought that i really would never learn spanish and have a hard time making friends, but working in the office and taking classes was going to help both of those things. plus, i found out that i get to travel with ACA too! i am really stoked about that. i was afraid that i was just going to be stuck here in this little town for the entire time.

i had to prepare a syllabus for my class. that was stressful. i didn’t know what i was doing at all, but i came up with something and the ACA director was really impressed! i was pretty proud of myself.

this past weekend, a bunch of my friends that i had been hanging out with were all going to rosario. i opted not to go. but that meant that I had to somehow survive on my own. i contacted anthony’s friend marta. We ended up going to English Sabbath school together and then church, which was a real blessing. I then went over to her house for lunch, where I met a bunch of other people. Marta and her twin sister Mariel are so nice and fun, and their friends are really fun too, even if they are 4-6 years older than me. But I have discovered that I feel comfortable in the role of “youngster” since that is how it kind of was back at southern.

i spent the afternoon with them and eventually went back to my dorm room to sleep.

But when I woke up, it was to the horror of my life. I was brushing my teeth, walking around the room when I saw it. The most ginormous spider I have seen since being in Nicaragua. And I was alone. It was on the baseboard of the huge wardrobe things that are in my room. I stared at it for a long time. I even sat down on the ground, a safe distance away of course, and contemplated what to do. It was during this time that I decided that spiders were most definitely of the devil. I went to go get my dean, but she was nowhere to be found. I went back to my room to discover that the spider (araña in Spanish, I learned that one quick) would go back into a little hole. Great. I was really distressed. I was not going to be able to sleep that night. My bed is right on the other side of the wardrobe, so I moved my little bed as far as I could into the middle of the room. When the spider came back out, I stood there contemplating taking the squeegee in my room and going all Jackie Chan on the spider, but then something scraped across the floor in the room above me and the spider dashed back into it’s hole. Marta came into my room at that point, but she couldn’t get the spider out to kill it either. So we left.

We went to mariel’s house to have a game night. A whole bunch of couples came over, some from earlier in the day, and some singles. We had banana smoothies and popcorn and fruit and I actually ate a legit artichoke for the first time. You have to pluck the leaves off, dip them in lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and then kind of scrape them against your teeth. I had watched them do this during lunch and decided to attempt it that night. I definitely had to get a lesson. It was a little bit comical. They wanted to play a card game that they thought was so fun. And you know me and card games. No me gusta. I always opted out at so ville. But they explained it to me and convinced me to play. And lo and behold if it wasn’t the exact same game that my friends always played in so ville. What luck. But I had to go after one round.

I went back to my room, thinking that it was going to be a long night of not sleeping. I cautiously opened the door and flipped on the lights. The spider was actually chillin’ out on the floor next to the wardrobe. “it’s now or never Krista,” I told myself. I looked to the corner of my room that contained the broom and the squeegee. I decided that the broom had more surface area with which to attack the spider. So I grabbed it, went over and not giving myself time to talk myself out of it, let loose on the spider. Legs were flying everywhere as I unleashed my wrath. First it looked like I was winning, but then it would pop back up looking completely in tact. What the freak?! So I would whack it even harder. The broom was so loud as I bashed this thing relentlessly. I thought someone would come investigate. But I just kept beating it, then sweeping it to where I could take a better whack at it. I finally got it to the point where it was curling up to die. I delivered the final blow with my tennis shoe. But then I had the dilemma of what to do with the thing. I normally flush spiders down the toilet at home, but my toilet here doesn’t flush very well. There was no way I was putting it into the toilet to somehow have it resurrect and crawl on me the next time I used the bathroom. Nu-uh. But I didn’t want to put it in the trash can by my desk…..so I swept up all of the remains and various legs scattered about the room and went out into the hall, out into the lobby, where I deposited it in a trash can very far away. I went back to my room, heart pounding, and returned the broom to its place.

The next day I met dale and amanda pickett, and another married couple and two other friends at the bus station to go to a town called Victoria which is about an hour to an hour and a half away. They have hot springs there. We ended up getting there way to early. So we decided to walk down to the paraná river that was near by, because dale and matias LOVE fishing. So we walk down this country gravel road. On the way we passed a dead rotting cow in the ditch. It was disgusting. And we had to walk down wind of it. We eventually got to the end of the road but then had nowhere to go. So we took this other little road to a pasture. We hopped over a barbwire fence and into a muddy pasture with many cows that we trudged through to get to this yucky river. The girls got really bored while the boys fished, so we decided to head back. We were a little bit nervous walking among all these cows and bulls. We got back to the spa/hot springs, but it was still too early so we waited. When we got in, it was gorgeous. A beautiful panoramic view of the river, rolling green hills and the blue skies. The afternoon was spent in the hot springs.

