Orientation Week 7.29.2013

The last blog only really hit on the very first bullet point, hopefully this post will go better.  Also mail me stuff!!! ( yea my mailbox is labeled Joel, so send stuff labeled Joel.

Joel Nafziger

555 Ayacucho

Buenos Aires, 1026

ARGENTINA

Back to the list from the last post:

-Meeting host "family" ✓ 

-Spanish placement tests 

-Fiesta 

-Getting around (SUBE, Colectivo, Guia"t") 

-Host Meet and Greet So spanish 

Placement tests consisted of a written exam we completed the week before arriving to orientation that asked us questions in spanish about our previous knowlege in Buenos Aires and Argentina as a whole, as well as questions that just forced us to use different tenses to test our ability to conjugate verbs. Then the Friday we took a very short written test consisting of fill in the black verb conjugation, specifically testing Subjunctive (When I mentioned something about the imperative tense my mom was exteremly supprised that I knew what that was, and I said "Yes, MOM, I know what the imperative form is"and so now I say, YES MOM, I KNOW SUBJUNCTIVE). Finally we all had a short interview as an oral exam. Supposedly tomorrow (tues. 30th) I get my test results to be placed in one of four groups, the lowest isn´t recomended to take any classes immersed with local argentine students, while the most advanced is required to take two classes in immersion minimum. Only today did I learn that classes can be anywhere from 4-8 hours a week, and I´ll be recieving 3-4 Credit hours, so lots´O´Lots of class hours should be fun.

 ---------Update from when I wrote that this afternoon-----------

I am in the third level of spanish out of four. Basically by the programs standards it says I have to do things that I already wanted to do which is take more classes in the local universities (with argentine students) and less with FLACSO which is the university that CIEE uses as its primary university for international students. I will find out slightly more about classes tomorrow and choose some to look into as a tentative schedule.

The next point I wanted to make was that some of my fellow students have started pissing me off with their english/spanglish. I swear when ever we are in a group of at least 6 people one of them has to shout a loud curse word in spanish poorly pronunciated in the middle of the english conversations they continue loudly. Sticking out like a sore thumb and looking like an arrogant group of tourists is not the way I would like to spend this semester, so I really look forward to meeting the people in my meeting tomorrow which consists of the top two levels of Spanish. the basic level meets first, then two separate groups of level two, followed by the last meeting consisting on the top to groups which I assume has the least amount of people even when the top two groups are combined together. So I look forward to walking with people who choose to speak spanish more often. *sigh* I'm getting tired of it. 

OK SOOO!!!! Back to my second night with in my new host, Luciano. So I first heard about the party in the cab on the way to the house the first night and was delighted to hear I would get the chance to meet some of Luciano's friends from his University years, with whom he has clearly maintained contact. 

--7pm. So back to saturday night, I got back to the house after walking around with ciee friends all day and Luciano was asleep. 

~~9pm. Luciano wakes up and tells me he just finished sleeping and that he was going to make a few phone calls and remind/invite more people. So I decided to go ahead and get my own nap, and wind up in bed by 9:30 to start sleeping. --1am. Forgetting to set my alarm, my other house-mate Susie wakes me up with a knock at my door because people started arriving. And then we partied.

~~3am. Luciano, preparing to blow out the candles while we all sing happy birthday. 

~~4:45am. People finally trickle out to only leave 5 or so people in the house. I stay up chatting.

~~7am. We split up and call it a night.

--10:00 am Wake up, drink a tall glass of water

--10:03 am Sleep.

--2 pm Wake up and start my day.

So the next topic is the Guia"T" which is my new best friend. The Guia"T" is a guide book to help get around on the public bus system.

You can look on the map, which is divided into quadrants, each corresponding to the left which has a list of numbers which signify the busses that pass through the area. So looking at the above image there are around 28 pages like that of the city. So you would find one quadrant on such an example and pair a matching bus number from where you are, to where you want to go. and Boom, your there as soon as you comprehend the route.

In the back of the book is a list of every bus and the route it takes to and from the destination which obviously changes slightly due to oneway streets. So you find the quadrant then look up what the actual street is that is running through the quadrant in the direction you want to go. 

