Lluvia Lluvia Lluvia

                                            Zona de Patio Olmos, Córdoba Capital, Argentina


Chicos, I'm alive! I am no longer sick and I can taste food, no sour throat, no tiredness, no fever, I am cured! 


Where to start...at Hillel I have continued to work with Yanina on Alternative Spring Break. I am trying to put together an activity to go horseback riding through the mountains but it has been a bit of a challenge to get information. I write emails, make phone calls and nothing, "nadie me da bolas." I am going to continue to work on this, and I know that eventually I will get responses and they WILL go horseback riding! 
- Just when I thought I was done translating, on monday I was given a 37 page document to translate from Spanish to English. Translating is not my most favorite thing to do, but each time I translate, I think to myself, at least my language skills are improving...I hope. So far I have translated 10 pages. 
- Tuesday night was the Superclasico (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42mdk8XaoZM), the most important soccer game in Buenos Aires, and probably in Argentina because the 2 most popular teams from Buenos Aires that are rivals, the Boca Juniors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boca_Juniors) and River Plate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_Atlético_River_Plate) play against each other. Tickets are very expensive, costing over U$S100. We watched the game at Hillel and I was rooting for Boca, but unfortunately they lost (the score was 1-0, River).
- Wednesday night a professional architect came and spoke at Hillel about the career and his work. His resume was very impressive. He helped design and build MALBA (Museo America Latina Buenos Aires, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MALBA) and design a few buildings in Europe, the US and Abu Dhabi. He showed us his upcoming projects for the city of Córdoba and they are fascinating! Basically his plan is to maintain the historical buildings (Córdoba is a very old city, older than Buenos Aires) and build huge new constructions, as if Córdoba would become a mini Hong Kong, or at least that is how I perceived his plans. 
- The last activity at Hillel will be December 2nd and I think we will be renting out a nightclub, a "boliche" but I'm not sure. Tomorrow we have a meeting and hopefully I'll learn more about it. 


Todo bien in the social welfare center. Tomorrow is Volunteer Day so I will be arriving at around 8AM to help out with whatever they need. I think it will be a very interesting day filled with learning, eye opening events and meeting new people, all sounds good to me! A prominent guy from Buenos Aires (I forgot who, but somehow he is very well connected in the Argentine volunteering world) will be coming to give workshops and lectures about volunteering. In order to prepare for the event, I have been acting as Elsa's secretary, making phone calls to inform the people "la gente" about the event, to get them interested and to make lists of whose coming/not coming. I'm still working in the ropero with the señoras and drinking café with them. 


With Macabi I'm honestly still totally clueless as to what I can do, in terms of interacting with the teens and planning activities. I've already mentioned to you what goes on during the week and on saturdays and for now I see little room for opportunity and growth ( I still can't figure out when the teens have free time). Maybe this is all wrong, and I just need to get to know the community more, maybe I arrived at a bad time and have a skewed sense of what's going on (because it's almost summer and things are slowing down). What I do know is that I think that Macabi is just as confused as I am, and I think that we equally both have no idea what I could be doing. For now I come every saturday, observe activities and help out with whatever needs to be done: helping to clean up, helping with snack time, organizing supplies, putting together the community magazine...but this has nothing to do "nada que ver" with teens, which is what I came here to do. I hope that in the future maybe things will become more clear, for both Macabi and I. I'm not being pessimistic, I'm just saying how things are for now. 
- One thing that I am SO excited about is that I'm making thanksgiving dinner for the Roshim, the leaders of the teen department at Macabi that are about my age. It will be the first time I'll be seeing them outside of the work environment, so I'm excited to interact and get to know them on a social level. How did this all come about? I mentioned at the last meeting what Thanksgiving is, the story,and US customs and traditions related to the holiday. They seemed really interested so I invited them to my apartment for thursday night dinner. Heres whats on the menu: chicken that I will have delivered, NOT make myself (there is no turkey in Argentina), mashed potatoes, homemade applesauce (thanks mom for the recipe!), deviled eggs, grilled cheese (classic American food) and steamed corn with butter and parmesan cheese. For dessert I will make sugar cookies and I bought ice cream. I hate cooking and therefor don't know how, so I really hope the food turns out tasty. I'm really looking forward to the dinner, to get to know the roshim better and I'm also hoping that this will maybe cause a trickle down effect: by making a dinner for them, we will get to talking and I can learn/think of ideas for the teens and maybe one day make a dinner/an activity for them. We'll see how things go, I'll let you know in the next blog. 
- Nothing new has happened with International Convention. I know that the girls and their parents are excited, which makes me really excited. 
- Either this saturday night or December 4th is a dinner for the Madrijim, to honor them and the work they have done for the year. I obviously will be attending, because it will be a good opportunity to meet Madrijim, to learn more about what they are doing and maybe think of a few ideas. I'll tell you more about it in another blog, after I attend the dinner. 