But let me tell you. I have never seen so many butts in my life. I forgot that I am in the land of thong bikinis. And every woman, no matter what size, shape, or how much cellulite she has, dons a thong bikini. It was so gross. There were so many women that should not have even been in swimsuits, much less thong bikinis. I was pretty grossed out, but at the same time, impressed with the amount of confidence these people possess to be out in public like that! The men were almost as bad. There were so many guys with huge guts and man boobs hanging out. And don’t forget that most of the men here are extremely hairy. I’m talking you could brush their back hair with a comb hairy. Blech! The ACA director told us that Argentine's are generally more closed people, and that the Brazilians are the more open. Heaven help us when we go to the beaches in Rio de Janeiro....

We eventually left Victoria and went back to san martin to eat supper. I decided to try the meat here because it is pretty much world renown and organic. I ordered a hamburguesa completo. I hadn’t paid too much attention to what all came with it, so I was in for a surprise when my meal came. There was a hamburger all right, but with mayo, lettuce, tomato, the patty, a fried egg, a slab of pastrami, and a slice of cheese. And I ate it all, plus fries. I think I consumed more cholesterol in that one burger than is humanly possible. And then I went and had dulce de leche granizado ice cream for dessert! So good!

I started teaching the next day. It didn’t go so well. I was scheduled to have classes with the president. I get there and discover that he is gone for the week, but his secretary was going to take the class from me. Ok. So I taught her. It was a little rough. I have some refining to do. I am supposed to teach two, two hour classes to each of my students a week. That is hard! After this I was supposed to teach another student, but he didn’t want to have a lesson, just to talk a little bit. And he informed me that he was going to be gone for the rest of the week and next week as well. Two of my other students are gone until late November. Two other students don’t speak any English. My student for today cancelled….. this whole thing is going to be very interesting.

I had my first grammar classes that I attended today. The teacher doesn’t speak any English. He was confused as to who I was. I took a quiz I hadn’t studied for because it was my first class. But it is mostly review still. I mean, we are only in the present tense!

But I am much improved from my last post. I’m coming into my own, which makes me very, very happy.

I had a feeling the other day. I know that when I leave, I am going to have a fierce pride in this country. I think the love is starting to kick in….

i am a disillusionist. is that a word? well i'm making it one right now. i thought argentina was going to be like israel, namely that i was going to love it from the instant i got here. well, quite frankly, i'm still waiting for that love to kick in. it's really pretty here, amazingly beautiful farmland, and the food here is decent. but i just am having a hard time wrapping my mind around me staying here for 7 months.

i thought that i would instantly make friends. i'm terrified of everyone! i am so scared to try and speak spanish and heaven forbid someone speak in spanish to me. i have discovered that my ears indeed do not connect to my brain as i previously thought.

it is going to be very interesting. i feel so lost and so extremely frustrated with myself. i have wanted to cry pretty much all day today. i'm sort of appreciative of the weather sharing my feelings. at least something can weep when i can't. but at the same time it has been freezing and that is not what i expected either! i have been wearing my clothes (didn't we all assume that anyways? no guys, we walk around naked down here. :/ ), my coat, and rain coat, and then i added anthony's coat and precip on to that and i'm STILL cold!

today i went to the cafeteria for the first time. i told anthony that if there is anywhere in the world where i feel like a loser, it's in a cafeteria with all those unfamiliar faces and the din of spanish around me. and then he told me that that if i sit alone i will basically be swarmed by argentine guys wanting to talk to me. thanks anthony, real helpful. AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
the only boy i have actually been comfortable talking with is alex clouzet. he is nice. he probably feels sorry for me, the little scared american girl. he slacklines though. maybe i will get to practice my slacklining more. if it would stop raining.

i have a bad attitude that i need to change. last night i cried before i went to bed and as i was in bed. in the midst of crying, i sort of talked to God. i told him that i feel very un-brave right now and very wimpy. this morning, as i was searching for a new book to start for my devotions, one verse, the only one in red on the page jumped out at me: But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9.

well all i can say is that God is going to be proven as pretty darn powerful because this scared little american girl is very weak.

God, can you just PLEASE reconnect my ears?!

p.s. there is a very large spider that lives by my bed that i discovered last night. i think of him as bob, but that seems a little unoriginal for me. he is living only because i am scared of him. which doesn't really make sense, other than that there is NO WAY i am sticking my hand down in that corner to kill him. he would bite my hand off. no thanks. i'm going to need that hand.

but yeah, this isn't what i thought it was going to be. but hopefully this disillusionist will become a non disillusionist. i don't want to say an illusionist because that wouldn't really make sense, now would it? i really need to get on this proper english thing since i'm going to be teaching it.. oh boy.