Lets just say the I have already spent multiple hours looking through about 3 bus lines in my neighborhood to figure out where they can take me. Flipping back and forth between all of the pocket sized pages. This is a huge life saver, if you want to get around the city for ARS$1,70 (21cents USD). Takes some time, but its well worth it.

Well, meet and greet was on my todo list, but I'm going to make it short. I was able to meet two of the ciee students who live in my neighborhood and their hosts. So it's really nice to know who lives around me and who I can share cabs with when I need to get back to my house after a Porteño (pertaining to Bs As) night out.

First weekend of CIEE

Ok, SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED!!! Quick list of the biggest events, then I'll try and get through as much as possible.

-Arrival at the hotel for Orientation and the first day of meeting people.

-Meeting host "family"

-Spanish placement tests

-Fiesta

-Getting around (SUBE, Colectivo, Guia"t")

-Host Meet and Greet

I guess I'll start at the beginning. I got up around 9:30 thursday to leave and head out to the orientation at a hotel downtown. After the long wait for the bus, I waited a longtime on the bus, and finally I arrived. I was the second one to arrive from my room, and within an hour or two groups started arriving from the airport. Soon we had a group of about 10 guys and we started working on the massive amount of names we would soon learn in the coming days/weeks. The rest of that day was full of new names and faces all eager to be arriving in Buenos Aires and starting the program. That night all of the students -around 70 or 80 of us- went out to eat for the welcome dinner at a fancy restaurant. 

Returning  to the hotel many people went to bed, and some stayed up to socialize. With so many people floating  around between the hotel rooms, meeting new people and telling stories, the room I was staying in eventually held nearly 25 people in the living room area. We all fit, but we were still quite packed in. Eventually we divided up went, to bed, or went out to look for bars. The group I was with walked a decent distance and found an "American" bar called El Alamo. After the long walk there most of us decided to just walk back and call it a night, because most of us were quite tired already at that point, and not ready for the Argentine schedule for parties. A note about that here in Buenos Aires people eat dinner between 9 and 1am, many eating around 10 or 11, only after this dinner and socializing do the parties start. So typically parties don't start until after 12:30am and don't get really going until 1am. Some local bands and clubs don't even open their doors until 2 or 3 for a show starting at possibly even 4 in the morning. So on the first night, we called it quits by around 1:15, and headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we started our first day of orientation a few blocks from the hotel in the FLACSO building. The FLACSO building is the home base of the whole CIEE program and is basically a local institution that even offers some classes or programs for locals, that I do not yet understand fully. During the first day of topics we got general run down of everything from transportation, to living situations, to cultural things that stick out and need to be noted. The day was quite slow and full of careful explanations of all of the various topics, but I was never quite bored through the whole thing, though it wasn't exactly useful information to me, seeing as I learned much of the mentioned topics already from the similar culture I learned in Bolivia or my first week of public transportation before arriving.

After the talks ended around 5pm we all headed back to the hotel and pack up to head out and meet our host family. This initially surprised a lot of us because we got the impression from emails and the such that orientation would be a time living in the hotel, but on the contrary, we would be living with our host families the second night of the program. So with so many hosts to match to students, there were several times set for different groups to meet up, I headed down to the lobby 15 minutes early before my host was supposed to arrive to wait. Sitting and people watching from the adjacent room, some of the guys from my room that were waiting with me started guessing at personality types of the hosts, and chatting. Most of the hosts appeared to be from the upper class many of which live in a very nice party of the city. After a few minutes of people watching I spotted a host that had dreadlocks, I turn back to the group of guys and mention it, and they all turn to look at him. Only a few seconds later they call my name and tell me that sure enough, they placed me with the guy with dreads. 

Well, after a long day and some recovery from the fiesta last night (yes, it was a party that followed the traditional hours I mentioned before) I am tired and think I'll try to blog again tomorrow and hit the points I missed in the over view and try to skype my family. Yes, mom, that means you.

Peace,

-JD (Joel [Daniel {Dani } ] ) 

- here is a book that is currently sitting on my coffee table. 

