Bariloche!

Oh, hey Alex.

Hi John how are you? What have you been up to lately?

Ya know, got on spring break and decided to hop on down to PatagonYAH for a week. U?

Well I got a message probably not more than three weeks ago asking me to come to Argentina. And then I bought a ticket and here I am in Bariloche with you!

Oh, yeah. All this Argentine wine has been making me a bit forgetful.

This week has been real fun. We have been doing outdoorsy things, like trekking for 9 hours in the Andes (being hopelessly lost and dunked in streams and sore from climbing uphill for hours straight) and extreme biking around the Siete Lagos area.

Bariloche is also basically Switzerland and therefore the chocolate capitol of Argentina. This has meant obligatory choco sessions after every meal.

To top off the trip, we are indulging in a big steak/wine/chocolate feast tonight with some friend from the amaaazzzing hostel we{ve been staying at for 20 bucks a night! Go out with a bang before our bus trip back to Buenos Aires tomorrow...

If you ever travel in Argentina, take the bus. It´s like an airplane but with fully reclinable seats, better views, and half the price.

AND if you ever travel to Bariloche, Hostel 1004 is the place to stay. We walked into a ten story building, slightly confused (where is the hostel?). we were directed to the tenth floor, dimly lit, and unsure if we were in the right place, knocked on the door of ´penthouse 1004´. We entered and were AMAZED by the spectacular views the wraparound windows offered. Very comfortable and very chic.

Yeah, ´chic´.

Thats all we have for you now. Bariloche has treated us real nice and I (Alex) for one look forward to coming back someday. We will miss the quaint town and the beautiful mountains but another big adventure awaits: Buenos Aires!

Capim Grosso

I have said before that there is not much to do in Capim Grosso. Passing free time back home is easy - a movie, a hike, a run, trips on the weekends to Manitou or Garden of the Gods, restaurants, concerts... Capim Grosso has none of these things. Not a single one- not even a movie theater. At the house, we always joke, 'What do you want to do tonight? Let's do something new... we could go to a bar!' Because that is all that exists here. Bars and lanchonetes (snack stands). And the joke is always funny, but the reality it portrays has just recently become very heavy for me.

Sometimes, on weekends, people mix it up (ha. joke.) and go to their farm ten minutes away - family farms are generally slightly removed from the town, have two rooms without electricity, a big yard full of cacti, and sometimes if you are lucky a pool (a small concrete hole in the ground). They bring lots of beer, rum, and do what they would do at their house in town - drink.

At the farm this weekend, one of my Brazillian friends said to me, 'Alex, I know I'm smart. I am bright, I like to learn, I almost have my university degree... but it scares me that on the weekends all I want to do is drink and smoke. If i have enough money to pay for my house and food, why wouldn't I spend the rest on beer and cigarettes? Why can't I just spend my whole weekend at the farm?'

This is the serious problem with Capim Grosso. Because it is so small, because there is nothing productive to do, the vicious cycle of working a forty hour week (at the papeleria, the coffin shop, the city hall, any basic menial job, whatever) and spending the rest of your time drinking is EASY. Obviously, this creates an alcoholism problem. People here may not make much, but they sure as heck don't have to spend much on food or rent either - beer is next on the list.

Where is the opportunity here? My friend was absolutely right - why shouldnt he spend his extra money on beer, why shouldnt he spend the weekend drinking? What else has he got to do? Why should my other friend bother getting a university degree when it wont help him get a better job in Capim Grosso (where his mom wants him to stay) when he already has a fine, stable full time job, where he probably will remain for the rest of his life?

I was talking to another volunteer here - she asked me, if i was to stay for an extended amount of time, what kind of project I would implement here. I answered a fmaily planning program - the amount of teenage pregnancies here, the lack of contraceptives, and birth control is staggering and inhibits many girls from going to school and furthering their education at university. Her answer to me was, 'Yeah, but if they are finished with school, what else are they going to do in Capim Grosso? Why not just have a baby? It's something to pass their time...'