Nothing terribly exciting in Argentina. Today is a holiday, I don't know why exactly but something related to the military government (not sure which one) or the Malvinas. This is a new holiday and I heard a rumor that for 2011 the government will add additional ones...
- As a result of the holiday, I thought I had a Macabi meeting but it turns out it got cancelled, and will be on wednesday instead. 
- Thursday night I went to karaoke, in a local bar 2 blocks away from my apartment. You would think that karaoke would be the same in any country but it was very different. There were NO English songs! I really enjoyed listening to the Latin music, especially cuarteto, musica Cordobesa (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOfCVGgIEqw). 
- A new ice cream parlor "heladería" opened across the street from Hillel. Needless to say, it is VERY dangerous and awfully tempting to go everyday. I went the day it opened and got a chocolate chip dolce de leche ice cream, to die for!!!! 
- It's been raining quite a bit here (that's why the title of this blog is Lluvia Lluvia Lluvia - Rain Rain rain). It rained thursday, sunday and today. This Southern California girl does not like to deal with rain;-)
- I recently found out that for the summer I will be working in Buenos Aires, because there will be nothing for me to do here (I think I mentioned in previous posts that I have been encouraged to go on vacation for 6-8 weeks and I am not ok with that). I will be working in the 13/17 program, "The 13/17 Program, which provides Jewish teenagers with a nurturing Jewish framework for sports and cultural activities during summer and winter school breaks" (from the JDC webpage). I am very excited about this, to be exposed to more JDC programs, to see how another teen community operates, learn new activities and incorporate them into Córdoba and lastly hopefully building bridges and making connections between Córdoba teens and programs with whats going on in BA, regarding both teens and programming. Also, I am excited to meet and work with the staff because I think they could be a good resource for me in the future. Basically I will be arriving in BA sometime around the 10th-15th of December and I will leave either leave the 1st or second week of February, depending on when Córdoba wants me back. 
- I think I mentioned in a previous post about the Jewish camp in Argentina (http://sites.google.com/site/hejalutz/) and how I wanted to go but was getting no responses. Well, today I got a response, which was very complicated to get. I had a meeting a few weeks back with the director of Macabi to see if there was anything I could do at the camp and I talked with the roshim as well. I wasn't getting any responses so I decided to take matters into my own hands and email the camp. I got no responses and I found out why (thank you Viviana for telling me!). Apparently, you can't just email them, you need to have a contact that knows them in order to get any form of communication from the camp (maybe this is for security reasons?). I had no idea about this, because in the US if you are interested in summer camp, all you do is email or call the camp and someone will help you. Apparently it doesn't work like that in Argentina. Anyways, I received an email from Damian, the director of Macabi and he told me that the camp, "majané", would like me to go, which is so awesome! I'll get to see what summer camp is like in Argentina, meet people from all over Argentina and have new experiences. Damian said he will let me know what I will specifically be doing there. 
- Today I had a meeting with Viviana who works at the JDC in Buenos Aires. We talked about how I am acclimating in la vida Cordobesa, what I'm doing at work, tips and advice of more things I could be doing and getting to know people, International Convention ect. The meeting was quite helpful and I will definitely be incorporating her ideas, tips and advice into my work and social life. I expressed my frustration and how it's been a bit difficult interacting with the teens and she thought of a great idea. Many families come to the social welfare center for resources, I could be a "big sister" or "godmother" to those teens. I got really excited about this, and I hope it will work out (I hope there are teens). I think I could really benefit and learn a lot from them and I'm sure the same could happen to them. Also, I would really feel like I would be making a difference, and maybe if this works out my "vision" for working with teens would become more clear? Que se yo!  I really want to work hard, do the best that I can and make a difference here in Córdoba, "Tengo muchas ganas de trabajar y conocer Córdoba y me voy a poner todas las pilas para lograr eso!" 


Bueno, it's 10:43PM and I still have more emails to write and I have to get up early tomorrow for Volunteer Day. Elsa will be picking me up around 7:30AM which means that I should be going to bed soon. Buenas noches and look for my next post in about a week, hopefully friday I'll write another one.