CS host #2

Today is Tuesday July 23, I arrived at my new Couch Surfing Host yesterday afternoon, and we just hung out. It was my host Carolina Rojo who works as a Yoga instructer and massus; Laura, a Couch Surfer from South Africa who just arrived in Buenos Aires after living in Brazil CS´ing there for 6 months; and myself. We had dinner at the usual time in Buenos Aires, which is between 9:30 and 11, then we went to bed. This reminds me I should talk some about food/my diet. So far, I have been going to sleep around 11:30pm and waking up at 11:30am. I haven´t often eaten any type of break fast at that point but eat an odd type of lunch around 2 or 3 most days, then I wait it out untill the late 9pm or later dinner. The lunch typically has been a few pieces of bread from a local bakery, along with a water. Yup, prison diet, bread and water.

I don´t know exactly what I will do in the future, but the parts of the central city are very expensive it is eaither a small bakery that sells bread for ARS(Argentine Pesos, simply denoted with the same dollar sign)$3-5 per piece or a fancy resturant that every meal that costs between $70-90. The exchange rate fluxuates a lot between street money changers and banks so 1 USD is somewhere between 5.4-7 ARS. So that means a piece of bread between 50 cents- 1 dollar, or a fancy place at 12-16 dollars. So, I think I´ll figure more stuff out as I go, and see what resturants are around my host families home, or look into doing some serious cooking(if that fails its BREAD AND WATER FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE). 

Back to talking about my CS host, she is awesome! Oh, by the way both of my hosts are named Carolina, so I´m just avoiding using names haha, I hope you follow. My last host was very odd to me and I didn´t like her lifestyle which made it hard to connect. The first host was constantly buying new dresses online or looking at new merchandice while she was talking at the very same time about not having money for things because she is unemployed and needs brain surgery. Non of this made sense to me and she just continued spending. Anyway, My new host is much better and I really appriciate her life style. My new host lives in a much smaller neighborhood in her own house, rather than the apt. style life my first host had. The new host loves art, and has multiple projects going right now like any good artist, she is painting a mural

on the front of her house, creating a tile mosaic out of recycled shards of pottery. Also She has a zoo practically, she has 18 cats

, I saw 8 of them in her kitchen she said the rest live outside and around the neighborhood and has 4 or 5 dogs as well. but in the small house, there are animals around every corner. She lives a much simpler lifestyle and is an exteremly funny person, with very relatable stories. She even taught me one of the Overly cheesy pick up lines that everyone in Bs As knows. It goes like this(MOM SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH NOWWW!!!): 

"Che que hacemos? 

Quieres mate....... 

o cojemos?" It has both rythm and rhyme that make it roll off the tongue but it says,"Yo, what should we do? Do you want mate(the traditional drink that everyone drinks).... or should we just have sex?" We can just say that I also translated "have sex" modestly. But the whole thing rhymes, and I guess basically everyone around here knows the line, so people often tell the joke without finishing the line. they´ll just say, hey, what should we do? Want some mate? *WINK 

My host then proceeded to tell me and Laura, the other CS´er about a time that she pulled an all nighter studying with aplatonic  friend of hers then he asked her to go get the mate from his kitchen and bring some, but she called him to the kitchen and was like, "Che, que hacemos? No hay mate?" ("hey, what do we do? There is no mate.") So the guy took off running and ran to the store to get some before another word was said.

K mom read here...

Nope, I'm done. Bye. 

-JD

Couch Surfing (Events of first three days)

So I am now in my third day here in Buenos Aires, which seems odd because it still feels like I arrived this morning. Anyway, the first day I think I was basically just recuperating from my flight and seeing things so I stayed in with my couch surfing host. The second day I went on a long walk and saw a few touristy things and just walked, and walked, and walked. I left my place at 12:15 and got back at 8, only stopping more than 5 minutes once. Today I did the same thing, only in the opposite direction and I decided to turn around sooner, good thing that I did too because I was starting to pull the muscle in my left calf. They were both hurting the night before, but i didn´t really think anything of it. I started walking an immediately recognized that it would be slightly painful to walk on all day and so I stretched really well before leaving and started at a slow pace. 