It sounds pessimistic, but there is a tragic truth to this. For now, I remain helpless and frustrated for my friends that live here.

End Honeymoon Stage

Of teaching English, that is.

After about a month and a half of teaching English, it turns out I dont actually enjoy it and Im probably not very good at it. I get positive feedback from my students, but the school system here is REALLY horrific (for example, one of my Level 3 students' public school English teacher is my student in a separate Level 1 class) so it sort of makes sense.

I have a class in particular who exhausts me to the very bone. At first excited by their 'enthusiasm' and 'energy', certain that this class would be my 'most fun' and 'most entertaining,' I now find myself reluctant to plan it and needing two advil and three beers afterward (this, is not a joke). Im frustrated because I dont see why I should put my time an energy into a class who cant sit through a low energy class because it is too low energy, but at the same time cant sit through a high energy class because they go BUCK WILD. I am also frsutrated because I am a volunteer here and I am in no way obligated to be here, to teach English to 20-somethings who act like 13 year olds and scream through an entire two hour class. I am feeling tired and run-down and stuck in a small town and frustrated by the Brazilian school system doing something I am not that passionate about.

Thank the sweet, sweet heavens I booked a plane ticket to Argentina for two weeks. This reduces my time teaching here, and in just two weeks I get a heavenly heavenly break.

So, when I leave here, the only thing I will ever teach again is yoga.

Capoeira Batizado

This past Sunday, Vilma and I were ´baptized´ in Capoeira (along with three other MUCH better jogadores). We received our first cordas (the beginning color - green). Batizado is interesting - you are put in the roda, and play with people until you are ready to pass out. The final person you play puts the corda around your waist and boom, baptized. My Capoeira name is ´Raio´, which means ´lightning´ or ´ray´.

"That Would NEVER Happen in the US"

A list we have lovingly compiled of things you would never, ever, ever see in the US.

You would never see.....
-A man, working at a restaurant, without a shirt... his hairy belly touching the food.
-A five year old girl serving beer
-A bartender serving beer with one hand and burping his six month old daughter with the other
-Dogs in a bar
-A student answering their cell phone in class
-A whole family on one motorcycle (half of them without helmets)
-Children who wander the streets from 10 pm - 4 am
-One traffic light in a 30,000 person city
-Normal civilians, who are not sick, riding in the back of an ambulance while the sick person is up front
-A cashier telling you it´s OK if you pay later
-someone bringing their own alcohol to a bar and making their own drinks with the bartender's supplies
-Chicken hearts for lunch
-Riding donkeys next to cars

Happy Two Months!

Highlights:

-Riding in my first ambulance (in the back, on the stretcher... Vilma, the sick one, was riding in the front)
-Learned how to ride a motorcycle
-Learned (and still learning) how to samba
-Been baptized in Capoeira
-Hitchhiked for the first time
-Learned how to be a teacher
-Attended the biggest street party in the world

The Two Faces of Food

I would like to elaborate a little more on my diet here. I fondly refer to it as my Two-Faced diet.

Face One: ´Sickeningly Healthy.´ This is how Charles describes our diet. Every day for lunch (this is not an exaggeration), we eat some form of beans, rice, and Soja, loaded with fresh veggies or fruits from feira. On the menu for breakfast is generally fresh bread and tomatoes (essentially, sandwiches. why do people eat sandwiches here for breakfast? this does not make sense to me). Dinner is whatever you can scrounge together from leftovers.

Face Two: Artery Clogging Fatty Fat. Everything here is either REALLY salty or REALLY sweet - other flavors are hard pressed to be found. My coffee preference has slowly shifted from black with some soy milk to half milk, half coffee, and a generous amount of 100% cane sugar. When eating out, staples are large servings of mayonnaise and ketchup, on everything. Beer works with every meal (because its so light it tastes like water). And there is always fried street food.

And there was that one time we ate chicken hearts for dinner...