(The salteñas were better than the ones i had from a bolivianwoman in goshen, but it wasnt quite the same)

I am now about 5 minutes away from my Couch Surfing (CS) host´s house at an internet cafe called a locutorio (Parlor). For the longest time I couldn´t figure out what they called internet cafe´s here in Bs As but, I did. At first I thought there were just way less of them around this far more developed city because Santa Cruz, Bolivia had way more locations and I just wasn´t seeing them here in Bs As. Anyway this blog is supposed to be dedicated to my CS experience thus far. 

 For those of you who are unfamiliar with Couch Surfing(CS), it is a website and/or an action. It is a website that connects travelers together. So when I travel, I stay in other CS´ers homes, then in turn when they travel, they have a place to stay. For the Mennonite following its like a secular Mennonite your way. I am staying with a 30 year-old woman named Carolina Saraví. She is easy going and sociable but, it has been slightly different couch surfing experience than I was expecting. For starters she was sick getting dizzy and even passed out once (I was napping at the time recovering from the long days walk). She initially wanted to take me out to a club, which sounds like what she does most often. All in all she gave me weird vibes because she was obviously well off, but still seemed tight about money, causing me to suspect she was either, just really spoiled or slightly crazy. She talked about not having enough money for a surgery she will need because she has a tumor, so she talks about the people she has been asking for money, but at the same time she is ALWAYS looking at new clothes to buy online, even stores from the US that would have to then be mailed and face import costs. She also insisted on paying for a lot of things and refused to split the costs of even the meals we bought together. So she needs money in a bad way, but spends money in a bad way. I am currently still looking and talking to other possible hosts, but most of my contacts already have full couches (they picked up other CS´ers to host). So while my host is very kind welcoming even pays for some of my food, we can´t go out together because she has been sick, and is not exactly the type of friend who I eventually want to find here in Bs As, to much of a party/club go-er for me(No mom, I´m not just saying that to make you feel better).

All We Have is Time

I currently sit idlly by as time ticks. This is unreal to me. Just waiting? Do I have nothing going on? Nothing to do? No one to see?

I am sitting in the O'Hare airport here in Chicago awaiting my first flight on my long journey to Argentina. I have not just sat down, and waiting on anything for two hours all summer, which feels like my whole life. Today is Thursday July 18, 2013 and everything is changing. The future is unknown and the past is a blur. The last few weeks that I have failed to maintain the blog have been jam packed with hanging out with people and non-stop life. There is no better way to describe it other than life. JPUSA has been my home this summer and with all of its oddities, weirdos, and loving people, the place really became a home. a place that was familiar, friendly, open and full of people I loved. Last night I had a "Hey, Goodbye" party where we had coffee cake, cookies, and potato salad (staple foods). Other than describing how at home I felt at JPUSA, the next best description of it could only be to have one of you visit for a few days. Meeting just a few of the extraordinarily friendly and welcoming devoted christians can be inspiring.

After being at JPUSA all summer I feel like I am starting a new section of the journey that this blog will follow. My travels to JPUSA, fall semester Buenos Aires, spring semester (Buenos Aires, Argentina or Quito, Ecuador), and then my final travels and backpacking the following summer. 

My anticipation pangs came into full force Tuesday night, and my conversations with friends dwindled into my background thoughts as I realized that I would soon be far away in a place I yet, not know and with new people in a few days. This stage of transition between places feels like a roller coaster. I have been chinking my way to the top day by day and today the ride leveled off at the top, only to sit idly at the top looking at the back of the guys head in front of me. I cannot yet see the plummeting dive that I know is just a few yards away, but I know its coming and it will be quite the drop when it does. The next 20 or so hours of travel will be roughly the same as I catch small glimpses of Argentina as I meet people on the plane and wait patiently to arrive. Who am I kidding I will be dying of agony waiting for the ride to end, I would ask you to pray for patients and saftey but I already know that this most likely wont be posted until I am in Buenos Aires (or find Wifi). Everything is about to change. It all feels intense.

Love and peace,

JD

Family Vacation

The last two weeks (June 17-30) I have been with my family. I Left JPUSA Monday morning for the extended family vacation where I got to see several aunts, uncles, grandparents, and even some second cousin's and their families. It was a nice and very relaxing time for me to see my parents (non of my siblings were actually there) and mentally begin to prepare to be saying good bye at the end of the month. 

The second week I was at home in Goshen doing yard work during the day when the weather was reasonable, fixing my mom's bike, and making more travel plans so my mom wouldn't be worried about my arrival in Argentina because at that point I had NO IDEA where I MIGHT stay for the first week. So I applied to several couches on Couchsurfing.org and found a place to stay after three days of searching. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of couch surfing I'll give a brief explanation. Couch surfing is a network of people open to hosting travelers to stay on their couches (or extra beds sometimes floors if the person REALLY needs a place to stay). So you connect with strangers and find a free nights stay. There are also security measures and a good sense of accountability between couch surfing members. Any way with details being finalized for my travels and things becoming ever more real I said my good byes to my friends who were still in the area, and then my parents as they dropped me off at the train.

As I said my good byes to my parents at the South Bend airport as I prepared to board the South Shore train that would take me to Chicago everything slowed down. The train whistle tooted, I turned around, took my first few steps towards good bye and leaving my family, before I even got a few steps to the side walk the train sets into motion... I thought to my self... welp... I guess thats that... I ran inside to verify that the next train would leave in nearly 5 hours from now and sulked back outside. Two taxi drivers saw me with my head held low and reminded me that cars are things. They were like "you know, we could just drive you to the next station." As I returned to the car where my parents were waiting for me we embarked towards the next station. Only to get on the toll road headed westward to Chicago before realizing the next stop is way before the next exit. So taking it in stride we just went on to the next one. As we got of the highway and headed for the train station, we almost miss the train because one of two motorcyclists that were parked unmoving on the side of the road decided to make a U-turn without looking behind him, luckily we were able to slam our brakes and no one was coming in the other lane so we swerved into the other lane. Slightly stunned the cyclist who also stop sat right next to our front right wheel as he almost then hit us, as we swerved around him and stopped. Petrified, we left him to consider the lesson he learned at such a young age: "look both ways before you cross the street." Making it to the train station with the train already there, I hopped out jogged over to the train and got on straight away. 

As I arrived in Chicago I boarded the Red Line to take me to Uptown and back to JPUSA. Besides the hoards of the (Gay) Pride Parade that were bustling about the subway my trip was un-eventful and I made it back to JPUSA safe and sound. As I enter the dining hall I received one of the warmest welcomes I have ever had. Wyatt Muncy one of my best friends here at JPUSA sees me and yells at the top of his lungs "J Deeeeeeee !!!!!! Your back!!!"

Today is tuesday my second full day of returning to the normal schedule at JPUSA. I am back on "Home Crew" which is the group that cleans everything. Together we do all the dishes, pots, pans, tables, floors of the dining hall, bathrooms, stairs, etc. from 7am-2pm. Then dinner clean up rotates. I have already returned to the task of memorizing new names, faces, and things about people. The newest change has been Juggling. I don't have any pictures yet, but will try to get some by this sunday when we will start a formal "circus juggling" night. I will be teaching juggling of clubs, possibly balls as well and a friend of mine will be teaching contact juggling. Each night I have been outside practicing my stuff after dinner until I get interrupted/bombarded by lines of kids, who all want a turn trying it out, or just practicing. most of them are still working on tossing a single club, but its fun to watch kids learn and I have found an easy style to teach even the worst jugglers to juggle. It is a pared game that makes things seem really simple but looks good when you watch it. Thinking back on just what I did today I really wish I had taken my ipod outside to take pictures or video of what we did. 

People here at JPUSA continue to be great, full of discussion, challenges, and love. While every one needs a little grace sometimes, its nice to be around people who care about each other even if not everyone gets along. No worries, everyone is happy with me, but this morning there was an intense group meeting that brought some heated discussion, but all is well, and things blow over much more quickly here than they do in many other settings I've been in. 

(the peanut butter MnM's I got for "xmas" from my parents were devoured within the first 3 hours of being back at JPUSA)

Peace to all who are reading this blog and thank you for your interest. I'd love to hear comments or questions from anyone who reads this, both my family or my friends.

-JD